Building Fast .NET Dev Workstation (SCSI vs SATA vs IDE)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bob Cramer
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B

Bob Cramer

I'm a developer using XP Pro for developing business apps with Visual
Studio.NET and SQL Server.

My current workstation is a few years old and uses a single IDE drive. I'm
looking to build a new workstation. I plan to NOT install Vista and continue
using XP Pro for the foreseeable future.

My question:
What would you recommend for the hard drive(s) on my new workstation? I ask
because several years ago I saw a number of friends have nothing but trouble
with SATA (they were early adopters of SATA and had compatability problems
with their mother boards), but it appears that SATA is now well-established
and stable and therefore a better option than IDE. But what about SCSI? Is
that a better option than SATA if I'm going after all-out performance? I
would like to be able to configure the drives as RAID-3 (stripe).

Thanks.
 
Bob said:
I'm a developer using XP Pro for developing business apps with Visual
Studio.NET and SQL Server.

My current workstation is a few years old and uses a single IDE drive. I'm
looking to build a new workstation. I plan to NOT install Vista and continue
using XP Pro for the foreseeable future.

My question:
What would you recommend for the hard drive(s) on my new workstation? I ask
because several years ago I saw a number of friends have nothing but trouble
with SATA (they were early adopters of SATA and had compatability problems
with their mother boards), but it appears that SATA is now well-established
and stable and therefore a better option than IDE. But what about SCSI? Is
that a better option than SATA if I'm going after all-out performance? I
would like to be able to configure the drives as RAID-3 (stripe).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Old school or new school? The former still prefer SCSI although SATA-II
is gaining more popularity.
 
Bob Cramer said:
I'm a developer using XP Pro for developing business apps with Visual
Studio.NET and SQL Server.

My current workstation is a few years old and uses a single IDE drive. I'm
looking to build a new workstation. I plan to NOT install Vista and
continue using XP Pro for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

What's wrong with Vista? I use Vista, along with IIS7 for Web development
work. XP pro and IIS5 can't touch the Vista business classed O/S(s) using
IIS7. Vista and IIS7 allow multiple Web Sites to be created, which can be
developed against, while XP pro and IIS5 only allow one Web Site that can be
developed against. If nothing else, dual boot Vista and XP. Or you can go
to Win 2K3 and IIS6 which has the same capabilities the Vista business
edition O/S(s) have in them.
 
Mr. Arnold said:
What's wrong with Vista? I use Vista, along with IIS7 for Web development
work. XP pro and IIS5 can't touch the Vista business classed O/S(s) using
IIS7. Vista and IIS7 allow multiple Web Sites to be created, which can be
developed against, while XP pro and IIS5 only allow one Web Site that can
be developed against. If nothing else, dual boot Vista and XP. Or you can
go to Win 2K3 and IIS6 which has the same capabilities the Vista business
edition O/S(s) have in them.
Click to expand...


I never said or implied that there is anything wrong with Vista. Do you have
anything to offer about the choice of hard drive (SATA vs SCSI)?
 
Bob Cramer said:
I never said or implied that there is anything wrong with Vista. Do you
have anything to offer about the choice of hard drive (SATA vs SCSI)?
Click to expand...

I built a desktop machine once. It was a nightmare and took several days as
I had to keep sending parts back. I learned my lesson. I'll never do it
again and just go get the machine that has everything already, and I can
hold someone accountable. :)
 
Bob Cramer said:
I never said or implied that there is anything wrong with Vista. Do you
have anything to offer about the choice of hard drive (SATA vs SCSI)?
Click to expand...

What was the NOT about? Anyway, I myself will just go buy the machine that
has everything already and be done with it. I learned my lesson.
 
I'm a developer using XP Pro for developing business apps with Visual
Studio.NET and SQL Server.

My current workstation is a few years old and uses a single IDE drive. I'm
looking to build a new workstation. I plan to NOT install Vista and
continue using XP Pro for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

Very sensible, Vista benchmarks 20% slower on the same hardware and no
number of service packs will resolve that issue.
My question:
What would you recommend for the hard drive(s) on my new workstation? I
ask because several years ago I saw a number of friends have nothing but
trouble with SATA (they were early adopters of SATA and had compatability
problems with their mother boards), but it appears that SATA is now
well-established and stable and therefore a better option than IDE. But
what about SCSI? Is that a better option than SATA if I'm going after
all-out performance? I would like to be able to configure the drives as
RAID-3 (stripe).
Click to expand...

SATA drives are fine nowadays. For outright performance use a hardware
RAID controller, not software RAID. Samsung drives have a good reputation
for reliability. I use a reasonably well specced home built machine for
development and I bought an off the shelf Dell Vostro to act as a server.
It's probably over-specced for that role but it could act as a standby
machine if necessary. I must admit that the bottleneck is the speed of my
brain, not the computer :-)
 
I went the SCSI route for a dev workstation, using SCSI raid & 15K RPM
Cheetahs. I ended up reverting to SATA 10K RPM system discs. I found that
the SCSI command queuing optimisation actually degraded performance for the
workstation application - its really much better for server type loads where
the queue of requests is long, and the time taken to optimise it for best
head movement is worth it. I also had heat and noise problems with the 15K
discs. Additionally, the theoretical higher throughput of SCSI is limited by
the PCI bus bandwidth, so unless you have multiple PCI's you don't get much
benefit from the SCSI bandwidth.

