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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: bubba on March 19, 2007, 10:41:10 PM
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More a1200 tower questions...
Is there any practical difference between SCSI and IDE on an A1200? It seems I can get a blizzard SCSI module for a comparable price to the Elbox FastATA adapter. It is my understanding that the blizzard SCSI supports DMA while the FastATA still uses PIO. Which, in my book, puts SCSI ahead.
Other than the age of the blizzard module, the only issue with SCSI seems to be locating hard drives, CD drives, and the cables. I see lots of ulta-wide SCSI's drives for sale but have no idea if they work on the blizzard module.
What drives can I use with the blizzard? Can I use 68-pin ultra-wide SCSI drives with the Blizzard SCSI module? If so, where do I get the cables and adapters? What about SCSI CD-drives?
thanks,
bubba
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You need a 68-50 pin adapter. Anyway I do the same with my system as you.
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I'd go for the SCSI if you have the Blizzard SCSI Module. I've got what has to be the most expensive IDE controller for the Amiga, and the performace sucks unless i'm burning a CD or copying large files from CD to my harddrive. The Blizzard wins hands down and i'd be using scsi if my BPPC card had scsi built in. Just MHO tho :) IDE's a lot quicker on the A1200 with the FastATA but since I can't to DMA SCSI is out of the question w/o it being supported on the BPPC.
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Get SCSI. Huge improvement when I went from Idefix->Idefix Express->BPPC SCSI
It's not only about transfer speed, you can also really notice lower CPU utilization e.g. when playing MP3s or vids and accessing the harddisk at the same time. Overall the whole system feels much smoother.
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I recently bought a fastata MKIII (elbox), but it is defected. So i cannot compare it really. A few days after I sell some servers for one of my customers, then he brought me some old (68 pin) scsi drive for free, these hdd used in the old servers. He heard about my crazy hobby (amiga) and years ago he saw some amiga, and it used scsi, so he think it is good for me. And only then i realized i have a built in scsi port in my amiga. (blizzard ppc) So i after some speed up again in my system. Anyway scsi and sata/ide technology iis mostly the same nowadays in pc, only servers has some benefits, but in amiga the benefits are many:
Not using cpu power.
If i use more than one unit the scsi bus won't be slowing down then an ide.
Using more than 4 unit.
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Go SCSI! IDE is OK if you just a cheap drive, or two. SCSI is much more flexible, and faster.
SCSI drives (even CD-ROMs) are available. www.newegg.com can even have good prices if you hit a sale.