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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: MickTheLip on March 08, 2007, 11:42:47 PM

Title: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: MickTheLip on March 08, 2007, 11:42:47 PM
Went around our local computer shops looking for SCSI terminators and basically a big no and responses as above.Is it me caught in a time warp or what?SCSI nearly Extinct  and obsolete so where can I get some SCSI terminators.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Amiduffer on March 08, 2007, 11:47:51 PM
I have some, both 25 and 50 pin SCSI terminators. PM me. I'll let you have it for the cost of postage.

Yep, SCSI is obsolete technology.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Piru on March 08, 2007, 11:51:39 PM
SATA has pretty much killed SCSI.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: MickTheLip on March 08, 2007, 11:55:51 PM
Any Idea How much postage would be to the UK? I was hoping to get some overhere surely they cannot be that rare allready?
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: on March 09, 2007, 12:40:13 AM
Quote

MickTheLip wrote:
Went around our local computer shops looking for SCSI terminators and basically a big no and responses as above.Is it me caught in a time warp or what?SCSI nearly Extinct  and obsolete so where can I get some SCSI terminators.


Watch Item number: 280089667171 on eBay

It is located in the UK.

Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: terminator4 on March 09, 2007, 01:49:14 AM
Quote

Piru wrote:
SATA has pretty much killed SCSI.


SCSI is not obsolete.  The latest filers and servers all use Iscsi.  You need to read up on this, and its better than SATA.  SCSI for desktop is killed because unlike old days no one will spend $200+ on hard disk.  Remember the days where storage was expensive...
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: MickTheLip on March 09, 2007, 01:52:33 AM
                   


             @Eslapian

Thanks for spotting that auction.Needless to say I've bought it.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: adolescent on March 09, 2007, 02:04:28 AM
iSCSI isn't a hardware type, but a network protocol.  (For instance, you will not find a iSCSI HD or tape drive.)  (Parallel) SCSI is pretty close to dead.  SATA/SAS has already taken it's place in even the low-midrange server/storage market.  The high end has been owned by FC for some time now.

Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: MickTheLip on March 09, 2007, 02:05:23 AM
Yes I remember the days OK! For what I paid for my first IDE 10gig HDD I can now get a 200gig HDD.I was actually trying to point out how many computer shops in my area seem to think SCSI is dead and gone and offer only the other HDD flavours.Never mind hopefully I'm now sorted.Probably going to get it cheaper as well.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Tomas on March 09, 2007, 02:35:19 AM
Quote

Piru wrote:
SATA has pretty much killed SCSI.

SATA is still inferior to SCSI on areas like multitasking. SCSI is still used on high end servers, while SATA is mainly used on workstations and maybe on small office servers.

The only reason why scsi is not more widely adopted in home market and in smaller companies is due to it being quite a bit more expensive.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: on March 09, 2007, 03:49:28 AM

@MickTheLip

At your service  :-)
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: weirdami on March 09, 2007, 04:33:57 AM
I, too, have those terminator dealies you can have for shipping. Will ship anywhere that pays with paypal. :-) PMail me if those other dudes are nothin' doin'.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Tahoe on March 09, 2007, 07:28:51 AM
Adolescent is bang on: SCSI is not obsolete; but 50/68 pin and soon 80 pin drives are.

15K SCSI drives are still very often used in servers and highperformance SAN environments. These are all bases on SAS technology; and there is no way of connecting those to your Amiga. (Serial Attached SCSI)

Higher-end drives are all Fiber Channel technology.

Computer stores (specially here in Holland) haven't been stocked well coming to SCSI; but terminators are still to be found; even the 25pin ones. But if I need one I have to look at specialist stores catering towards the server market.

iSCSI is a very interesting development. I use it at work; to fiddle around. Basically what you get is a LAN port (even interconnected with switches) directly on your SAN. If you get an iSCSI compatible network card it means a server can boot from your SAN without having ANY physical drives attached.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: McVenco on March 09, 2007, 07:43:33 AM
Quote
MickTheLip wrote:
Yes I remember the days OK! For what I paid for my first IDE 10gig HDD I can now get a 200gig HDD.


"Remember the days"? Man, that seems only yesterday to me. :-)

I remember my first harddisk, costed me 200 Euro (or 450 old faithful dutch guilders). And I could make a backup of it with 50 floppies! :lol:
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: aggro_mix on March 09, 2007, 11:33:12 AM
Maybe a bit OT but I wish someone would make a DMA capable IDE interface for the zorro slots. Is it really that hard?
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: jj on March 09, 2007, 12:38:59 PM
The first drive I bought was a 256mb HDD , ues mb not gb lol
and it cost me over £300.  Still got it, still works.  Remember wondering how I would ever fill that on my Amiga lol.

Need to buy a new HDD for my PC cause my 250gig HDD is full lol
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Ral-Clan on March 09, 2007, 02:42:32 PM
Apparently you can buy IDE to SCSI convertors.  This allows you to use cheap IDE devices with a SCSI controller.  I'm not sure how you would terminate these drives though (maybe there is a jumper on the convertor).
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: itix on March 09, 2007, 03:14:20 PM
Quote

SATA is still inferior to SCSI on areas like multitasking.


What SATA and SCSI have to do with multitasking?
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Tomas on March 09, 2007, 03:16:53 PM
Quote
What SATA and SCSI have to do with multitasking?

ata and sata use more cpu cycles when you have multiple transfers going on at the same time. This would cause a noticeable performance impact on a busy web server or similar.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Piru on March 09, 2007, 04:16:53 PM
Quote
ata and sata use more cpu cycles when you have multiple transfers going on at the same time

Why is that?
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Tomas on March 09, 2007, 05:36:56 PM
Quote

Piru wrote:
Quote
ata and sata use more cpu cycles when you have multiple transfers going on at the same time

Why is that?

here is a quote i found:
Quote
For the user who is performance-conscious, who will be doing real multitasking, using many devices at once, doing heavy development work, supporting multiple users at once on the machine, or who otherwise wants the best and is not afraid if it costs a few hundred dollars more, SCSI is the obvious choice. SCSI offers the most flexibility, the most choice of peripherals, and the best performance in a multitasking or multi-user environment.

