SCSI or IDE for optical drives?

[mayalover]

1) I'm about to get a mobo with dual U160-SCSI channels, one of which will host a HDD. I will also buy a DVD-reader and a CD-writer. Should I opt for SCSI-versions and hook them to the second U160-SCSI channel or go IDE and leave the second channel unused?

2) Is it problematic to convert U160-SCSI to the SCSI-50pin used by optical drives?

3) The fastest optical drives are not available with a SCSI interface, which is why a SCSI-setup would inherently be slower than an IDE-setup. The advantages of the former is however the low CPU-usage and the reliability. When duplicating CDs using two drives on the same SCSI-chain, I guess the data flow is entirely handled by the SCSI-controller. Thus, the copying process does not have an impact on the performance of the computer and moreover, no other heavy applications will interfere with the duplication. Is the discussion lame or reasonable?

4) If the above is true to an extent, how well does it apply to the fast optical IDE-drives and CPUs (dual) of today? Some claim that IDE-drives have reached the low CPU-utilisation of their SCSI-counterparts. Others swear by the superior responsiveness of SCSI-drives.

5) Which is the best DVD-reader with a SCSI interface?
How about PIONEER DVD-ROM 10X/40X DVD-305S INTERNAL SCSI?

5) Which is the best CD-writer with a SCSI interface?
How about PLEXTOR PLEXWRITER 12/10/32S INTERNAL SCSI?

6) Another somewhat fussy advantage of a SCSI-setup would be that since the HDD uses the same interface, the complete system would be SCSI-based. I'm not quite sure why this would be preferable, but it seems that for example Dell's workstations work badly or not at all when SCSI- and IDE-devices are mixed.

Thanks for your help!

[hella356]

There used to be a big difference in the performance of IDE and SCSI CD burners but not anymore. The new Burnproof IDE drives are fine, CPU usage isn't any real issue. Considering the CPU power of todays systems it's nothing to worry about. Save a bunch of money and get way faster burns by getting a 32x or 40x IDE drive, the cheapest are generally CyberDrive and Lite-On. I've used 32x10x40 models of both of these brands with oustanding results. I've also used 16X DVD drives by both brands, no problems at all.

I'm a former SCSI diehard. I have a full SCSI setup with Plextor 32x CDROM and 8x20 CD-R (not RW) and they really don't work any better than the cheap IDE drives, in fact the IDE drives far outperform them. And I paid $420 for that 8x drive 3 years ago compared to $ 55 for a 32x.

[blitzbo]

howdi.

I run a primarily scsi system based on a 64 bit adaptec29160 host adapter. All what you have discovered for yourself in your research in regards to how scsi behaves is true.

1) you should avoid placing ultra scsi devices on the ultra scsi chain since although the devices will still run ok, you reduce the maximum data transfer rate to the slowest device. That is 50 megs a second for optical drives as they are all currently 50pin ultra scsi devices. If you are going to have scsi hard disks in your computer then I would go all the way and pick up some scsi optical drives too. 12x writing and 10x rewriting is plenty fast for writing a disk that can be not only be read on your own computer but on other systems. They are more expensive but If you already have scsi then keeping the whole system scsi will benifityou in that all of your devices will talk to each other in a much more ifficient mannor. Ide does have a mode that makes it better than it used to be but it still relativly sluggish in comparison to an all scsi dual system. The biggest plus with scsi items is mtbf which is greater than ide and scsi in raid is much faster than ide raid. Your question had more to do with optical drives though. For a workstation. Scsi makes for a super resoponsive non stuttering machine, even when you bog it down with huge file transfers. The biggest advantage is video/audio play back grab your self some av drives and your styling. I love my personal workstation, It is smooothe and snappy no matter what Im doing. Scsi and dual together in unbeatable. Expensive though. The flip side is that for the cost of the drives you could get a second or third Ide drive of the same size hehe. But if your willing to pay the price you will not be dissapointed

[blitzbo]

..out perform?
what a drive at the same speed 8x to 8x .. or are you comparing speeds of a 8x to a 32x burn?
Of course ones going to be faster. I dont know If I would agree that ide outperforms scsi in any stretch. Cheaper ..yes..
faster... that depends on what your comparing. two hard disks both 36 gigs. one scsi and one ide(im not even talking about the 15,000 rpm drives Im using). I dont think by any stretch of the imagination that the ide version will "outperform" I guess I would need you to be more specific in your statement on how you would define performance.
The biggest plus to ide drives these days is size and price. The still die far more frequently than scsi drives do. I own a few great Ide drives and scsi drives and though I really like the bigt ide drives, I cannot say that they outperform there scsi brothers. Transfers between scsi devices is the biggest key. and although ide drives today take less cpu cycles than they used to they still dont stack up to transfers device to device. But that has more to do with the way things work on the ide bus.

So I do not agree with you. I will agree though that if you are on a budget that ide is the way to go for mass storage. I own plextors fastest scsi cd writers and am happy with them. I still am wiery of burning any faster than 12x though just to make sure the discs are readable on all other computers. I am tired of getting disks from people that burn at the new cd writers fastest speeds only to get disks only readable in a few players. I have a 40x plextor scsi cd rom that hasnt given me any problems. I build computrs for people and have seen many ide cd writers and cd rom drives go bad in little time . I dont dislike ide. I would recommend it to most. The people that need it usually find there way to scsi eventualy anyway.

