Re: How to make a REALLY FAST db server?

> > (As an aside, one person was in a heated argument about how much
cheaper
> > IDE was than SCSI. I got on pricewatch, found some prices, and would
have
> > been able to put together a very fast SCSI system for the same price
as
> > his IDE array.)
>
> That's nuts: SCSI disks cost a lot more than comparable IDE disks.

But it's true. For cutting-edge SCSI disks, the price is quite high.
If you look, though, you can find places trying to get rid of "last-year's
model" for very low prices, and you can sometimes find very good
performers like that. I picked up some 10K IBM drives with 4 ms access
times for something like $125 or $150 each. If you'd like to find
"comparable" IDE drives for that price, you're out of luck, as IDE doesn't
have a 160 MB/sec bus, and I don't think you'll find any IDE drives with
that low of access times anywhere.

(Not to mention the fact that IDE drives only do well when a single
process is accessing them. SCSI, having been designed from the gound up
for this sort of thing, does much better when you're hitting the disks
from several places at once.)

steve