I dont know the real technical background on why though.. I do however have it verified by personal experience from using both.
Same thing goes for SATA.. It is slower and use more cpu than the SCSI equalent if you have multiple disk with heavy disk access at the same time.

I guess this explains some of it:
Quote
ATA drives are cheaper than SCSI or Fibre Channel drives and there's a reason. SCSI and FC drives use a processor for executing the commands and handling the interface and a separate processor controlling the head positioning through servos. ATA drives use a single processor for both which means that if the rotational positioning requires more adjustments due to factors such as rotational vibration or wear, more processor time will be dedicated for that which can affect the performance of the drive. Because of this, you will usually see a lower RPM for the ATA disk drive and also a shorter warranty period. But it is cheaper and can be a very good, economical solution for many environments and applications.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Piru on March 09, 2007, 06:04:54 PM
Quote
For the user who is performance-conscious, who will be doing real multitasking, using many devices at once, doing heavy development work, supporting multiple users at once on the machine, or who otherwise wants the best and is not afraid if it costs a few hundred dollars more, SCSI is the obvious choice. SCSI offers the most flexibility, the most choice of peripherals, and the best performance in a multitasking or multi-user environment.

SCSI is hideously more expensive than SATA, and the difference has only gotten bigger. The things that traditionally gave SCSI an edge (such as SCSI TCQ) have long since been adopted for ATA and SATA (in form of NCQ). While SCSI TCQ has longer queue, in reality the performance benefit from it is minimal.

While SCSI might offer better single drive performance (15kprm drives), the costs of such system compared to nice SATA RAID setup makes SATA more affordable and attractive.

I'm not denying SCSI has it's special uses, but in generic use servers SCSI has been dead for years.

In practice SATA has replaced SCSI in many cases. This is why I consider my argument valid.

Quote
ATA drives are cheaper than SCSI or Fibre Channel drives and there's a reason. SCSI and FC drives use a processor for executing the commands and handling the interface and a separate processor controlling the head positioning through servos. ATA drives use a single processor for both which means that if the rotational positioning requires more adjustments due to factors such as rotational vibration or wear, more processor time will be dedicated for that which can affect the performance of the drive. Because of this, you will usually see a lower RPM for the ATA disk drive and also a shorter warranty period. But it is cheaper and can be a very good, economical solution for many environments and applications.

This has absolutely nothing to do with system CPU usage. The actual data is transferred using DMA, and while the drive is busy the CPU is 100% free for other uses.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: Tahoe on March 09, 2007, 07:06:06 PM
Quote

Piru wrote:

While SCSI might offer better single drive performance (15kprm drives), the costs of such system compared to nice SATA RAID setup makes SATA more affordable and attractive.


Agreed, specially looking at the current SATA drive prices. These have been falling really rapidly.

Don't forget the Raptor drives; these 10K RPM SATA drives offer more punch then any regular SATA disk. Although; the larger the disk; the faster the transfers (generally speaking). Specially the new perpendicular recording technology has been a boost. My Seagate 7200.10 series 500GB disks in RAID-0 are very fast, only slightly slower then my OS disks (Raptor 146GB 10K RAID-0)

Quote
I'm not denying SCSI has it's special uses, but in generic use servers SCSI has been dead for years.


Sorry, I have to disagree. Take a look at HP servers; most of them still run SCSI. The new G5 series Proliant now offer a choice of SATA or SAS backplanes; but the G4 (only EOL for about 9 months) is still 100% SCSI.

Quote
In practice SATA has replaced SCSI in many cases. This is why I consider my argument valid.


Don't forget that SCSI drives (even the new ones) are much more robust then SATA/ATA disk. We have a SAN at work which is built around very fast SCSI disks in an array and cheap; dump storage in an array of SATA disks. (best of both world so to say, 1.5TB SCSI, 7.5TB SATA)
The SATA drives fail about TWICE as much as the SCSI disks.
(if one scsi drive fails a year; at least 2 sata disks will fail)
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: X-ray on March 09, 2007, 08:55:34 PM
Fibre Channel is the current word in servers.
Title: Re: SCSI Ancient and near obsolete Hardware!!!
Post by: terminator4 on March 11, 2007, 10:16:02 PM
I wasn't talking about it being hardware type or not.  
Someone said SCSI is dead - generic thing to say - the answer is "No its not dead" to that.  Both Fiberchannel and iSCSI are around.
SCSI is dead for home market b/c no one here will spend more than $1000 on a computer.  In fact many users here expect stuff for less than $200, in which case as I mentioned before publicly they should not call themselves amiga users and go back to PC.  
Amiga market has always been small and no one will offer any hardware for small amounts/margins.  I do know there are many so called dealers whose generic background should be nothing but a shame (no need ot mention names, they know who they are).
You see the results with OS 4 and Amiga Ones - one good reason why so few boards were made, because few amiga users would pay money to get theirs preordered.  Hence few were made.  Small market - no economies of scale - big price.  Apple is another example of that.  Its not that their hardware is something special.
SCSI - well its expensive compared to IDE and most users would not notice the difference anyways.
Quote

adolescent wrote:
iSCSI isn't a hardware type, but a network protocol.  (For instance, you will not find a iSCSI HD or tape drive.)