The SCSI discs and controllers are expensive, and have little resale value.
The SATA discs are relatively inexpensive, and lots of Motherboards have on
board support for SATA raid.

I built my machine to host multiple Vmware images for testing messaging
systems & I used a supermicro board with 2 x XEONs to get adequate
performance for my multiple ( 4- 5 ) Vmware images. The new Intel quad core
processors are very affordable & coupled with SATA Raid give adequate
performance for this sort of development setup at a good price.

That said a used server (say 2 x XEON based) with multiple PCI's might be
economical if you can find one, and you are determined to try the SCSI
route. I won't do it again.
 
What was the NOT about? Anyway, I myself will just go buy the machine that
has everything already and be done with it. I learned my lesson.
Click to expand...

The "NOT" in the OP was my attempt to prevent this discussion from becoming
a Vista vs XP debate.
 
<snip>
Thank you (and Jeff Gaines) for the informative and helpful feedback.
Before SATA, SCSI was the way to go for high speed data access - except that
I recall reading PC mag tests where they recommended IDE over SCSI for busy
workstations because of the delay incurred by command queueing. IIRC, they
stated that, once the SCSI was transferring data it was way faster than
IDE - but there was a brief delay before that faster transfer would start...
which would be an annoying state of affairs. Consequently IDE would provide
a better experience for workstation users. I think I'll go with SATA based
on your feedback.

Thanks again.
 
Bob Cramer said:
The "NOT" in the OP was my attempt to prevent this discussion from
becoming a Vista vs XP debate.
Click to expand...

You failed. And you shouldn't have mentioned Vista at all then. :)
 
Bob Cramer said:
<snip>
Thank you (and Jeff Gaines) for the informative and helpful feedback.
Before SATA, SCSI was the way to go for high speed data access - except
that I recall reading PC mag tests where they recommended IDE over SCSI
for busy workstations because of the delay incurred by command queueing.
IIRC, they stated that, once the SCSI was transferring data it was way
faster than IDE - but there was a brief delay before that faster transfer
would start... which would be an annoying state of affairs. Consequently
IDE would provide a better experience for workstation users. I think I'll
go with SATA based on your feedback.
Click to expand...

I have to call "bulls**t" on this one -> "delay incurred by command queuing"
There is no delay incurred by command queuing/reordering. If the disk only
has a single command, it doesn't wait around for another one so it can
reorder them. Furthermore, when the disk is reordering commands it's doing
it while a command is being processed so there is no time wasted.

Now, command reordering isn't likely to provide any performance gain on a
workstation because you will rarely ever have a lot of commands queued but,
there won't be a penalty.

For a workstation you should be looking at rotational speed and seek time.
SATA disks are mostly 7,200 RPM with mediocre seek times. Western Digital
does have a 10,000 RPM SATA disk with good seek times. SCSI disks are
almost all 10,000 or 15,000 RPM with good seek times (nobody wants a cheap
SCSI disk).

Another big consideration for a workstation is noise, 10,000 RPM disks are a
LOT noisier than 7,200 RPM.
 
John Vottero said:
I have to call "bulls**t" on this one -> "delay incurred by command
queuing" There is no delay incurred by command queuing/reordering. If the
disk only has a single command, it doesn't wait around for another one so
it can reorder them. Furthermore, when the disk is reordering commands
it's doing it while a command is being processed so there is no time
wasted.

Now, command reordering isn't likely to provide any performance gain on a
workstation because you will rarely ever have a lot of commands queued
but, there won't be a penalty.

For a workstation you should be looking at rotational speed and seek time.
SATA disks are mostly 7,200 RPM with mediocre seek times. Western Digital
does have a 10,000 RPM SATA disk with good seek times. SCSI disks are
almost all 10,000 or 15,000 RPM with good seek times (nobody wants a cheap
SCSI disk).

Another big consideration for a workstation is noise, 10,000 RPM disks are
a LOT noisier than 7,200 RPM.
Click to expand...

RE:
<< I have to call "bulls**t" on this one -> "delay incurred by command
queuing" >>

Okay, so my recollection of the *reason* that PC mag was recommending IDE
over SCSI for workstations is a bit foggy (it was >4 years ago - even before
SATA was around). But I clearly recall the recommendation to go with IDE
over SCSI for workstations because of *some* delay. Not sure what it was...
but they were basically saying that SCSI was the obvious choice for servers
but not for workstations... thus my OP seeking clarification on the current
recommendations now that we're several years down the road from that. I
don't mind a bit of noise, so maybe I'll do more research before deciding on
SATA vs SCSI.

-Bob
 
"I have to call "bulls**t" on this one -> "delay incurred by command
queuing"
There is no delay incurred by command queuing/reordering. If the disk only
has a single command, it doesn't wait around for another one so it can
reorder them. Furthermore, when the disk is reordering commands it's doing
it while a command is being processed so there is no time wasted."

