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Technology Stocks : Adaptec (ADPT)
ADPT 16.24-1.1%Dec 31 3:59 PM EST
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To: Cris who wrote (3019)7/19/1998 4:36:00 AM
From: Torben Noerup Nielsen  Read Replies (2) of 5944
 
Chris,

>While this is certainly true for servers, the story is less
>compelling for desktop systems. SCSI drives do tend to be faster,
>but that's a drive attribute and not an interface attribute.
>Regarding CPU utilization, if your application is blocked waiting
>for data from disk, it really doesn't matter whether the CPU is in
>the driver or making trips around the idle loop - you aren't getting
>anything done.

Unless you are running DOS or another truly single-tasking system, this is just not true. In a system with any kind og multi-tasking, the CPU is perfactly able to do useful work while the disk controller is transferring data from the drive to memory.

Also, I had an amusing experience. I have two machines in my office right now. At one end is a 300 MHz system with an Adaptec SCSI controller and a fast SCSI disk. At the other end is a 400 MHz system with a UDMA disk on it. Both have 24X CD-ROM drives. They systems are otherwise identical (actually, the 400 MHz system has an advantage since it has the new fast memory). I recently upgraded both to Windows 98. And the winnner was: the old 300 MHz system with the SCSI drive. Across the board it appears a lot faster. Except for playing DVD movies since the new system has hardware for that :-)

Cheers, Torben

P.S. I'm not trying to start an argument; I'm just reporting what I actually saw.
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