Hipnotic_Tranz
The drive with the single centronics-alike connector is a hot-swappable drive, a so called SCA drive.
SCA stands for "Single Connector Attachment". It is a standard being worked on by the ANSI Small Form Factor (SFF) committee. It combines WIDE SCSI signals, Power connections and ID switch connections onto one connector. The main reason for creating this standard was to make it easier to connect drives in a hot-swappable RAID configuration.
You'll need a SCA-adapter for that HDD. I dunno if yer need an LVD or just the regular SCA-adapter, I would have to check the hdd-model.
Those drives yer got there are OLD (old=slow). They can't compete with newer IDE drives, only maybe with their lower access times, but STR is, uhm, slow. But they'll be great to introduce you to SCSI.
The Cheetah 4LP is Seagates first generation 10K SCSI drive, it'll be LOUD and HOT, so make sure it receives active cooling. Even the second generation Cheetah 9LP (I still use one) is quite loud and runs quite hot.
So, SCSI vs IDE, which one is better ???
And the answer is: There is no real answer.
SCSI is luxus for home users. IDE has the best $/GB ratio. SCSI is common in a server but even there it gets replaced more and more with IDE, even for RAID setups. But there are still certain servers that will remain SCSI, like database-, news- and mailserver.
SCSI has some big advantages over IDE in the technical section (number of devices per cable, cable length, simultanious data-transfer) and one drawback: cost per GB.
I love my SCSI system and my next setup will have a 15K SCSI drive for OS and the latest games. The rest of the storage setup will be IDE (HDD and optical drives), I might even go with an IDE RAID-5 setup even though it won't have the greatest performance.
I have to agree somewhat with Gand1: I can afford it and I want it, that's it. It might help that I don't have a family to take care of, so every Euro DocSilly brings home each month gets into DocSilly's own pocket