Yes, its counter-intuitive, however your assertion is incorrect. Even
workstations rarely have a single request queued, monitor the disc on an
idle windows installation and see for yourself. The point is, the command
queue has to be reordered every time a command is added, i.e. a sort
operation, on the slow CPU implementation on a controller card, this takes
some time. Its immaterial whether the reorder is done in parallel with a
disc transfer - its still a bottleneck in the controller card. Also its the
SCSI controller which reorders the commands, not the disc.

"Now, command reordering isn't likely to provide any performance gain on a
workstation because you will rarely ever have a lot of commands queued but,
there won't be a penalty."

This is also untrue, the subject at issue is a development workstation
which is also used for testing, depending on the application, there could be
a lot of pending disc requests.

"For a workstation you should be looking at rotational speed and seek time.
SATA disks are mostly 7,200 RPM with mediocre seek times. Western Digital
does have a 10,000 RPM SATA disk with good seek times. SCSI disks are
almost all 10,000 or 15,000 RPM with good seek times (nobody wants a cheap
SCSI disk)."

Any evaluation of a disc subsystem will require analysis of these factors
but this is not pertinent to the point at issue.

"Another big consideration for a workstation is noise, 10,000 RPM disks are
a
LOT noisier than 7,200 RPM."

Again untrue, my 10K RPM SATA disc is whisper quiet.
 
holdgaj gmail com> said:
"I have to call "bulls**t" on this one -> "delay incurred by command
queuing"
There is no delay incurred by command queuing/reordering. If the disk
only
has a single command, it doesn't wait around for another one so it can
reorder them. Furthermore, when the disk is reordering commands it's
doing
it while a command is being processed so there is no time wasted."

Yes, its counter-intuitive, however your assertion is incorrect. Even
workstations rarely have a single request queued, monitor the disc on an
idle windows installation and see for yourself. The point is, the command
queue has to be reordered every time a command is added, i.e. a sort
operation, on the slow CPU implementation on a controller card, this takes
some time. Its immaterial whether the reorder is done in parallel with a
disc transfer - its still a bottleneck in the controller card. Also its
the SCSI controller which reorders the commands, not the disc.
Click to expand...

Actually, both controllers and disks will reorder requests. Even SATA disks
reorder requests, it's called "Native Command Queuing".

Try comparing the speed of that "slow" controller CPU to the mechanical
speed of a disk. Even a slow CPU can execute thousands of instructions
while waiting for the disk to do a single revolution.
"Now, command reordering isn't likely to provide any performance gain on a
workstation because you will rarely ever have a lot of commands queued
but,
there won't be a penalty."

This is also untrue, the subject at issue is a development workstation
which is also used for testing, depending on the application, there could
be a lot of pending disc requests.

"For a workstation you should be looking at rotational speed and seek
time.
SATA disks are mostly 7,200 RPM with mediocre seek times. Western Digital
does have a 10,000 RPM SATA disk with good seek times. SCSI disks are
almost all 10,000 or 15,000 RPM with good seek times (nobody wants a cheap
SCSI disk)."

Any evaluation of a disc subsystem will require analysis of these factors
but this is not pertinent to the point at issue.
Click to expand...

Not pertinent? Why not? Improved rotational speed and seek time are the
most significant wins and will result in a noticeable performance
improvement.
"Another big consideration for a workstation is noise, 10,000 RPM disks
are a
LOT noisier than 7,200 RPM."

Again untrue, my 10K RPM SATA disc is whisper quiet.
Click to expand...

A Western Digital 10,000 RPM SATA disk is rated at 39 to 46 dBA, a Western
Digital 7,200 RPM disk is rated at 25 to 29dBA. The decibel scale is
logarithmic so, a 10,000 RPM disk it more than 10 times as noisy as a 7,200
RPM disk.


I think the bottom line is, if you're willing to put up with the noise of a
10,000 RPM disk, buy 10,000 RPM SATA disks. You'll get 98% of the benefits
of SCSI for a lot let money.
 
I like SATA drives. They are more common these days than SCSI which gives
you a larger range of cheap drives. I don't know about the nature of your
development projects, but on the stuff I work on I find that the memory and
CPU is a bottle neck before drives speed. As for setting up your raid
you'll want to make sure you use a hardware RAID and read the performance
reviews. Some RAID controllers are simply slower than others. You'll also
want to make sure you have a floppy drive and your RAID controller driver
disk handy when you install XP. When I last installed XP on my dev machine
the Windows installer would only read from a floppy disk designated drive
A.
 
Thanks for the helpful feedback!


Andrew Faust said:
I like SATA drives. They are more common these days than SCSI which gives
you a larger range of cheap drives. I don't know about the nature of your
development projects, but on the stuff I work on I find that the memory and
CPU is a bottle neck before drives speed. As for setting up your raid
you'll want to make sure you use a hardware RAID and read the performance
reviews. Some RAID controllers are simply slower than others. You'll also
want to make sure you have a floppy drive and your RAID controller driver
disk handy when you install XP. When I last installed XP on my dev machine
the Windows installer would only read from a floppy disk designated drive
A.
Click to expand...

<snip>
 
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