SCSI vs. SATA

[Khalil]

I am working on building my company a new server. The new SATA Raptors are very appealing but my network guy is telling me SCSI is better technology.
I would like some input here to help me build a good server that will last my company 5 years.

I am going to be using an Opetron Dual Core Socket 940 Processor.

[HAL9000]

Are you planning on using RAID? If so, I would go SCSI. They are quite a bit more expensive but definitely a proven technology for RAID.

[glc]

SATA RAID is very good as long as you use a proper controller - I've done it with Adaptec cards. If you need a LOT of storage, I'd do SATA, if your storage is modest I'd still use SCSI. Controllers are priced competitively, but the SCSI hard drives are smaller and more expensive.

[Josh1964]

Sata is consumer while scsi is 24/7/52/365 full tilt commercial. It also has ecc correction on data transfers. For best reliability I would do scsi, but sata is close in most regards. Some makers are trying to extoll sata as scsi's replacement, but it's not quite the same.

[clroberts]

Originally Posted by Khalil I am working on building my company a new server. The new SATA Raptors are very appealing but my network guy is telling me SCSI is better technology. I would like some input here to help me build a good server that will last my company 5 years. I am going to be using an Opetron Dual Core Socket 940 Processor.

A friend of mine works for one of the larger banks in our area and for commercial use, such as what you are suggesting, he would use SCSI. One advantage of SCSI over IDE is that SCSI is meant to be 100 percent Duty cycle. That means that on networks where the drives are being constantly accessed, your best bet is to use a SCSI array. SCSI is a lot more expensive than IDE, but it is meant for commercial use.

[glc]

Western Digital has RAID-specific SATA drives that are designed for 24/7/365 and error correction. That's what I use when I do SATA RAID, and the only type of RAID I use is RAID 5.

[Khalil]

74 Gig is all I need for this server. I am not planing on adding any more hard drives so Raid is not an option.
Those Raptors run at 10K RPM, the SCSI are 15k RPM but I am not really sure that I need SCSI, I am just curious if the Raptors are as reliable as the SCSI hard drives.

[glc]

I highly suggest you have a good backup strategy if you are going to trust a single drive server. The purpose of RAID in a server is not necessarily for speed, it's for data integrity, hence RAID 5. If you are going to go to the trouble of using an Opteron server board, do it right with server grade storage, which is either SCSI or SATA RAID 5 with RAID-optimized drives.

Just the fact that you are considering a single Raptor for a server tells me your head is not quite in the right place. Don't build a box with workstation specs and expect it to be a server for a business.