scsi drives for 9600

[keysmia]

Hello, this is for steve rosenthol and anyone that can help. I am about to purchase an ibm ultrastar drive for my 9600 g3 400 system to run on the internal bus. My questions. Is 10,000 rpm's going to make a difference on this system. ? Can the internal bus handle this speed or is 7200 fine? Also I would like to eventually get a g4 or g5 system. In this case should I get a drive that will be able to work in both systems. Can you use a narrow 50 pin with an adapter in these machines? Please help, Thank you.

[This message has been edited by keysmia (edited April 30, 2000).]

[Gary Stadler]

I just went in to and came out of computer hell, thinking I'd be a wise guy and stick "adapted" 68 and/or 80 pin 10krpm drives (seagate cheetahs) on the internal bus...sure it's fast enough, sure it oughta work, sure the tech guys at seagate and apple said it would be no problem....well, about 2 grand of worthless SCA drives, adapters, and unmentionable time later, I finally said screw it, bought an ATTO card and a couple of 68 pin 10k ultra 2 wide scsi drives (18 and 50gig), and computer hell was instantly over.....I mean from system corruption to system drives being literally destroyed to literally months of wondering what the heck was wrong....my advise? do the 10Krpm drive for sure....many tracks, no problems (32 tks piece of cake) but STAY AWAY from adapters. If you want to use the internal bus buy 50 pin drives and it will work like a champ, otherwise get the atto card (the adaptec 2940 causes my 9600 to crash once a day, the atto just works...) and 68 pin drives and make music instead of making headaches!!!!

[Steve Rosenthal]

Keysmia,

Gary's situation was worse than I've experienced or heard of, but it does illustrate the potential problems with using adaptation to go from connector type to connector type or from bus width to bus width. His advice to go with a supported SCSI card is certainly worth taking to heart.

As to your question about 10k versus 7200 RPM: It depends on what you're doing. 10k drives can give you a performance edge when dealing with high track counts and dense edits, but 7200 RPM drives aren't that far behind. With the IBMs, I recommend the 10k. With Seagate, I think you're fine with either 10k or 7200.

Hope this helps.

--Steve Rosenthal, Digidesign ETS

[This message has been edited by Steve Rosenthal (edited May 01, 2000).]