[KLUG Members] Re: IDE cd burner

[Bryan J. Smith]

Ooops, a post that didn't make it to the list?

-------- Original Message --------
From: bjsmith@cfl.rr.com
Subject: Re: IDE cd burner
To: b.j.smith@ieee.org

> EXACTLY!  And my point is that bang-for-buck one needs to consider
> if spending the extra danero for a fast burner gets you anything.

Yep.

> It depends entirely upon the application,  if your going to be copying
> CD's and can't put the drive on it's own channel then you might as well
> buy a slower drive.

Or add another channel.  Better yet, device-to-device is best with
SCSI.  
TekRam's DC-315U UltraSCSI card is ~$20, so you only need to eat the
drive 
premium of ~$25-50/drive.

> If your creating CD's from ISO images on a HD on a seperate channel,
> and your machine is relatively robust,  then you get what your paying
> for.

Yep.  Although ever system I build from now on will use a $125
2-channel/2-disc 
3Ware ATA RAID controller in RAID-0 (for workstations) or RAID-1
(for 
servers).  That also frees up the on-chipset ATA/IDE controllers.

> Can't you add a third IDE channel to a machine?

Yep, with a fourth.  You can even add more, although some vendor's
drivers are 
not good at multiple cards (especially in Windows), so you should
alternate 
cards from different vendors.  Or you can just pick up a 3Ware card
and use it 
to drive your ATA/IDE disks.  Mega performance with an on-board,
32-bit 
microcontroller with integrated RAM (in addition to the actual IDE
controller).

> Are there any hdparm settings that can be used on CD-ROM drives?

Yes, although most ATA/IDE CD-ROMs don't seem to support the full
ATAPI spec.  
I.e., when I run "hdparm -v /dev/hdX" it often fails to read a few
values.

> <rant>System performance is more complicated than the speed ratings
> of each individual component.

No crap.  The Pentium IV is a perfect example, which is much slower
MHz for MHz 
than a Pentium III (let alone an Athlon!) in most functions.  And
forget 
the "Pentium IV optimized" crap because it usually means using
_lossy_ float-
point via SSE/SSE2 (which is really interpolated integer math) which
affects 
precision (quite noticable with image compression -- like with
MPEG-4 encoding).

> I've seen both individuals and companies waste significant
> amounts of money on "upgrades" that accomplished nothing
> because they didn't bother to examine the interrelations
> of the various subsystems,  but viewed them as discrete
> entities.

Especially servers!  You need I/O in servers, not just dual
processor.  That's 
why I buy servers with ServerWorks chipsets.  It is also why Intel
cross-
licensed their products.  I understand the i845 SDRAM chipset for
Pentium IV is 
of their design.  Too bad Intel forcing mainboard manufacturers to
"cripple" it 
as SDR-only (when it does do DDR).

> I call this the "Best Buy" mentality,

No joke.  BTW, did you hear that Best Buy bought out another
retailer that was 
implementing Linux as their POS device?  Now they are going Embedded
NT like 
Best Buy.  Ever ask cashiers at Best Buy about the "reliability" of
their 
system?  Every 3rd time I go, the backend is down and rebates won't
print.  And 
when people comment about how "cool" the POS screen is, the cashier
always 
says, "yeah, when the system is working."

> Bob probably refers to it as "The Gateway Syndrome". :) </rant>

Gateway 2000 royally screws up their Athlons.  They use the utmost
quality in 
Intel components, but the cheapest in Athlons.  They don't even use
Athlon-
rated power supplies!  That's the ultimate insult.

The problem isn't that AMD doesn't "certify" hardware, its just that
people 
don't bother to check.  Same thing with Linux, people assume that
RedHat, 
Caldera and others don't "certify" their products with various
databases, 
storage, backup, etc... but they do.  In fact, we recently had a
discussion 
about one tech who had to argue with his boss that RedHat had a
higher/better 
vendor certification than HP/9000-UX on his exact, proposed database
(Oracle), 
storage (Want to say "something-Stor?) and backup (cannot remember
the library) 
components for their configuration, while 1/3rd the price!  His boss
still 
refused to go Linux.

-- TheBS