Money to burn?

lol, I have a condo to buy and a car to fix, and VISA to pay off.. IDE will be fine, SATA will have to wait for the next one

DARN, i really got hear to late! dont let anyone talk you out of SCSI!!
Oh well, SCSI is actually more stable and less processor intensive then IDE. proper termination plays a big factor in SCSI devices working correctly in XP. the SCSI BIOS may see it and detect it but windows may not like it. If your cable isnt terminated then you must set the termination jumper on teh drive itself if it is the only or last in the chain. I have had SCSI in my systems from 95 on. I have 7 systems networked in my house now all running SCSI and windows XP, oh and one MAC. I never have an issue with any of them. My server has been running an Ultrawide adaptec 2940 with a 9gb SCSI barracuda for 5 years straight. YES, that is without ever shutting it off!
My SCSI controller is a TEKRAM ULTRA160 DC-390U3 Series which runs at 160MB/sec transfers to my Cheetah X15 36LP - ST336752LW, an ULTRA160 HD that spins at 15,000 RPMs (IDE fastest was 7,500 at the time) and has a 3.6 ms average seek time. When i got this setup a year ago, IDE was at 80mb/sec, 100-120mb/sec in the raid config. (WIth the few MBs that offered the raid chip onboard) My buddy went IDE b/c of lack of funds and got that config. We comapred ours and mine blew it away in all HD tests. (Same Proc, 2.4gb intel, same amount of mem-1GB, he had the asus MB? and i have the intel)
The harddrive is the only part of a PC that has moving parts. If you have a blazing fast proc, MB, and memory it still will be limitied by the HD when the HD is accessed. Granted, programs run in memory, but the initial reads and writes through a program are hindered by slow HD access. also video rendering is MUCH faster with SCSI as well as multiple read writes especially when your hitting the swap file alot. (lack of memory will cause great stress on yoru HD from the swap file) I could go on for a day on why SCSI is better. IDE is definitely better in one category. Price.
The problem with poeple telling you that IDE is just as good is that they never had a SCSI system for their own built correclty. Not to say they dont know computers, they just dont know SCSI. Once you do, you'll understand and never go back no matter how much more SCSI costs. Just like we all dont drive Grand AMs b/c we now have Bonneveilles.
This is very true with exception of being more stable. Also, if your SCSI hardware is SCSI II (8 bit) or Ultrawide(16bit), you need to upgrade to at least ULtra160 to be faster then IDE that is currently out. Obviously i am not a standard home user.

credentials:
Network/System Engineer
A+ Net+ (7 years)
MCSE+I (5 years)(SQL/IIS/Proxy)
CCNA/CCNP (3 years)
I built high end servers of every make for 3 years for GE Capital ITS. During that time i had my own business also building PCs and networking. Now i am a LAN/WAN engineer and have been for 4 years

Hope that doesnt sound too much like bragging! You dont see me talking about computers often b/c after 5 yrs or so of working in the field (its been almost 9 now) the novelty wears off. especially when everyone in your family and friends (and thier friends)are constantly calling for tech support.:? Now-a-days i dont want people to know im in the business but since this club is so cool and ya'll are soo cool i couldnt resist


Jim, so what are you doing with yourspare parts now?

wow, that was alot of yappiing..

sweet lord...how many digits you make a year?

David, didn't you read the article in Forbes magazine about Nytro

Oh, I will probably sell my 20 gig SCSI HD and the SCSI card

We got a lot in common Nytro.

Enough to buy 2 2000 SSEi'*....I'm in the computer field as well

LOL! lets say the computer business has been very rewarding. SO ya'wlll know where im comin from, i was a concrete foundation foreman for 6 years before going back to college (with meaningless liberal arts credits from previous) at 25yrs old while working full time with 1 1/2 kids and no money. I only lasted 2 semesters before i got my first job in the PC world. Get experience and get certifications! now the wife is even making the same digit$$$ appraising realestate and we live in a 4000sqft house after 10 yrs in a townhouse. Never sell yourself short- Dreams do come true. patience is a virtue.

Sol, I bet we do have a lot in common. just from seeing your posts, i can tell you an i are from the same blood line! the best part for you is it didnt take you 35 yrs to get there!
oh, i wear glasses too although the picture i posted a while back i wasnt wearing them.

The problem is that if something goes wrong, their customer service sucks. Both my husband and a good friend got Dells (laptops) and had tons of problems...they "fixed" my husband'* by replacing the hard drive with a greatly inferior brand that never worked right (he had to make at least 9 phone calls for it and sent the laptop in twice...for which they kept it for a week each time before even looking at it ). He never even would have gotten it fixed if he hadn't written a letter to the service dept. manager, his boss, his boss, his boss, and the owner himself! They said it wasn't under warranty because it had run out 2 days earlier, even though my husband had contated them about the problem a week earlier. My friend had pretty much the same experience.

Just beware the evil Dell...I'll cross my fingers that nothing goes wrong with yours. :P

At my work, we get everything from Dell, but we have our own support team, which I am on. They are actually very well built machines, if you wanna pay that much for em.

We have had 2 Gateways, and I will vouch for them. Nothing has gone wrong on them that i or M$ didnt cause . We found out with our first one that the about the only thing that can bring them down is lightning (killed the motherboard and the printer card). We have been looking at a Dell desktop for our next one, I use them at school and I am impressed.