*BSD News Article 7548


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Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!tymix!cirrus!dhesi
From: dhesi@cirrus.com (Rahul Dhesi)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: IDE faster than Mips SCSI disk
Message-ID: <1992Nov7.003424.16178@cirrus.com>
Date: 7 Nov 92 00:34:24 GMT
References: <1992Nov6.033942.21194@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>
Sender: news@cirrus.com
Organization: Cirrus Logic Inc.
Lines: 19

In <1992Nov6.033942.21194@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg> eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg
(Othman Ahmad) writes:

>IDE is just a simple interface definition, just like SCSI-2, but IDE,
>is optimised for HARD DISKS, SCSI is not. SCSI is more general purpose.

IDE simply means "integrated drive electronics", i.e., the disk
controller is on the drive.  It is NOT a disk interface standard.  The
interface with which IDE drives are normally used is the standard AT
interface.

While there is some merit in the IDE versus SCSI argument, the real
argument is whether SCSI is or is not better a more dumb interface.
However, IDE versus SCSI is a false dichotomy, because two orthogonal
things are being compared:  (a) Where the disk controller is, and
(b) How smart the disk controller is.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@cirrus.com>
also: dhesi@rahul.net