Desktop issue pleaseeee contribute!!!

[Revalvedx]

Hello,
I have a good computer system for music. I am gonna get another one for my bandmate. We have little and I need a cheap harddisk for the system, I checked ebay and found out that there are many used fast scsi drives such as quantum atlas 10k II for a little price (sometimes even cheaper than ide drives). And a scsi controller card is only 10-20 dollars. Why is it cheap? Is it appropriate for music with win98? what should i do?
Thanx


Revalved

 

[mixsit]

It would be interesting to know some gerenal failure rates vs time and use. Maybe someone will chime in on that.
Nice drives are going for eighty dollars or less. Are they that much cheaper?
Wayne

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Well, firstly you're probably not going to get a decent Ultra160 controller for $20...try closer to the $100 mark for a single channel scsi3 adapter.

Secondly, a lot of cheap SCSI drives are SCA (e.g. hotswappable, they lack termination, device ID, and other circuitry). To use SCA drives you either need adapters (which don't work for crap but are $40 for the good ones) or an SCA backplane, which will cost in the $100-200 range for a 1-2 drive chasis. Or add in maybe $150 to the drive cost for a regular scsi drive.

Thirdly, don't discount the cable which will run you ~$70 if it's got active termination (which you want, trust me).

All that for not too much in the speed department. It'll be faster, but it won't allow you to do more than you already can. SCSI does typically outlast IDE, not because of the electronics but simply that they enjoy better QC (typically). SCSI also allows you to add 9 devices to a channel without having to worry about a performance hit, which can be really nice.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[James Argo]

Excuse me, but why would you take a second hand HD for price sake? There would be priceless data you lay on there. I'll go purchasing a new HD, and take lower prices on LAN card, monitor, cassing, modem, etc anyway. I was there, using a second HD, tracking several songs, after 2,5 months, the HD went bad. I can fix it, but the data's gone. It wont be a big deal if you screw with your mouse... but HD ? think twice.