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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!gatech!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!van-bc!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!not-for-mail From: les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Need a new machine...is IDE ok? Date: 9 Mar 1996 00:41:22 -0600 Organization: /usr/lib/news/organi[sz]ation Lines: 23 Message-ID: <4hr96i$fii@Mercury.mcs.com> References: <4hjooo$a2f@gol2.gol.com> <313E9006.59E2B600@freebsd.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.mcs.com In article <313E9006.59E2B600@freebsd.org>, Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.org> wrote: >SCSI peripherals are generally better behaved, faster (in terms of >transfer overhead, anyway) and easier to migrate between different >machines should you decide to upgrade or expand later. A SCSI >controller will also do a lot more than let you put a couple of drives >on it - you can also stick CDs, tapes, scanners, all manner of devices >there. There are no IDE drives in any of my systems! :-) On the other hand, I've found that if you plan to load a variety of operating systems it is handy to have one IDE drive in the machine so you don't have to worry about finding/loading the correct SCSI driver before you have the computer operational. Also, I don't have exactly identical machines to test but I think the IDE/SCSI combo machines 'feel' faster than pure SCSI. I've always wondered if the data from the IDE drive automatically ended up in the CPU cache where the busmastering SCSI doesn't with the effect that it takes longer if you are waiting for something. Does anyone know if this is the case? Les Mikesell les@mcs.com