SCSI Advice/Knowledge Needed

[SaulTurnedPaul]

Hi guys,

I'm hoping someone in the forums here will be able to help me. I recently inherited two free Seagate Cheetah 10k RPM 36GB Ultra320 SCSI drives from a server upgrade at work. I was quite excited about them mainly because they're free, and my plan was to stripe them in RAID and dump my OS's and core programs on them for blazing fast goodness. The only question I have is what I need to get them going. I know I'm going to need a PCI SCSI card, but what kind? What else do I need to know? I'm going to put it in my current box, which can be found in my sig. Any help would be much appreciated. :)

Hope everyone is doing well here,
Sean

[Shinma]

The most common brands would be Adaptec and Tekram...
I hope you are aware of costs...

[Leoslocks]

Not that I have any SCSI experience besides having to use SCSI to connect my scanner but here is a link to a Tecram card.

Tekram DC-390U4W Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI Host Bus Adapter (http://www.scsi4me.com/tekram-dc-390u4w-card.html)

"133MHz, 64bit PCI-X interface"

What kind of PCI slots do you have available?

[SaulTurnedPaul]

Hey guys thanks for the replies. Well, I have looked at the cost and it does seem a bit expensive, but I have a few questions: What powers the drives? They don't have any power plugs, so I assume they get power from their cables? And how much are the cables if the cards are already expensive?

Leoslocks, I have 3 32bit PCI standard slots and one PCI-Express x4 slot. I don't have PCI-X like the advertised Tekram card requires.

Shinma: yeah, the cost is a bit scary. I don't know if it would be worth it for the performance increase. Any estimate on how much it'll make my computer faster, switching from a standard SATA1 7200RPM drive to a SCSI 320 RAID 10k RPM drive? It seems like it would be big difference, but I can only speculate.

[Shinma]

The SCSI HDDs typically have a location for molex (for power) connectors.

State complete model of the Seagate HDDs in question.

[Leoslocks]

From Directron's (http://www.directron.com/howtochoosha.html) Hard Drive Help section;

# Ultra DMA EIDE is a fast technology, with an average access time of 9-12ms. (Ultra DMA is another name for ATA such as ATA66/100/133 on PATA) In comparison, SCSI II (often also referred as Ultra or narrow SCSI) hard drives typically have an average access time of 8ms-9.5ms. .....

Then, if you are REALLY serious about getting fast access to your data, such as large databases and image files, consider using one of the latest hard drive technologies, Ultra-2-wide SCSI III with an access time of 5.2-5.7ms! Wow! That's FAST! But you'll pay for the speed. You also need to use a more expensive Ultra-2-Wide SCSI controller. Speed of the hard drive may also become a problem if the hard drive is located in the box next to you. These drives spin at very high speeds and are not shy in generating noise.