why are scsi hd's still so expensive?

S

Svardeked

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 25, 2005
Messages
66
i own a pentium 3 HP Kayak XU. It uses 68 pin SCSI HD and has more ports for other SCSI devices. Isn't SCSI outdated now? well, now that we have sata. i wanted to put more scsi hd's since teh stock 8gb is kind of small. and also, why is ecc sdram expensive too? the computer only has 128mb ram and i would have wanted to put more memory, but seeing how expensive the ram and the hd's are, i kind of think investing money in this computer is a waste of time and money, no? i mean, it was an awesome machine fro its time!
 
That's the problem with really old computer tech. It's expensive because it's no longer made.

Lots of people either throw the stuff out, or hoarde it. Since there's no more supply, and usually only a small bit of demand...

It's going to be really hard to find.
 
SCSI is expensive because it's reliable not because it is old. SCSI drives are designed to last, they usually use much higher quality parts than IDE or SATA drives. SCSI is not really meant for a home user. There is a reason they are refered to as enterprise drives.
 
thanks. ya this HP isn't a consumer computer. its a business computer. was VERY expensive when it first came out in 1999. it cost 5 grand! i like it though, even capable of dual processing :) well if i get my amd pc fixed then i might invest some money in this computer. i wont ever throw it out. ill put it to good use!

thank you for your replies!
 
what speed ECC memory does your machine need? I may sell the 2x 256meg PC100 ECC memory that is in my Dual P2 450 machine since I don't ever use it.
 
Even if it was $5K in its day, it's worth about $150 now. You can never (and I mean never) think of computer technology in terms of what you paid for it when it was new. That computer is seven years old and is ancient in tech terms.

I'm not saying you should throw it out, I'm not saying you shouldn't like it. But you can buy a $399 computer from Office Depot now that will blow that thing out of the water performance-wise.

Hold on to it if you like (I'd recommend upgrading the RAM if possible and installing Linux on it), put it on your network and use it for something (maybe a F@[H] box). But you're not going to be able to upgrade a 7-year old PC to the point of it being anywhere comparable to a modern PC.

Just my two cents. I felt the same way about five years about my PC I bought in 1998 (first one I built). It just needed to be replaced, not upgraded, and once I got over that mental hump it's been smooth sailing. Never look back at what you spent on something when it was new. With computers it's never fun! ;)
 
I have had good luck with buying SCSI drives on ebay but ymmv. They are so cheap you can pick up a few of them to have spares on hand. Many are 80 pin drives so you will want to grab some 80>60 pin adapters but those are $5 items. Also keep in mind the old 10K and 15K rpm drives run pretty hot, just keep em cool and they should serve you well for years :) . And your damn right ESP :cool:

 
SATA may be able to access data at the same speeds as SCSI these days... but i would like to see SATA handle as many concurent sessions as a SCSI drive can handle. it really takes an absurd amount of i/o to slow a SCSI drive down.
 
If I had money to burn, I would do an experiment:

Identical systems with identical workloads, both with RAID-5 or RAID-10. one with SCSI and one with SATA. run them hard and for as long as I could. if a drive fails, replace it and continue the testing. After however long the test is (it would have to be quite a while) figure up, counting all of the money spent on the initial hard drives and as well as on replacements, etc. and find out your actual price per GB of each setup.

I'd be willing to bet, that even though SCSI is built better and historically more reliable, the SATA would still be a more cost effective solution in todays marketplace. Even if you had to replace some of the SATA drives, you would still not have spent as much as on the SCSI setup. Depending on how many of the SATA drives fail, etc. Which is why you would have to do the experiment in the first place.

I'm not especially loyal to SCSI or SATA, that's just my take on things based on the current prices.
 
Scsi or sas is about reliability or IOPS. And you don't get that from sata, not yet. Anyone bringing up the WD Raptor as an example of huge IOPS may find another thread :p

 
dirtydr said:
Also keep in mind the old 10K and 15K rpm drives run pretty hot, just keep em cool and they should serve you well for years :) . And your damn right ESP :cool:

Click to expand...

I can vouch for that. My first gen 36Gig Cheetahs get so hot that you can cook on them, so you need plenty of air over those old drives.
 
dirtydr said:
I have had good luck with buying SCSI drives on ebay but ymmv. They are so cheap you can pick up a few of them to have spares on hand. Many are 80 pin drives so you will want to grab some 80>60 pin adapters but those are $5 items. Also keep in mind the old 10K and 15K rpm drives run pretty hot, just keep em cool and they should serve you well for years :) . And your damn right ESP :cool:

Click to expand...
I'd agree with getting cheap used SCSI drives on eBay - picked up two 15Ks (36GB each) for $35 Cdn. They are pretty fast - 53MB/sec average transfer rate with a 6.0 ms access time! Installing SP4 (from SP0) on Win2000 takes like 3-4 minutes on a PII 450.
 
The SCSI drives have, among other things, better error correction that is taking up more platter space. That's a loss of capacity right there.

Then they have better processors for the cache and/or command queuing on board, allowing much deeper stacked transactions and allowing you to run with the write cache off in practice (in SATA I haven't seen yet anybody running with the drive cache off successfully, aka fast enough).

The connection/cable/bus itself is more expensive, too. It doesn't break off as often (duh), it allows 16 devices on a bus, longer cables etc.
 
Sheazle said:
If I had money to burn, I would do an experiment:...

I'd be willing to bet, that even though SCSI is built better and historically more reliable, the SATA would still be a more cost effective solution in todays marketplace.
Click to expand...

No doubt about it. It is a much cheaper alternative which is why you will see trays full of sata drives mixed with those containing fibre drives in arrays from the big boys (EMC, HDS, STK/Sun). But as mentioned, they don't perform at the same level as scsi or fibre drives. Its basically density vs performance and availability balancing, keep your more demanding and/or critical data on scsi or fibre and the lesser on sata arrays.

 
Arcygenical said:
That's the problem with really old computer tech. It's expensive because it's no longer made.
Click to expand...

Silly. SCSI is still made, so your point is invalid


SCSI is more expensive because of the fact that it's a superior technology.
 
CyberDeus-RagDoll said:
Silly. SCSI is still made, so your point is invalid


SCSI is more expensive because of the fact that it's a superior technology.
Click to expand...

I believe he was talking about that particular SCSI model, not the whole line of SCSI. But again, I could very well be wrong.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top