Fibre or Ultra160?

[Guest]

Aside from price - what are the performance differences between these two standards? As much as I have been able to gather from the Seagate website, the same drive with a Fibre connection is able to deliver about 40MB/Sec more (for a total of 200MB/Sec) than one with an Ultra160 (160MB/Sec). The application will be a "super geek home PC" and with maybe a small RAID (3 drives)

 

[Grizely1]

Fibre is way faster

 

[Guest]

fibre is really not that much faster per sae.. it does offer more bandwidth with a 64bit PCI slot. But really you have to understand what is FC and Raid really designed? FC you get much much longer cable lengths than LVD and can host 100's of Devices.. so we're talking lots and lot's of drives with lots of controllers all on the same chain. That starts to make 200MB/s look small when it gets used for what it's designed. A backplane is always required as the drives and the interface are meant to be hot swappable. RAID compliments this as it allows for stability and data integrety. It really wasn't designed for performance, people just have started to use RAID that way as hardware has gotten a little cheaper. And of course.. everyone is talking about it with the rise of IDE RAID. There's really not that big a difference in prices for controllers and drives considering LVD or FC. But if you're not going to use 4-5 or more drives in a RAID setup it's just a hassle.. not a benefit. Stick with an LVD RAID setup.

 

[Guest]

I agree. I think I will spend the money on a dual-channel Ultra160 controller (like the Adaptec SCSI RAID 3200S
) to give the RAID that little extra performance boost (striping across bus = SPEED)

LVD = Low Voltage Differential - right? Makes sense - How many pins on that connector - a 68 VHDCI? I have been working with SCSI devices for years and am still befuddled by the massive number of connectors out there!! lol

Besides, with the dual-channel, I could boast a 320MB/Sec throughput!!!! Wheee!!!

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by randalr on 12/29/00 12:25 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

yeap yeap.. it just got worse worse over the years.. LVD really throws a number on people just learning cause of the differential thing.. they'll read about no mixing of SE and DE and get all fuddled.. And termination.. woooah nelly.

LVD is actually still a 68 pin HD (high density) VHDCI is as it looks (very high density connector interface). Used on external LVD connections.. usually for running a separate HD LVD box or chaining machines.. (at least I haven't seen an LVD Scanner yet.. he he. Doesn't mean they don't exists.)

>>Besides, with the dual-channel, I could boast a 320MB/Sec throughput!!!! Wheee!!!<<

not really since the 64bit bus can't even handle that much.. but I do think it would run a RAID 0 stripe on 2 drives nicely. I mean what.. isn't it like designed for a max of 30 drive RAID set ups.. yeah I think the onboard processor could handle the I/O nicely for 2 drives.. ooh don't forget they are like what around $1000 probably a little less.. wooohooo!

 

[Guest]

Time to throw out all the OTHER SCSI cables, terminators and cruft I have gathered over the years! Just to make sure the new card gets the right hardware! LOL... Now - hmmm - where did I put that checkbook?

(I can't be out of money - I still have checks!)

 

[Guest]

fibre is really good.

now could you send some of that money my way?

<hehe, couldn't resist>