i was just wondering for a dedicated server, is there much real world performance difference whether opting for scsi over ide?

Well, IDE's vary in speed a bit, but assuming you are talking about the faster ones, these days I don't think you'd be able to tell much (from a site visitor perspective). The more load on the server and accesses to the HD, well, the more you might start to notice, but overall I can't see how there is *much* difference.

Chicken, I think you are right, but if you can afford I would go SCSI due to
- lower CPU load
- usually faster drives and bigger caches
- expandibility

Of course, if your server is just sitting around and waiting this will make no difference, but under load....

Aloha
well I wonder I am against using IDE in a server
reasons
ide can only handle one request at a time
a lot of hits you will notice this
seek time is not even close to a scsi nor is access time under load

also the biggest reason is MTBF is super low on ide
scsi very high

man scsi stuff is not that much more when putting together a box I think go for it

later

Originally posted by Walter
Chicken, I think you are right, but if you can afford I would go SCSI...

I probably would too, but it isn't needed per se. Some people act as if an IDE HD won't work. Well, news flash, it does, and fairly well.

It's kinda sorta like when you are in the computer store, looking to buy that new system. Do you buy the PIII 800 which would do ya' fine, or go you go for the 1.2 Ghtz? Why the hell not? You might get hit by a bus tomorrow :D

I have one server with ide and one with scsi. Webpage loading times you cannot tell the difference(when each server is serving 2Mbit/s of static html) that is not much bandwidth and I wouldnt push ide past 5Mbit(granted if your just serving some ftp you could go alot higher). Reasons? Ide seek times are crap and you will start to notice pages loading slowly....ohh and run a weblog analizer =) that ide takes a **** if your processing that log and serving a nice amount of webpages. It all comes down to what your server is doing.

Just my 15cents

I just downgraded my computer from a Seagate Cheetah disk to a IBM Deskstar DMA-100 disk. Offcourse, you can not compare an IDE disk with a Cheetah, but I am very happy with the IDE so far. When moving all my files from SCSI to IDE, I got about 8MB/sec which is pretty good for an IDE.

thankyou all...

I am still a bit doubtful as to whether the end user will notice much difference. The cpu load reason sounds reasonable though, especially if it was a very high load server.

If you have database access and have lots of traffic you need scsi. But if you have a low traffic site then don't bother.

I myself have one of those ultra 160 scsi drives and they move like lightening compared to ide drives.

Aloha,
yeah IDE have coem a long way
I guess if there is some budget concerns you might be better off wiht a new ata100 IBM and run it in raid 1 so if you loose a drive you will still have your data
that would be one option

I still like scsi cause of the access and the way it access the drive
if you have a static site that is low hit you will be oK with a ide though I agree with that .
later

i'm thinking now one of the main advantages scsi offers is the RAID options. However since I doubt I can afford that maybe IDE is the go for now.

If I'm not misstaking, some of the newer motherboards have a RAID controller for IDE.

isnt IDE software RAID though, ie. it will take up CPU power

Originally posted by Chicken


I probably would too, but it isn't needed per se. Some people act as if an IDE HD won't work. Well, news flash, it does, and fairly well.


A very excellent point. Sometimes preferences for one item or another grow beyond preferences into a win or lose situation. The reality is that there are saituations where an IDE drive is preferable, and there are situations where a SCSI drive is preferable, and there are situations where it doesn't mattter one iota.

As a very general rule o'thumb, use SCSI when you have a lot of different tasks accessing the disk simultaneously. require a lot of synchronous i/o bandwidth, a lot of random type of access, or other high-performance scenarios. Use IDEs when persistant storage and cost are more important than absolute performance, or when good to very good performance is needed.

There is a large grey area where either SCSI or IDE are both capable performers.

If you do go with SCSI, keep 'em cool. Blow plenty of air thru the box. You don't want your 1U server to turn into a 1U toaster oven.

