Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 17:15:58 -0700 From: "M.R.Murphy" <mrm@Mole.ORG> To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org, terryl@ienet.com Subject: Re: IDE or SCSI if only one drive Message-ID: <199608080015.RAA01478@meerkat.mole.org>
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> If I have a FreeBSD system that has only one drive, or two drives on two > separate IDE channels, and that's all I'm ever going to have, is there > any reason to go SCSI over IDE? > Originally, the answer would be "SCSI Bus Mastering DMA puts much less load on your system. IDE requires CPU intervention for data transfer. A 386/25 with SCSI behaves like a 486/33 with IDE." Lately, however, I've obtained quite acceptable performance from fast IDE drives with fast CPU's (486DX4/120 and up). It seems that the CPU gets the tranfer done quickly enough to not make the user responsiveness of the system too sluggish. Not too sluggish for me, that is. That wasn't the case with slower CPU's. IDE's cheaper, though perhaps not appreciably. YMMV, try both. This is normally when the "SCSI is much better" argument starts. It is. Don't shoot. -- Mike Murphy mrm@Mole.ORG +1 619 598 5874 Better is the enemy of Good
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