SCSI vs. ATA
For pure performance, SCSI is still king. However, SCSI is also expensive up front and on a per-gigabyte basis. For machines in the sub-$1,000 price class, we recommend ATA (IDE)-based hard-disk subsystems--the price per gigabyte and lack of up-front costs make ATA the best deal. Go SCSI only if you need the performance premium it offers.
Another interesting thing we learned during our hard-disk testing is that some manufacturers (IBM and HP among the vendors in our review) turn off write caching on their server-class hardware, even on ATA systems. When you're looking at the write performance of these servers, this may seem like a huge disadvantage--but the truth is that it makes good sense. If you lose power during a cached writing operation, you will lose not only that data, but possibly all the data on a given disk. Though data loss is possible with or without write cache enabled, the chances of disaster increase enormously with write caching on because the "crash death" window is much bigger. This risk can be mitigated by a UPS, but we find the approach sensible even in light of the performance penalty. Designing on the side of caution is wise in the server space.
We liked all the machines we received for this review, and a couple are fantastic deals to boot. Take the Dell 600SC and the Gateway 920: Both were able performers and included small tape drives, anticipating a future need and still staying within our price, Gateway by more than $100. We wouldn't hesitate to recommend either one.
The HP tc2120 is a strong contender, sporting a SCSI drive system. The IBM eServer xSeries and Lantech Database 2700 use an older motherboard chipset, meaning they have only 32-bit, 33-MHz buses, making them less competitive in the long run. At the end of the day, an on-board RAID card, a Xeon processor and the ability to add a second Xeon made HP's ProLiant ML330 the winner of this review.
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