SCSI vs. SATA

I'm planning on buying a new internal drive for my G4. Currently I have three small scsi drives and was wondering if I need to stay with the scsi drives or can I go to the much cheaper (and larger) SATA drives without affecting performance?
Thanks in advance for any input....this forum is a great wealth of info!

You'd need a SATA card for teh G4 as it doesn't natively support SATA. The internal drives in a G4 are usually IDE. I've put an IDE card in a G4 before and filled it with cheap IDE drives and it worked great.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

So are there any performance differences between the IDE and SCSI drives?
What about just an ATA drive?

I have 5 internal IDE HD in my G-4 933.
Three are set up as a raid and work using a tempo ata 133 card.
They are the run of the mill Maxtor 160GB drives, had for almost 3 years and not a problem.

BJ

IDE is just another name for ATA. Performance - no real difference.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

The most common difference between SATA and SCSI is cost per MB. SATA being commodity drives are up to 500 GB where as SCSI is still only up to maybe 200 GB at an astromical cost per MB.


SATA downside is when writing to the drive(s) when over 2/3 filled, the transfer speds drops to one-half the empty speed.

SCSI drives are not immune from slowdown as they fill either....

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

I remember when SCSI drives were required for FCP. When I had SCSI drives and FCP 1, I never dropped frames. ;-)

SCSI rocks, it's just too expensive.

If anyone wants to purchase Seagate Barracudas with 36 GB of raw SCSI power (enough to online a show), contact me off list. ;-)



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SCSI is better for handling large file sizes which is why they have been used in video at the top end for so long.

IDE/ATA/SATA are better with small files.


But...

Cost saving and performance for SATA RAIDs mostly outweigh the SCSI options and therefore are your best option.


SCSI still rocks but is just not getting cheap enough for mass uptake.



Post Edited (03-29-06 15:27)



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I have external SATA's which work very well and they are cost effective. You can easily stripe as many as 8 drives and gain plenty of speed. Had a 3 drive unit (1.5tb) that I used for uncompressed SD with no problems at all. Guess it depends on your needs. If you think you'll need more than 400 or 500mbs then maybe it's worth the cost to invest in SCSI or Fiber channel. Otherwise keep your money in your pocket, the drives will be outdated and virtually useless in a couple of years anyway.

I bought my 500g hitachi drives at Zipzoomlfy.com then got the enclosure and card at MacGurus.com.

<<If anyone wants to purchase Seagate Barracudas with 36 GB of raw SCSI power (enough to online a show), contact me off list. ;-)>>

Haha I have a a set of those here at home. They used to be in my blue & white G3. Every now again I come up with some creative idea to put them to good use, but it never seems worth the effort.



- Justin Barham -

I found an interesting SATA swapable (4) drive enclosure ...
[www.addonics.com]

Do any of you have caveats with installing a SATA controller in an expansion slot, and using a port multiplier?