SCSI??? A little advice?

Madwelsh

Madwelsh

Madwelsh

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Hi there, looking at being a little silly with a chunk of cash I've just been given.. I've only ever had ide, and now sata drives, I have 2 raptors in raid 0 at the minute.. However, I've always fancied the idea of toying with SCSI.. are they really that much better? as in to justify how much they cost? If I went this route, it'd probably be with a 70 gig drive, just for gaming really!!! I'm trying to put together a stupidly powerful computer, a vapochilled conroe 6700, 2 gig of gskill hz, x1900xtx (i only have a 19" monitor so more than adequate) but I have the money to have a scsi system too.

Am I right in thinking I need a controller card and drive yeah? I was looking at this card

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/SCSI_Cards.html

Adaptec 39320 Ultra-320 64-bit SCSI - OEM (CC-021-AD)


and this drive?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/SCSI_Drives.html

Fujitsu 73.5GB MAX3073NC 15,000RPM SCSI 8MB Cache (U320-SC2 80 Pin) - OEM (HD-011-FS)

How do you go about installing windows etc? Or is it best to install windows on a sata drive, then just use the scsi for games?

As you can see, I'm a complete noob, so I'm hoping someone here can explain a little, maybe mentioning the bonuses and the pitfalls..

Cheers in advance

Edit: I just have been reading some of the threads on here about scsi (hail 'search'!) Seems that until pci-e adaptors come out, and become reasonable in price, seems a tad silly to be using pci-x in a normal pci slot.. Cavemanoc seems to have got a pci-e adaptor.. any chance you can tell us who makes it and where you got it? Also does it work on all boards with pci-e? or just ones able to give x8 and x8?

TY again.
 
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Well Madwelsh, you are going down and expensive route to gain a few extra milli seconds.
The card you have listed is PCI-X 133Mhz. Make sure you mobo can fit this type without interfearance.

Also this link is for the OEM, therefore, NO drivers, NO booklet. (EDIT cable is included with this part). You will need to check if this card is the 68pin type, if so you have chosen the wrong drive. 80pin has power, 68pin requires a 4 pin molex.

SCSI cable with terminator £30ish. ignore...

Also, as you are already running raid 0 with Windows on, this can often currupt when adding additional drives, so a full install may be required when SCSI drive attached.

However, all that aside, SCSI 15K drives are the D's B's. I have Maxtor and they are fast and faultless.

I believe the only product faster at mo than 15K SCSI is i-Ram.
 
Get yourself one of these click

As far as the drive being 80pin. You can pick up a 80 -> 68 pin convertor for next to nothing. For the drive get a few ALTAS II 15k. I have a number of these drives and they are very quick in a single setup. Or stupidly fast in a raid setup. You get the usual 5yr maxtor warranty and I have yet to use it with any scsi drive. Used it with some sata drives, but i got a replacement within 7days no questions asked :)
 
lmao2k said:
Get yourself one of these click

the reason that card is so cheap is because it dont come with the
special ddr memory stick with addon battary pack. critical for a raid 5 &10 setups)

people are taking these battery packs of and replacing with normal ddr 2700 ram then selling the battery for more than the scsi card is worth.


memory costs £192
battery pack cost £60

those 2 components act as a UPS
and allow write back function for to speed up drives for large raid setups

i have the same card and it cost me over £220
Click to expand...
 
james32 said:
lmao2k said:
Get yourself one of these click

the reason that card is so cheap is because it dont come with the
special ddr memory stick with addon battary pack. critical for a raid 5 &10 setups)

people are taking these battery packs of and replacing with normal ddr 2700 ram then selling the battery for more than the scsi card is worth.


memory costs £192
battery pack cost £60

those 2 components act as a UPS
and allow write back function for to speed up drives for large raid setups

i have the same card and it cost me over £220
Click to expand...


Yep I know. However I paid nowhere near 220 for my card with battery backup and the correct memory module :D
Click to expand...
 
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SCSI will probably only run about as fast as SATA because you will most likely have to put the SCSI card in a 32 Bit PCI slot.

In a 64 Bit slot I get around 150 - 160 MB/s burst speed and 75 MB/s is the the average read and thats with Ultra 320 15K drives so it's not really that great. To get the full speed you need a PCI-X slot but they are only usually available on server motherboards.

On my next build I will be going for SATA as it's a lot cheaper to replace.

Dan
 
Just do it!

