Quantum Fireball Tempest: SCSI or EIDE?
Eirik Holtedahl
I am about to invest in a new hard drive for my
system, and given my needs, my budget and the
drives on the market, I have narrowed my choice
down to the Quantum Fireball Tempest series.
So, is there are any body out there that have tried
either or both disks and can give me an opinion about
them. What I would like to know is
- How do they perform compared to, e.g. the older
Fireball drives?'
- Any personal impressions/feelings about them?
- How do the SCSI and the EIDE versions perform
relative to each other?
With respect to the latter question, I am also interested
whether it is worth going to SCSI, since the latter is more
expensive.. My system is an ASUS P55T2P4 motherboard, with
an Intel 166 Mhz CPU, 32 MB RAM and the ASUS SC 200 SCSI II
controller (the one with the NCR 810), and I plan eventually
to migrate from Windows 95 to Windows NT. So my question is,
what will I be better off with?
I also would like to know if there are any other
comparable drives (SCSI or EIDE) on the market now, that
meet or exceed the specs of the Fireball Tempest and are
in about the same price range.
Finally, since the Fireball SCSI comes with a SCSI III
interface, is it also bundled with a SCSI II to SCSI III
adapter, or do I need to buy one separately?
- Eirik
Ralf-Peter Rohbeck
Eirik Holtedahl wrote:
>
> I am about to invest in a new hard drive for my
> system, and given my needs, my budget and the
> drives on the market, I have narrowed my choice
> down to the Quantum Fireball Tempest series.
>
> So, is there are any body out there that have tried
> either or both disks and can give me an opinion about
> them. What I would like to know is
>
> - How do they perform compared to, e.g. the older
> Fireball drives?'
> - Any personal impressions/feelings about them?
> - How do the SCSI and the EIDE versions perform
> relative to each other?
>
the Tempest is a high performance ATA drive but not a really high
performance SCSI drive. The SCSI implementation is reasonable and
straightforward but not what you might expect in high performance drives
like e.g. Capella or even Atlas. Lower queue depth, less intelligent
buffering, lower buffer size, fewer optional SCSI features etc.
The TM's performance is virtually the same as the old FB: The transfer
rate is slightly better, seek time is slightly better, latency is
slightly longer due to the reduced rpm.
Relative performance between ATA and SCSI depends largely on the host
adapter and the OS. Both interfaces easily sustain the media transfer
rate. Since ATA is simpler, simple operating systems like DOS or Win95
perform better with ATA. NT generally performs better with SCSI than
with ATA because of its asynchronous IO system. But I haven't tried a
SCSI Tempest with NT (yet.)
There is no SCSI-II to SCSI-III adapter. The drive supports SCSI-II and
SCSI-III SPI, including Fast-20, and the connectors are the same (50
pin).
Ralf-Peter
--
========================================================================
Ralf-Peter Rohbeck rroh...@qntm.com
Quantum GmbH-Application Engineering-Central Europe (+49) 69-950767-18
Berner Str. 28, 60437 Frankfurt, Germany fax (+49) 69-950767-91
#include "disclaimer.h" tech support hotline (+49) 69-950767-26
Leon Mar
>I am about to invest in a new hard drive for my
>system, and given my needs, my budget and the
>drives on the market, I have narrowed my choice
>down to the Quantum Fireball Tempest series.
>
>So, is there are any body out there that have tried
>either or both disks and can give me an opinion about
>them. What I would like to know is
>
>- How do they perform compared to, e.g. the older
> Fireball drives?'
>- Any personal impressions/feelings about them?
>- How do the SCSI and the EIDE versions perform
> relative to each other?
>
>With respect to the latter question, I am also interested
>whether it is worth going to SCSI, since the latter is more
>expensive.. My system is an ASUS P55T2P4 motherboard, with
>an Intel 166 Mhz CPU, 32 MB RAM and the ASUS SC 200 SCSI II
>controller (the one with the NCR 810), and I plan eventually
>to migrate from Windows 95 to Windows NT. So my question is,
>what will I be better off with?
If you are going to use it in NT and the application is disk bound, go
SCSI. In NT, SCSI is like duck in water. I have installed many NT
systems (from 3.1 to NT4) and the one I have most problems in NT is
the non-SCSI system.
>
>I also would like to know if there are any other
>comparable drives (SCSI or EIDE) on the market now, that
>meet or exceed the specs of the Fireball Tempest and are
>in about the same price range.
>
>Finally, since the Fireball SCSI comes with a SCSI III
>interface, is it also bundled with a SCSI II to SCSI III
>adapter, or do I need to buy one separately?
I have once asked this question whether or not SC-200 is as good as
the 2940x and the answer I got was that SC-200 was a fraction slower.
The 2940x has the proper RISC processor on board and fancier set-up
like auto-termination, great for external MO or Tape drive. But cost a
bit more.
No doubt my opinion is not universal but my experience with SCSI in NT
tells me that extra bucks are worth every cents. My ASUS dual pentium
system is entirely SCSI and the two processors to keep that SCSI I/O
pretty busy - EIDE will have trouble keep pace.
Leon Mar
Brisbane, Australia
Eric Decker
On Wed, 11 Sep 1996 12:42:34 GMT, Leon...@POBox.com.au (Leon Mar)
wrote:
>>If you are going to use it in NT and the application is disk bound, go
>>SCSI. In NT, SCSI is like duck in water. I have installed many NT
>>systems (from 3.1 to NT4) and the one I have most problems in NT is
>>the non-SCSI system.
Agreed. Even the new EIDE system suck with NT 3.51. A client called
me in to speed up the NT faxserver ...... SCSI host and disk solved
the performance problems like night turning into day. I was expecting
some improvement but the difference was astounding even to me. The
cliemt was very satisfied. Is it _just_ the superior scsi hardware
mix of just host and drive? I don't think so. I have a nagging
feeling that NT's internal support for SCSI is the better part of the
OS. YMMV.
-----
Eric
"A steady diet of simple pleasures will keep you above your set point.
Find the small things that know give you a little high - a good meal,
working in the garden, time with friends - and sprinkle your life with
them. In the long run, that will leave you happier than some grand
achievement that gives you a big lift for a short while." David Lykken.