SCSI worth it?

[SoSl0w]

I just built a PC that will be used primarily as a server for a monthly Lan party. A few games have always sucked as far as loading goes and I absolutely hate that. I am wondering if putting in a SCSI HDD or the cheaper RAID 0 setup would be worth it? By worth it I mean faster load times for everyone versus the load times of an 80 gig samsung 100 or 133 (not sure). This server will also be called upon to deliver a few files over the network, would either of the above setups help in delivering files to all users quicker. This month will be the first test of the server, should I expect to see shorter load times using a dedicated server or will it be about the same as a dual use machine acting as a server and gaming machine?
Thanks
Greg

[muno]

Check here ->
http://www.scsi-planet.com/vs/

Personally I don't think scsi is that much faster nowadays. The scsi drives are still extremely expensive compared to normal ide drives.

[slinky]

Also, they can be quite noisy.

[Sixpac_XP]

For what you want to do.. you won't see much difference and the price of upgrading to SCSI drives is very steep of a price just for fun gaming.

[Peter M]

"personally I don't think"? This is tech, there's no room for belief here, particularly with the hard facts easily available. Just go to e.g. www.storagereview.com and see for yourself how wide the performance gap from IDE to SCSI is - as soon as it comes to multitasking and file/web/database serving environments. On a single user, single task machine it isn't worth the effort, but as soon as we're talking serious workload on the disk storage, you'll notice. Just see for yourself, storagereview have a very comprehensive and detailed "Performance Database" feature that lets you compare.

And don't even get me started about drive reliability. SCSI drives aren't expensive for nothing.

[muno]

Right.
Glad that you have correct technical whitepaper for every possible situation.

I'm off to mail ScottW to please remove the 'imo' from the site name.

[SoSl0w]

I figured most would say SCSI is not worth it. How about a RAID setup? What RAID setup could make a server operate quicker?

['G']

Once you turn to SCSI, it’s always SCSI.

[Peter M]

muno, sure there's opinions, but when the facts are so strongly against yours as they as a matter of fact are, you should just accept that ... and relax.

SoSl0w, did you take a look over to StorageReview? In file/web serving situations, SCSI drives have up to 80 percent performance advantage over the very best of IDE drives (WD's Raptor series). Raid 0/1 arrays of IDE drives won't get you there, and as soon as you go RAID5 with a proper RAID controller, you lose the cheapness in IDE as well.

[willy_ph]

I guess the real question you should be asking is whether it is cost effective to move to a scsi setup. If it's only for a couple days a month, I don't think so. However, if you were a business running a hardcore database system, I think the obvious choice would be to invest in the scsi devices.

In the end the decision really comes down to the question of whether you're willing to pay the extra costs.