Plenty of old threads on this kicking about (started many myself!) - you can now get the Dell version of the MSI Pci-e scsi (8x :D ) interface for about £100 off fleabay. That combined with a few 15k scsi's will knock socks off anything else out there. Personally I'd go for one Array of small drives for Windows and A larger array for your games drive (that's what I'm doing - 2*18Gb cheetahs + 2*75Gb's = much bling)

As far as speed is concerned - lets just say I'm always first onto new BF2 maps and I love stealing the jets ;) (And there are no loading screens in Oblivion!)

Add that to the fact that installation under xp64 is painless and I think it's a winner - not cheap, but then the rig you're talking about isn't about leaning the budget!
 
cavemanoc said:
Just do it!

Plenty of old threads on this kicking about (started many myself!) - you can now get the Dell version of the MSI Pci-e scsi (8x :D ) interface for about £100 off fleabay. That combined with a few 15k scsi's will knock socks off anything else out there. Personally I'd go for one Array of small drives for Windows and A larger array for your games drive (that's what I'm doing - 2*18Gb cheetahs + 2*75Gb's = much bling)

As far as speed is concerned - lets just say I'm always first onto new BF2 maps and I love stealing the jets ;) (And there are no loading screens in Oblivion!)

Add that to the fact that installation under xp64 is painless and I think it's a winner - not cheap, but then the rig you're talking about isn't about leaning the budget!
Click to expand...

can you give me the part number for the one you got cave? Does it have this battery pack and mem module too? Cheers bud :P
 
ok.. here's what I'm going for:

Dell Perc4e/DC LSI MegaRaid 320-2e 256M TD977 PCI-e

is this any good?

what else do I need? I'm looking for about 30-40 gigs for windows and games, then a normal sata of 200-300 gig for files etc. I personally tend to only have two or maybe 3 games installed at any one time.

Are atlas maxtor drives the db's? Or will a couple of cheetahs do the job?

TY folks
 
Oops- been away for a bit - yep - that's the one - not got it installed yet, but hoping for some good results - heard some disturbing stories about compatibility but I'll let you know.

I didn't get the 2*78Gigs I was going for which was a blow, but you can get the old Cheetahs (18Gig and 36Gig relatively cheaply) Personally I'll be aiming for 2*18Gig Raid 0 for windows and 2*36Gig raid 0 for games with further drives added to the games array as I need the space. Then if I can find it I'll aim for 2*78gig raid 0 for video editing. Should work beautifully.

I haven't got the Ram or the Battery backup - IIRC that's only needed for more complex arrays - but I'll have another look at the details!
 
So, this dell card works fine in 'normal' PCI Express slots on nF4 motherboards? They are 100MHz slots aren't they?

I've been so tempted to go SCSI for a long time...I want to hear drive access sounds again! Suppose I could attach a megaphone to my WDigi, but it's not the same!
 
ok so I bought the megaraid controller, even with P+P was just under a 100. Just pray it comes from usa ok. Now waiting for that to arrive before buying any drives!!! On the subject of drives, ultra320 15k are ok? Do you have to have them the same size/make for raid0? Also if the drive is in a hot swop 'caddy', can you just take it out of the caddie so it'll fit normal 3.5" slot?

Also, what is best number of drives for peak performance? Say i could buy 2 drives = 150gig, or 4 drives = 150 gig, what should I go with? Also what modes can I setup etc? Sorry for being a complete noob, but I've had a little look on google but for setting up scsi systems, you seem to get loads of pages on the history of scsi, but sod all on the actual setting them up!!! If anyone knows some good sites where i can do a little research, I'd be most appreciative.

TY in advance
 
oh, and btw, when can you pm members on this forum? Is it after 200 posts? Same as the members market? I hate spam, but I'm thinking that if you have belonged to the forum over 12 months, you should be able to use all the forum functions no? I'd like to get in touch with cave, so if you read this mate, I've a feeling I'll be needing your experience and skills :D
 
Ok.... Spent the day learning the painful way!

The official Dell help files can be found Here - but I didn't find them much use with my problem. The LSI site is much more helpful, but I'll have to dig about for the link.

Turns out I was wrong about the RAM/Battery!

You need to have a stick of ram installed - the card supports up to 128Mb of pc2700 (ddr333) ECC memory. I don't know if it has to be ecc, I'll try a stick of normal stuff and let you know.

As far as I can tell it will work without the battery backup, but what happens if the power fails I don't know!

I'll keep you updated - let me know how you get on!
 
Madwelsh said:
Also, what is best number of drives for peak performance? Say i could buy 2 drives = 150gig, or 4 drives = 150 gig, what should I go with? Also what modes can I setup etc?
Click to expand...

My SCSI setup states upto 15 drives off one socket I take this as any combination of raid upto 15.

