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

[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.

[Ghostrider]

Bob Cramer wrote:

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.

Old school or new school? The former still prefer SCSI although SATA-II
is gaining more popularity.

[Mr. Arnold]

"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

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.

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.

[Bob Cramer]

"Mr. Arnold" <MR. Ar****@Arnold.comwrote in message
news:uV**************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>
"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>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.

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.

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)?

[Mr. Arnold]

"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:O0**************@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

"Mr. Arnold" <MR. Ar****@Arnold.comwrote in message
news:uV**************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>>
"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>>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.

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.

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)?

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. :)

[Mr. Arnold]

"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:O0**************@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

"Mr. Arnold" <MR. Ar****@Arnold.comwrote in message
news:uV**************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>>
"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>>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.

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.

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)?

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.

[Jeff Gaines]

On 19/10/2007 in message <#m**************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gblBob
Cramer wrote:

>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.

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).

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 :-)

--
Jeff Gaines

[holdgaj]

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.

--
------Holdgaj
holdgaj AT gmail DOT com
"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

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 Cramer]

<snip>

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.

The "NOT" in the OP was my attempt to prevent this discussion from becoming
a Vista vs XP debate.

[Bob Cramer]

<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.

[Mr. Arnold]

"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:OE**************@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

<snip>

>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.

The "NOT" in the OP was my attempt to prevent this discussion from
becoming a Vista vs XP debate.

You failed. And you shouldn't have mentioned Vista at all then. :)

[Andrew Faust]

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.

--
Andrew Faust
andrew[at]andrewfaust.com
http://www.andrewfaust.com
"Bob Cramer" <[e-mail] in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

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 Cramer]

Thanks for the helpful feedback!
"Andrew Faust" <an****@andrewfaust.comwrote in message
news:81**********************************@microsof t.com...

>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.

<snip>