U160 question

Biohazard · Post by **Biohazard** » Tue Dec 12, 2000 10:28 pm

Okay, got my 15k drive in... thing is FAST on a 2940U2W, but not as fast as it could be.

I was wonderin' what a good U160 card is (with some respect to cost). I know you guys would know

damien6 · Post by **damien6** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 5:41 am

Personally I use Adaptec 39160 but I've heard pretty good price/performance out of TekRam DC-390U3. I've never dealt w/their after support though, where as Adaptec after support "rocks".

Darkheart · Post by **Darkheart** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 6:25 am

Unless you've got a bunch of other stuff running on your controller that you use simultaneously using a faster controller probably won't make much difference as your unlikely to be getting 80Mb/s off that drive anyway.

Darkheart

Biohazard · Post by **Biohazard** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 8:42 am

this is in a high end workstation. It rus cad, 3dstudio, 3dviz, Visio, and some major apps. Not to mention some UT, Q3, and Diablo II

I've got the U2W card in there now, and it does run a sustained 80mbps with both of the drives (the 10k and the new 15k).

Does that count as needing a U160 card?

Splitfire · Post by **Splitfire** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 10:34 am

No. Send some of your components my way and then you might.

Kakarot · Post by **Kakarot** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 2:19 pm

I use the adaptec 29160 and it works pretty well. that one may be you best bet if you're going to go with an adaptec controller. I've heard good things about the Tekram controllers as well.. except that that newer one mentioned above may have some setup problems with Quantum scsi drives. Don't know for sure tho.

CaterpillarAssassin · Post by **CaterpillarAssassin** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 2:29 pm

I've used a 19160 and it works nice.

LikeLinus · Post by **LikeLinus** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 2:47 pm

Ive got (2) 29160's and they work flawlessly. Great cards. If you dont plan on hooking up anything up HD's to it, get the 29160LP!

Esquire · Post by **Esquire** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 3:26 pm

I wanna swing my 29160 whats a good price? email me...

Esquire · Post by **Esquire** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 3:27 pm

p.s. that banging head icon is great

Radboy · Post by **Radboy** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 4:02 pm

Think u need a 64-bit PCI slot to take full advantage of the U160 protocol/bandwidth. Standard 32-bit PCI bus is limited to 133MB/s (@33MHz) .. heard actual/realistic bandwidth is more like 100MB/s .. taking into account bus overhead/housekeeping functions.

Note also that this 100MB/s includes *all* PCI devices .. i.e. your sound card, network card/modem, SCSI card, etc .. whatever u have .. which will eat into the bandwidth available to/for the scsi bus & its devices. Considering that the fastest drive on the planet cannot even sustain 50MB/s .. it's hard to justify U160 .. at least in a 32-bit pci slot .. (altho i'd still like to have one.

)

Biohazard · Post by **Biohazard** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 4:04 pm

I still have to hook up a pair of 10k u2w drives and a pair of scsi cdrom drives to this thing

any suggestions for a card like that?

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Wed Dec 13, 2000 6:21 pm

do what I did. get a raid card for the HD's and a 2930 or 2940 for the other stuff.

now we are talking Speed.

Greg