Its at ultra 320 now too which is nice.
I actually am interested in 1394 for some optical drives now. I was looking into ide housings with 1394 converters. This is a great solution. Im looking at the current crop of dvd r+w drives. HP, Pioneer both have great offerings that have droped in price so low that Its a great back up option. They are both ide but some 3rd party manufacturers have thrown these (usually remarked pioneer ao3 {ie "superdrive"}) into funky housings. I will just do this myself, you can get the 1394 controler yourself and pick up any external case that you like and make yourself a custom portable storage system. Good ideas are cdrw drive , large hard drive even tape backup. All you have to do is pick up any ide drive you want and the 1394(some even have usbconnectors too) and throw it together. For something that takes about 1/2 an hour to do, I think its amazing becasue you can take your drive with you and just plug it in to another computer to share your mobile data. Costs are low - 1394 controler is only around 100 bucks and the external cases are all over the place just look them up under a search using " external 1394 enclosures "

http://www.scsipro.com/catalog/pg19\_firewirebridgeboards.htm

http://www.cooldrives.com/firen.html

http://www.caloptic.com/enclosure.html

[mayalover]

Your replies have been very helpful, thanks! I've run this thread in parallell on a few other message boards and the content is somewhere along these lines:

1) I get the impression that Toshiba represents the cream of the crop when it comes to DVD-readers. What are your thoughts on its newest model "Toshiba SD-M1612, IDE internal DVD-rom"? Is it the unquestionable leader in all aspects? If not, which drive is?

2) I hear the DAE capabilities of the Toschiba line of DVD-roms are not first-class. Would you suggest compensating for that by opting for a CDRW, which extracts audio splendidly?

3) How well does Plextor's PlexWriter 40/12/40A perform at DAE? Even though Plextor might not be as superior in supplying quality drives as it once was, I suppose their units are still among the best? Can anyone recommend another CDRW that offers greater performance/features/quality than the above mentioned 40X PlexWriter?

As you can see I will likely go IDE for optical drives, though my system disk will be U160. Though I'm not 100% convinced (you still have the chance to change my mind), the advantages of the new IDE drives seem to outweigh the disadvantages. Note however that I think SCSI is the preferable interface. It's just that the newer mechanisms of today's IDE drives, along with UDMA etc., make up for the down-sides of IDE. It goes without saying that if SCSI-drives were not EOL, I'd get them in an instant.

As a side-note, I've never ever had an IDE-device of any kind apart from my current CD-rom (which I didn't choose myself).

If you think that my writing posts in list form is odd, the explanation is that the posts would probably not be readable otherwise due to the abundance of questions

[blitzbo]

check out this site for lots of storage reviews and hardware based forums

http://www.storagereview.com/

heres a few links

http://www.2cpu.com/links.htm

[blitzbo]

for scsi opticals, pioneer and plextor hold the crown for sure for reliability/speed. I have the all three or the above mentioned opticals. and have had 0 problems with any of them eg, burning a cd that has content comming from a dvd data disk from my pioneer scsi drive,the plextor 40x scsi drive and from my scsi hard disks, all while rendering maya in the background, painting textures in photoshop and writing this post without any hiccups or stutters.
DMA is good but still not as efficient as scsi.
15 drives per scsi controler is not bad either considering you can have 5 scsi controlers in your system each with there own cpu leaving your memory and system cpus alone. you can easily have 30 hard discs in your computer no master slave silliness to deal with.

On the ide front . ide optical drives are dirt cheap. I am afraid of them since I see them die 2-3 times a month to be returned at work while old scsi opticals less than half the speed from like the early 90's are still going strong. maybe because they re in workstations or maybe its just that 52x is a bit fast to be spinning. who knows. the plus though is that optical drives are almost disposable at 20-50$ so you could buy 2 or three i guess and be fine. But when you hear your cdrom start to sound like a jet airplane backfireing its time to swap them out hehe.
for ide the toshiba drive is solid

2X DVD-RAM playback
16X DVD-ROM playback
48X CD-ROM playback
Random access: 95ms DVD-ROM, 170ms DVD-RAM, 85ms CD-ROM
Compatible with CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RAM and DVD-R media
512KB Buffer
MTBF 100,000 Power on Hours

heres a review http://www.digit-life.com/articles/dvd1001...01-toshi16.html

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/article\_ndx.html

[bumsi]

scsi drives are not worth it anymore for most situations, 1 or 2 years ago scsi hard drives were sometimes worth it but now for a home user who really cares. SCSI drives still have their place, they make sense if you are running some database server and dumping/reading gigs of stuff to drive on a daily basis (too much to keep in memory) and seek time matters, but that is a special situation. I mean if you are that concerned with program loading/switching speed or something like editing a large video file you could just take the money you would have spent on a scsi drive and get 2 or 3 or 4 gigs of memory instead, turn off the swap file, and just run everything from a ramdrive and have it all load and dump to hd when you start up or shut down, it might take you a minute or two each time to boot or turn the computer off but anything like video/sound editing on a large file you will be unbeatable.

As for cd writers scsi is way not worth it anymore, price or speed wise, the fastest plextor cdr drives-
IDE 40x12x40 $135
SCSI 12x10x32 $185

and stuff like buffer underruns and processor usage is completely irrelevant on any modern computer.
And for reliability ide cdr drives do not fail any more than scsi drives, if anyone has seen more ide cdrs fail it's because there are more of them out there in use, they have the same moving parts.