[rescue] Sun Blade 100 Question - IDE

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

On Fri, May 10, 2002 at 06:13:06PM -0400, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> > Most systems have at least 2 IDE channels.  Put one drive on each channel.
> > 
> 
> Thpplt!  Even 1 SCSI bus can handle 6 drives.  So to keep from getting a
> performance hit, you have to limit yourself to 2 drives.  I know I sound
> like a jerk, but I really think that's crap.

Remember that IDE got its start from about 1989 and was designed to be
low cost.  Desktop drives of that era were stuffing maybe 200KB/second
through the channel.

Also, unlike SCSI, IDE does not have a bus protocol.  The upside is
that there is little to no command overhead, unlike SCSI where you
never really get 40MB/s from a 40MB/s interface.

It is strictly a parallel (-like) interface.  You can have 2 printers
on your printer port and switch between them with a little printer
switch, but it is better to have one parallel port per printer (ok,
maybe you could go with a print server, but work with me here).

Think of an IDE channel as 1 dedicated "SCSI bus" per IDE drive.

And for the price of a decent SCSI card you can get the Escalade
stuff.  And still save cash on the drives - I recommend Maxtor 7200rpm
drives.

Cordially

Patrick Giagnocavo
patrick at zill.net