EIDE or SCSI: Which one should you choose?<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Just two months ago I assembled a 120 MHz
\nPentium system for a client. We put in 16 MB of RAM made by
\nKingston, a fast Winfast SuperVGA card from Leadtek, and a 540 MB
\nIDE hard disk from Quantum. The motherboard we chose was the one
\nmade by Intel, called Advanzed\/ZP. We loaded Win-95. The
\nexpensive system turned out to be a clunker!<\/p>\n
After some retrospection, we realized that the culprit was the
\nold-fashioned IDE hard disk. While a hard disk of this type was
\nadequately fast for a 486-based machine, it sure creates a
\nbottleneck to data flow in a fast Pentium machine. The matter was
\naggravated because we used Win-95 as its operating system. Win-95
\npages to the swap file on the hard disk more often than Windows
\n3.x because it is more memory-hungry.<\/p>\n
So, no matter how screaming fast the CPU is, as long as the
\ndata comes from a slower hard disk the machine will run just
\nslightly faster -- if at all any faster -- than a 486DX-100
\nmachine.<\/p>\n
IDE vs EIDE<\/p>\n
But, which hard disk subsystem should we choose? At the
\nmoment, in addition to IDE, we have Enhanced IDE and SCSI. Each
\nof these has different flavors, too. We have fast SCSI, wide
\nSCSI, fast and wide SCSI. The coming generation is Ultra SCSI.
\nSo, let's explore them briefly so that we can have some idea of
\nwhat to look for when buying a high-end Pentium PC.<\/p>\n
The history of IDE goes back to the 1987 era, when this hard
\ndisk interface standard replaced the slow ST-506 standard used in
\nearlier generations of PCs. As you can easily guess, the only
\nsignificant competitor for the IDE standard was, and still is,
\nthe SCSI standard. But, at that time, the SCSI hard disks cost
\nmuch more than the IDE ones of the same size.<\/p>\n
As hard disk capacity grew, so did users' appetites for faster
\nperformance. The original IDE standard had to be modified to
\nenable it to control bigger and faster hard disks. An original
\nIDE drive could offer only up to 528 MB storage space. To break
\nthis 528 MB barrier, we now have Enhanced IDE, or EIDE standard,
\nwhich was the brainchild of the people at Western Digital.<\/p>\n
What are the benefits of EIDE? Well, for starters, most new
\nmotherboards now come with an on-board EIDE interface. There's no
\nmore need to buy a separate EIDE controller card. Most of these
\nbuilt-in EIDE interface can handle four EIDE devises, so that you
\ncan have three hard disk and one CD-ROM driver (such as Sony CDU-
\n55E) without having to buy an additional interface card. It saves
\none slot on the motherboard.<\/p>\n
Other benefits include faster performances than the old IDE
\nand bigger hard disk capacity than IDE (an EIDE hard disk
\ncapacity can be over 8 GB large).<\/p>\n
SCSI<\/p>\n
Still, few motherboards come with a SCSI adapter built-in.
\nTherefore, you will need to spend some money and buy a SCSI
\nadapter card if you opt for the SCSI subsystem. On my own PCs, I
\nuse AdvanSys AdvanSCSI cards; they are lightning fast but they
\nfare rather poorly in compatibility. For future expandability,
\nyou'd better use Adaptec 2940, which is the favorite among
\nserious computer users nowadays. An Adaptec 2940 card is widely
\navailable here in Jakarta for less than Rp 600,000 (PCI).<\/p>\n
You may ask whether we need an IDE hard disk if we have a SCSI
\none? The answer is no. We can use a SCSI drive as the primary, or
\nboot, drive, as long as we assign the device number 0 to it and
\nthe machine does not have any IDE drive on it. We can even use a
\nremovable storage drive, such as SyQuest, as the boot drive as
\nlong as it has been assigned SCSI device number 0.<\/p>\n
Now, what are the benefits of SCSI? Well, if you have a SCSI
\nadapter card on your system, you can daisy-chain up to seven SCSI
\ndevices to your system. These may include a SCSI CD-ROM drive, a
\nSCSI tape backup, a high-capacity SCSI hard disk, and a scanner.
\nYou can even attach a ZIP drive or a SyQuest external drive very
\neasily to your system if you already have a SCSI host adapter
\n(EIDE cannot handle external devices).<\/p>\n
Final world<\/p>\n
If you multitask a lot -- for instance, you send out faxes
\nwhile working on CorelDRAW! 6.0 -- you'd be better off using a
\nSCSI hard disk than an EIDE one since Win 95 will be able to
\nmultitask more smoothly. From the ground up, SCSI devices are
\ndesigned to handle multiple data requests simultaneously.<\/p>\n
By the way, in case you are really into CD-ROM and you would
\nlike to burn your own platter, you will need two SCSI adapters
\n(it is possible to add more than one SCSI adapters to your
\nsystem). One of the two will control the hard disk where a copy
\nof the contents of the CD-ROM will be created, and the other will
\ncontrol the CD-ROM writer. If you control both devices with one
\nSCSI adapter, you'll be wasting your blank CD-ROMs because
\nconflicts will occur.<\/p>\n
The array of nomenclatures of the EIDE and SCSI standards are
\nreally daunting. However, we might as well just ignore them.
\nUltra SCSI will become the mainstream in the near future, and
\nfurther down the alley we even see the so-called fiber-channel
\nSCSI coming. However, Fast SCSI 2 is more than sufficient for
\nmost current desktop PCs. In general, based on the reports I've
\nread, there's no significant performance advantage from either
\nEIDE or SCSI. Either one will be fine for most applications of
\nWindows 95.<\/p>\n
But SCSI does have brighter promises for the future. So,
\nwhether you choose to stick to Enhanced IDE or not, it seems that
\nany new system you buy will eventually require a SCSI adapter. In
\nfact, I use one on each of my two PCs in my home office.<\/p>\n
If you want to keep cost down by delaying the purchase of a
\nSCSI adapter plus a SCSI hard disk, then you should make sure
\nthat you buy an EIDE, not just an IDE, a hard disk like the one
\nwe put in our so-so Pentium 120 MHz.<\/p>\n
An EIDE hard disk will probably cost you just slightly less
\nthan a SCSI one for the same storage capacity. That means that
\nthe most significant difference between EIDE and SCSI hard disk
\nsubsystem is the cost of the SCSI adapter.<\/p>\n
Finally, keep in mind, too, that not all SCSI hard disks are
\nthe same. In general, the faster the hard disk mechanical spin,
\nthe better the performance. One good choice for SCSI drive today
\nis the new Quantum Fireball, which spins at 5400 revolutions per
\nminute (rpm).<\/p>",
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