Re: How to make a REALLY FAST db server?

"Shaun Thomas" <sthomas(at)townnews(dot)com> wrote in message
news:Pine(dot)LNX(dot)4(dot)33L2(dot)0109101709380(dot)1809-100000(at)hamster(dot)lee(dot)net(dot)(dot)(dot)
> On Mon, 10 Sep 2001, Steve Wolfe wrote:
>
> > So, why did I say that I don't use IDE for high-performance machines?
> > IDE has limitations.
>
> Mainly, the fact that IDE controllers require far more CPU involvement
> than any SCSI controller, especially on a saturated bus. A good SCSI
> controller can stay below 2% under almost any circumstance. A bad IDE one
> can go above 20%. I don't think I should have to say any more. ^_^

Your example is not very convincing. You want to compare a good SCSI
controller with a bad IDE one? That's not what one would call equitable.

Consider: let's get an antique 50 pin adaptec SCSI controller, and compare
it to a 3ware escalade running RAID 0 over 4 drives. The IDE one is faster!
It saturates the PCI bus! The SCSI controller pokes along at 10 MB/s.
Doesn't prove anything.

The business about CPU utilization did, in fact, use do be an issue, but
hasn't been since the introduction of UltraDMA IDE controllers, which
was a few years ago. (Admittedly, if you've been running WinNT 4 all
this time, you haven't been able to take advantage of it.)

Marshall