It always bothers me when people ask these types of questions. Why will you ever use and IDE on a server and say that you're providing quality services for businesses. Keep IDE on workstations, development machines and your how play server. Use SCSI and RAID for server that you expect people to pay you money for. You owe them that much. If you really want to know the difference stay with the business for a while and I gurantee you'll know the difference. You want my advice, go with a RAID SCSI drive. It will save you a ton in the long run.

Originally posted by cahostnet
It always bothers me when people ask these types of questions.
Every question is the opportunity to learn something. The only question that bothers me is the one not asked.


Why will you ever use and IDE on a server and say that you're providing quality services for businesses.
The original post said nothing about the ultimate use of the dedicated server. Not all dedicated servers require SCSI drives.


Keep IDE on workstations, development machines and your how play server. Use SCSI and RAID for server that you expect people to pay you money for. You owe them that much.
I have an IDE in my dedicated server and a Cheetah X15 SCSI in my dual processor HP Kayak workstation. That equipment allotment is appropriate for the manner in which the server and workstation are used.

If you really want to know the difference stay with the business for a while and I gurantee you'll know the difference. You want my advice, go with a RAID SCSI drive. It will save you a ton in the long run.
In some, maybe even most, scenarios that may be true. But not all scenarios require SCSI. IDE will work just fine when used in an appropriate manner.

Mike, very true. I'm glad that he asked and yes it's a learning process. Well said. See SCSI and it's benifits come into play when you start doing very intensive backend processes like databases. A good database performance will require a faster read write and how intensive that db is being hit. SCSI drives can perform multiple read/writes in a much faster maner than an IDE. Not that all IDE's are bad for servers, it really depends on what the server is doing. This is how I figure things out. I either spend the money now for a peace of mind or I spend it later on cleanup. I won't even think about putting a server in a co-location without it being RAIDed. If all the server is going to do is to server a bunch of html sites with nothing really intense then go for it. There are different class of business in the hosting business, one is the average joe who only wants html and maybe some cgi scripts and another is the high class business which does on-line transactions (BANK) with heavy backend DB jobs. Of course there are couple of middle ones.

So as you can see it comes down to design and requirements not just is IDE better than SCSI.

Aloha Mike very well said ;)

I guess my thought on all this coming from a biz stand point is I want to make sure that the box does the job
will not matter what is in it as long as it works and will have the least chance of failure
that is why I like SCSI raid 5 (optimum)
dual power supply dual proccessor
now to me to build that box that should last say 30 months without needing updates (hardware)
if it cost me 1500 more to build than a single ide box
I figure $ 50 a month is worth it
I divide that into 25 clients on that box and I can justify charging em more than $2 for that extra power and reliability.
now if this is a mass virt host box say 250 clients
(1000 if you are some hehehhehe)

but to me that will justify the fact I may not have a failure and a pissed off customer.

these are my thoughts
if people do a cost analysis and could get a track record of failures or downtime due to hardware failure that could have been avoided ?
raid or maybe dual power supplies etc...

wonder how that would look
to get and keep a customer is far better than getting new ones all the time

I guess it is like driving 5 miles to work a nice honda car is still very nice but a Porsche is still a porsche

but agian your point of the question not asked is a good on eevery body can learn something every day

if you think you are the smartest person at the table you will never learn anything.
I have gained a lot of knowledge in the short time I have been here.

Later ;)

Originally posted by Mike the newbie
You don't want your 1U server to turn into a 1U toaster oven.

:) :) :)
Now I know why my self built workstation blows air around me.

We had this discussion around the office recently, it was time to upgrade a HD array in one of our older web servers and now that you can do IDE RAID arrays (in either hardware or software) it became a possible option for us.

IDE RAID is far less expensive, the drives are cheap, the controllers/software is cheap, you can buy them just about anywhere.

SCSI Ultrawide drives are wicked expensive, especially when you have to buy 4 at a time (3 for the array, 1 for the hot spare), plus you can't always just go out to Compusa and buy them.

We ended up continuing with SCSI for one reason: uptime is a more important factor than cost or convenience for us.

