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Principles of SCSI Standard Explained

SCSI Basics Posted

by Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 08/15/2005 | 11:48 PM ]

BigBruin has posted an article that explains the principles of SCSI hard disk drives technology. SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface, which can be used for connecting not only hard disk drives to computers, but also some other peripherals, such as tape drives, optical drives, printers, and scanners. The author takes a look at a few basic features of SCSI related to hard drives, and compares them to Parallel ATA and Serial ATA drives.

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“Regardless of drive type, real-world performance never equals theoretical maximum values, but higher specifications imply higher potential real-world performance. Even with the latest SATA standard doubling its speed, it is easy to see that the more established Ultra320 SCSI standard has a sizeable edge in transfer rates (320 MBps > 300 MBps), in addition to the other factors that make SCSI so robust. By 2008, SATA throughput rates are expected to reach 600 MBps, but time will tell. Another speed comparison can be made between the drives in terms of how fast the disk platters spin. ATA and SATA drives generally spin at a maximum of 7200 RPM (some SATA drives now go up to 10,000 RPM), while it is standard for a SCSI drive to operate at 10,000 or 15,000 RPM. Higher rotational speeds aid in lowering times to access data, as well as when reading and writing,” writes the web-site.