Amiga 2000...SCSI or IDE. Which is better?

[barney]

I have a question that sombody can probably answer.  Which is a better option on an Amiga 2000...SCSI or IDE?  Which is better and why?  Also, is it possible to have both SCSI and IDE running simultaneously in a single system?  Thanks.

Barney

[doctorq]

Which is a better option on an Amiga 2000...SCSI or IDE?  Which is better and why?

SCSI. It uses less CPU power than an IDE controller when transfering data.

Also, is it possible to have both SCSI and IDE running simultaneously in a single system?  

Yes.

[barney]

Is an Amiga 2000 w 2630 accelerator (68030) sufficient to handle a Buddha card?  Would I see any type of slowdowns while transfering data?

Barney

[terminator4]

SCSI.  Buddha is IDE.  Again, I'd take a simple 2091 card over buddha its cheaper.   A gvp scsi with memory is better than 2091/Buddha. All those SCSI cards are on ebay from time to time.   Also, SCSI on Amiga was always better as IDE was not so much mainstream back then on Amiga.  A4000 had IDE, A4000T had both (and SCSI was better on it).

[jj]

What about taking things like cost, availiabilty and age of hardware into account ?
 
Cant say its best , just on speed and DMA alone

[barney]

Does having a Buddha installed slow the system down in every way or just when it's in use (reading/writing files).  I am thinking of buying one and installing it in my Amiga 2000 in order to install my LS120 superdisk and an additional hard drive.  If the IDE peripherals aren't being used, will my system still be slower than if the Buddha wern't installed at all?

Also, having additional drives hooked up, will I need a bigger power supply or is the stock Amiga 2000 hard drive sufficient?

Thanks.

Barney

[Kronos]

Well SCSI is better from the technolgy, but ...... unless you get one of the DMA-enabled kind SCSI will eat CPU-cycles just like IDE. And remember, you can get a 400GB IDE-HD brand new for the price of an 4GB used SCSI drive. You might even have enough spare to get a CD/DVD-drive. Or even better, get an CF-card + adapter. The fast access times will make good for any missing transferrate (and it's quite).

Downside is your limited in the number of devices.

[terminator4]

The fellow was asking for A2000 solutions.  His cost would still be lower with SCSI, and might be dirt cheap (if he is resourceful).
- a used SCSI controller is $20-30, plus used hard disk $10-20.  Total $30 to 50.
- Buddha will cost him $65 plus compact flash card $15-20 plus adapter $10 (dunno).  Total is $90-95.
cost of hard disks is irrelevant on Amiga because who honestly needs a 400gb hard disk???  I had 2-4 gb ones for ages and thats been always plenty.  Not to mention you run into problems with partitions > 4gb with FFS.  And SCSI cdrom is still cheap as used (local thrift shops or even on ebay).  a new DVDrom will cost him $25.  So it comes down to personal choice.
And at the end who really cares what controller to use.  Most Amiga users fail to spend money on the most important thing on their Amiga which is the CPU. :-D

[Zac67]

PIO SCSI has little advantage over IDE, it's DMA SCSI that makes the difference - one that many users don't notice, however. If you're not using the machine while something (else) is using the HDD it doesn't really make too much of a difference (though I'd never got for a PIO controller). SCSI also allows you to chain up to 7 drives, including CD, DVD, tape streamer, scanners, ... (might be hard to get nowadays though).

@barney
A PIO controller puts (heavy) load on the CPU when data is transferred, so it'll slow down anything working in the background (or foreground respectively). It doesn't make any difference when the drives are idle.

[motrucker]

There is another little point here - SCSI can have up to 7 devices connected, when an IDE port can have but 2. This may make a difference depending on needed configuration.
However - I have used both SCSI and IDE in my old A2000, without any real troubles. It was a 68030 GVP accel. with SCSI. Sure it slowed the system down some, but it was still very usable.

[AmigaPixel]

This is an interesting coincidence, I am about to set up my A2000 which has a Expansion Systems Dataflyer. It is a combination SCSI and IDE controller. I tried once years ago to set up a IDE hard drive along with the SCSI drive. The SCSI worked great, but I never was able to get the IDE drive to work. I might of missed something at the time. I look forward to seeing if I can get the IDE channel to recognize the cd-rom I installed.