Path: utzoo!censor!geac!lethe!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!rex!wuarchive!texbell!merch!cpe!adaptex!neese
From: neese@adaptex.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: unix, PCs and SCSI
Message-ID: <6700041@adaptex>
Date: 16 Nov 89 20:32:00 GMT
References: <6081@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Lines: 30
Nf-ID: #R:shlump.nac.dec.com:6081:adaptex:6700041:000:1442
Nf-From: adaptex.UUCP!neese    Nov 16 14:32:00 1989


>>>Will it be cheaper?
>>My philosophy on the cost factor:  If cost is your primary concern, then
>>SCSI is a poor choice. 
>
>I have to disagree with this.  If you are planning on adding a tape drive,
>SCSI will probably be cheaper than going with a RLL or ESDI drive
>and controller and tape drive and proprietary controller.  When I
>went shopping, the archive 150 meg tape was 900 for the SCSI, and 1800
>for the proprietary controller version.  Plus, the SCSI method saves you
>an IRQ *and* slot that the tape controller would normally take up
>(and that is a *big* consideration on a AT bus).  All in all a clear
>win.  Plus I can reuse the hardware if I go to another platform (Suns
>150 meg tapes are just archives), etc.  Go with SCSI, you won't
>regret it.

I probably should have elaborated on this.  If you are looking at SCSI
for performance reasons then cost has to be a secondary consideration.
If you think a cheap SCSI solution is going to perform as well as a
good RLL solution, then you have made a mistake.
I agree, wholeheartily with your response.  There are other reasons to
look at SCSI than just performance, but I have gotten so much hate mail
about this topic that I have now started to take a hard line, when it
comes to the users idealistic meaning of what SCSI will bring him/her.


			Roy Neese
			Adaptec Central Field Applications Engineer
			UUCP @ {texbell,attctc}!cpe!adaptex!neese
				merch!adaptex!neese