Non SCSI HDDs

[Halastar]

I see that SCSI HDDs have a value for it's sustained throughput, typically from the value of 15 MB/s up to 25 MB/s. But, when I go through IDE HDDs.. they don't spesify that attribute. So, what is the typical sustained throughput of IDE HDDs? Does DMA/33 mean that IDE HDDs can sustain up to 33Mb/s??
Thanks in advance for any replies.

[2bit]

I think it means that the drive is capable of 33MB/s burst rate,like releasing the flood gate in a water dam although in a second it could be down to to trickle, which is the drives' Sustained Transfer Rate.

I think very few drives will actually print their sustained transfer rates because if they do, you might not buy them. They flash you with their Burst Transfer Rates but just labels it as transfer rate without clarifying what it is.

If there are any 33MB/s 'sustained' drives out there, I would like to know because I would think that they would be way out of the mainstream market. But then, I could be way off.

[(Chanse)]

There is no drive in consumer or professional
existance(maybe in an IBM test lab somewhere) that has a sustained rate equal to the burst rate. Seagate has just come out with what is supposed ot be the fastest Ultra/66 IDE drive, with a sustained transfer rate of 8.5Mb/sec . Pretty damn fast, but still nowhere near 66MB/sec . Damn marketing. And some of the faster AV level drives(Ultra-2 Scsi, with a burst of 80MB/sec)can push around 11 to 12.4 or so.

[Kevin930]

You guys are correct - 33/66 is the "burst" transfer rate of IDE - the sustained rate for any IDE drive is weak to say the least. Also IDE HDs tend to consume major CPU cycles. If you conduct a test of IDE vs. SCSI sustained transfer rate on your system, you will notice that a SCSI HD blows away the IDE, and the CPU usage is much lower with SCSI. IDE is fine for most home applications, but if you want to do heavy graphics of multitasking, or even run a server, then SCSI is the only logical choice. "You get what you pay for."
My $.02
Kevin-



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