To SCSI or not to SCSI...

[pan1k]

I'm trying to finalize my parts list for my A1200. Would  the blizzard scsi kit be faster than the Fast IDE card? I'm thinking of taking my A1200 all scsi, 2 harddrives, a Zip and a CD-R/CDRW. Would it cause much of a slowdown having all these devices connected?

[doctorq]

Yes, the SCSI controller will be faster than any IDE controller available to Amiga, as well as lower CPU load than the IDE controllers.

Personally I'm using 1 harddrive and 2 CDRW drives with my Amigas, and there aren't any problems. Since you only have listed 4 devices, there isn't a problem, since the SCSI controller can have up to 6 devices connected.

[pan1k]

Thanks! I will deffinately go all scsi then. I got a deal on some 10K RPM drives.. I need a HDD cooler now ;-)

[keropi]

10k rpm drives on amiga... a waste? yep.

[tonyvdb]

a waste yes, but wont hurt it either.
I have a 9gig SCSI 10Krpm Quantum Atlus in my A4000 and it works fantastic.

[Jope]

Seek time will help the performance a little, even if the machine's SCSI bus is slow.

[Brian]

didn't say if you use A1200 desktop or tower... I suppose tower due to the amount of drives but with the BlizzardSCSI you get an external SCSI port and is able to have a little SCSI tower next to the computer.

And a little correction... the SCSI will actually take 8 devices (the SCSI controller count's for one so basicly 7 "user devics"... if you're not going to do a SCSI network with a controller in both ends for 2 computers (or more) and devices in the middle).

But SCSI is most deffintily the right way to go... use SCSI for performance and IDE for big slow cheap storage.

[Piru]

SCSI is the way to go.

I used IDE HDDs with SCSIDE on my BPPC setup. Considering the insane price of large SCSI HDDs it still paid off, even though SCSIDE is not cheap. In fact, the IDE-HDDs-on-SCSI had much better seek speed than the real SCSI-2 HDDs I had before.

[pVC]

Yes, SCSI absolutely. For 68k OS with old IDE-standards it just makes that big difference. No CPU used and possibility for several devices. Especially CD burning benefits of it... not to talk about boot time Although Blizzard's SCSI-2 standard only gives you 7 devices simultaneous, I had it full for years HDs, CD-drives, DAT, scanner... external SCSI-box is nice for temporary stuff and copying stuff with other systems.

Remember to configure devices to synchron and reselection with more devices, so you won't get any slowdowns. You can do it with scsiconfig for HD:s and with myunitcontrol (Aminet) for CD-roms and other non-saveable devices.

EDIT:
Also if you have any problems with some device (like burning cd:s), check the version of 1230scsi.device. It can be updated with software. There's at least version 8.5 available, maybe newer too. I had some problems with one CD-writer. Writing succeeded with low percent... and updating solved it. Never had coaster after it OTOH, several other burners worked fine, but it's good to have it up to date anyway.

[Jiffy]

SCSI is definitely the way to go. I have connected 6 devices (including a scanner) to my (non-towerized!) A1200, using a nice SCSI-tower. Works like a charm!