Which is 15 x 36Gb Maxtor Atlas 15k = 540Gb and/or

15 x 300Gb Maxtor Atlas 10k = 4500Gb (4.5Tb)

I have managed to fit 2 x 9Gb IBM 1 x 18 Gb HP and 3 x 36Gb Maxtor drives with no probs.
 
The number of drives you can place on a channel is covered on the Dell site (and 15 rings a bell - but there are limitations on the combinations you can have)

The real problem is bandwidth - Still learning on that one - theoretically you get much better bandwidth with the Pci-e card which should mean it can cope with more drives without saturating the bus. I'll let you know if I ever get mine up and running :rolleyes:

I find the biggest problem is space - these drives run pretty hot and I like to leave a gap between each drive which means that even in my Full Tower I'm rapidly running out of space with 3 scsi's 1*Sata and 2 DVD drives. Seriously tempted to build and enclosure and use the external cables, but we'll see - first I need to migrate from my Pci-x to the shiny new Pci-e.

Sounds like this is going to be a learning curve for both of us so feel free to fire away with your queries - I get the feeling I'm on;y about 1/2 a problem ahead of you anyway!
 
cavemanoc said:
The number of drives you can place on a channel is covered on the Dell site (and 15 rings a bell - but there are limitations on the combinations you can have)

The real problem is bandwidth - Still learning on that one - theoretically you get much better bandwidth with the Pci-e card which should mean it can cope with more drives without saturating the bus. I'll let you know if I ever get mine up and running :rolleyes:

I find the biggest problem is space - these drives run pretty hot and I like to leave a gap between each drive which means that even in my Full Tower I'm rapidly running out of space with 3 scsi's 1*Sata and 2 DVD drives. Seriously tempted to build and enclosure and use the external cables, but we'll see - first I need to migrate from my Pci-x to the shiny new Pci-e.

Sounds like this is going to be a learning curve for both of us so feel free to fire away with your queries - I get the feeling I'm on;y about 1/2 a problem ahead of you anyway!
Click to expand...

first question is did you get yours from the popular auction site? Secondly was it from lickwid8er? If you did, I guess mine will be the same lol.. I'm thinking that these actually will deal with 512 meg, let me know how you get on searching for the ram.. in fact if anyone knows where the ram and battery can be bought.. let us know..

I took a quick look at the dell support link lmao.. even after a few beers, (or maybe because?) it looked like gobbledy-gook.. should be fun trying to get this to work eh? I'm just off to pray you figure it out before mine arrives.. G luck :P
 
It was from a popular auction site, but mine was from a different vendor so maybe you'll be lucky and get the Ram! I had heard rumours that people were buying these and pulling off the RAM and battery and selling it all seperately to make more cash - guesss it's true :rolleyes:

I tried with a stick of 512 and it wasn't even close! Having read the info again I'm pretty sure it's going to have to be ECC ram and no more than 128Mb - and there's the problem, very hard to come buy - I've put out a couple of pleas around the forums to see if anyone has any lying around and I'll let you know if I find any.

Having used LSI products before I wouldn't worry about the unneccessarily complex instructions on the Dell 'support' site - though I wish the links to their user forum worked as that would have been useful! The front end menus are usually pretty good and if you're just after a couple of simple Raid 0 Arrays they're v. easy to set up.

The batteries are available to buy on their own, but aren't necessary to run the product. Having said that I'd be steamed if I lost the array every time the power went down so I'll let you know if I find any at reasonable prices :D

On an aside - little challenge for you and any others with these - Post your best comedy quote for the RAM (Mine's just under £400 so far, but can't find the link again!)

EDIT: I've found some RAM that might fit the bill for about £19.99 - I'll let you know. I've also fired off an email to LSI asking exactly what RAM will suffice and whether we need the Battery (iTBBU :eek: ) - will keep you informed!
 
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ram list from lsi is

72 bit
pc2700
184 pin
DDR
ECC
Unbuffered
Unregistered
2.5v
2.5 clock cycles or better

recommend 128 & 256MB Max

also in the future the special ddr will be needed for flashing future firmware versions and bios updates from dell, if you dont have the memory you wont be alble to flash.
 
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Cheers dude - you sure about the 256Mb bit the Product Guide Definitely says 128Mb - but that might just be what it comes with as standard - I have seen some for sale with 256Mb modules?

Learn something new everyday - didn't realise you could get unbuffered/unregistered ECC RAM - seems a little pointless :rolleyes: Oh well - will get searching!

Also the iTBBU only supports up the 128Mb :confused:
 
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