SCSI drives are hot-swappable, IDE drives are not. If a SCSI drive in a RAID array fails, you can pull it out and put the hot spare in without shutting down the machine or interfering with its operation. To replace an IDE drive, you've got to shut 'er down, replace the drive, and boot 'er back up.

If cost and convenience are factors of higher importance than the uptime lost replacing a drive, go with and IDE solutin, but if uptime is more important, stick with SCSI.

Originally posted by cahostnet
It always bothers me when people ask these types of questions. Why will you ever use and IDE on a server and say that you're providing quality services for businesses. Keep IDE on workstations, development machines and your how play server. Use SCSI and RAID for server that you expect people to pay you money for. You owe them that much. If you really want to know the difference stay with the business for a while and I gurantee you'll know the difference. You want my advice, go with a RAID SCSI drive. It will save you a ton in the long run.

umm well forgive me for asking.. but i have shopped around various hosters and majority of them do offer IDE hard drives on some of their dedicated server plans.

thanks for more insights into this matter... now what I am wondering, what reliability should I expect from an IDE hard driver in a server environment then.

the increased reliability of scsi comes into play when RAID is implemented right?

So for exmaple would a single drive SCSI configuration be anymore reliable than a single drive IDE config?

Originally posted by fruitsalad
thanks for more insights into this matter... now what I am wondering, what reliability should I expect from an IDE hard driver in a server environment then.

the increased reliability of scsi comes into play when RAID is implemented right?

So for exmaple would a single drive SCSI configuration be anymore reliable than a single drive IDE config?

Aloha well
depends on who ya talk to
http://www.storagereview.com
go there read some stuff and then you will get some ideas

mythoughts

SCSI has a higher MTBF so yes by specs
according to IBM start stop cycles
SCSI 50,000
IDE 40,000

http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl/ultra/ul73lzx.htm#Prodspecs

http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl/desk/ds60gxp.htm#ProdSpecs

so yes I would say scsi is still superior
is it more superior for the money in my view yes
it can not have nearly as close seek times nor access times nro sustained times
but yes IDE has gotten way better
if a moderate site that is active with dynamic content yes than scsi
more static low hit sites
IDE can do
would for the money a 3 drive ide raid sys be better than 1 larger SCSI
most likelyyes
again ya get what ya pay for

Originally posted by fruitsalad


umm well forgive me for asking.. but i have shopped around various hosters and majority of them do offer IDE hard drives on some of their dedicated server plans.

Just because the majority does something, doesn't make necessarily it the best way to do it. IDE HD's are used by the majority because they are cheap and easy. The cheap servers are also a good loss leader to get you hooked in so they can upsell you something more 'robust' down the line.

Due to these low-priced dedicated server offerings, we've long since shelved offering dedicated servers, we only offered a single 'plan' that was a duplicate of our own production web servers, and we couldn't price that type of server to compete with a single IDE HD machine.

Unfortunately, prospects would get a quote from a 'majority' provider for a lower-end web server and try to 'talk us down' with the expectation that we'd be hungry enough for their business to give them a much higher-end machine for the same or lower price. Selling apples for the price of oranges just wasn't a loss we could afford.

There is hope for IDE HD's, one company (adaptec) is offering a SCSI controller card that does allow the ATA IDE drives to be hotswapped, but at the moment, the price of that card is more than a whole low-end web server costs, so it's not exactly going to allow competetive pricing with single IDE machines or non-hotswap RAID IDE arrays. Perhaps when other companies start offering similar cards and competition and demand drive the price down, it may become a competitive option.

Originally posted by fruitsalad
the increased reliability of scsi comes into play when RAID is implemented right?

I dont think RAID has something to do with MTBF, mean time between failure. But a MTBF of 50.000 hours don't mean your drive will brake after 50.000 hours - the single drive could break after 1 hour or after 100.000 hours. Maybe just statistic but a good indicator.

So for exmaple would a single drive SCSI configuration be anymore reliable than a single drive IDE config?

SCSI drives usually have higher MTBF, they are also designed for running 24/7 under heavy load whereas IDE drives typically are designed for a 8-hour-working day.