SCSI or EIDE for web and file server...

Right now ive got a 20gig IDE running in an IBM netfinity server. I rarely get/allow more than 10 people on it at a time and dl speeds seem fine. However, Im out of space on it and I need to pop in another drive. Should I go with an older/smaller SCSI drive (too expensive for a big new one) or a BIG NEW IDE. Ive got about 40 gigs and growing of software that I wanna throw on it.

How comparable is an old SCSI drive to a new IDE drive. Im looking to spend under $100 for the drive. So that puts me in an 80-100 gig IDE or a 36gig SCSI.

For those of you running file servers, are you using IDE or SCSI? Is the speed worth it?

PoBoy

Hi,

IDE put's more strain on the cpu.. (35-40%)
SCSI uses something like 5% of the cpu, which give you more processor time to process and deliver the files to the clients..

Greetz..

Well for 10 people an IDE would be fine, just go for a high RPM. I used to have that many on a FTP I used to run.

If I were going it, I'd get a High-Pointe Raid 404 Controller. It will control 8 IDE devices and takes the load off the South Bridge.

I'm currently running dual 20Gig Seagate Baracudas on my 2K box. Thier expensive but I got them on a trade with a guy at work. I'd go with IDE for your application. Cheaper, and efficent enough for what your doing.

My server that runs aaroncake.net is running on an old 2Gig IDE drive. Speed seems fine. :)

However, soon I will be installing 3 x 4Gig Seagate Baraccuda's I got off of eBay on an Adaptec 2940 UW card. I'm simply out of hard drive space, and have no room on the IDE chain (there's also a CDROM and another "scratch space" HD). I plan to turn the SCSI drives into one volume under NTFS.

For such a small scale server, it (from my point of view) would be better to get a 80gb 7200rpm ide drive rather than a 36gb scsi. And do you have a scsi card that would make use of an u160 drive?

IDE Will be fine. I once set up a cd server for our school network. It was running lots (4) of 40gig 7200rpm drives (it got hot!), serving up multimedia content over our school's 100mbit network. I never managed to make it lag, even with 30+ concurrent connections all playing video. Sure, it would stress out a bit during backup (it was the sole largest storage medium they had, to they used it to make backups as well, then burn them on to dvd), but for a small scale webserver, IDE will be fine. What kind of cpu load do you see at the moment? I've never managed to stress out our webserver at school (nt4 based running iis 4, msproxy e.t.c.), and that was only a p2 266 (slugish for anything else!).

Just my input, but I'd suggest you go for the space on an ide drive, just make sure its 7200rpm, and properly cooled if it is going to be used for solid access for any lengthy time (depends how hot your server is really!).

Cheers

Andrew

Ive decided to go IDE especially after finding out that I can only support 2 18gig SCSI drives with the current setup. Anyways, Ive been hearing about Western Digital's 8mb buffer...anyone have one. Make that much of a difference against a 2mb buffer? For my appication, i just dont see 6mb making all that much of a difference...

PoBoy

I have the WD 80gig 8mb cache HD. Got it for 127.50 at googlegear.com. It just sits as a secondary drive for right now, so haven't really seen much from it. Tom's Hardware has an article from November on the 100 and 120gig versions though.

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/...120/index.html

I'm more interested in Seagate and Maxtors "Fluid Baring" design.