Re: sharing SCSI disks

Harald Koenig (koenig@tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de)
Fri, 21 Mar 1997 08:19:41 +0100 (MET)

> Actually, bang-for-buck I was thinking more along the lines of $50
> NCR/Symbios 53c810-based cards (Fast, not wide, not ultra, but PCI).
> This would compare well to cheap fast ethernet cards, even better if
> the systems were already SCSI and shared one ultra or ultra/wide (tho
> wide cabling gets expensive) bus. You wouldn't get the cable distance
> (and the cables would be more expensive), but it would likely beat out
> both fast ethernet cards with a $1000 fast ethernet hub and a 2-card-
> per-machine point-to-point forwarding ring setup (assuming your fast
> ethernet cards use the wires in a way which enables crossover cabling).

I always thought that the protocol overhead of SCSI for small packages
would be *much* higher than for ethernet cards.

wouldn't this boil down all the benefits for some (most?) applications ?
if you use your network *only* to copy large junks of data, ok.
but what e.g. for distributed computing where communication latency often
is more important than communication bandwidth ?

Harald

--
All SCSI disks will from now on                     ___       _____
be required to send an email notice                0--,|    /OOOOOOO\
24 hours prior to complete hardware failure!      <_/  /  /OOOOOOOOOOO\
                                                    \  \/OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO\
                                                      \ OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO|//
Harald Koenig,                                         \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Inst.f.Theoret.Astrophysik                              //  /     \\  \
koenig@tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de                     ^^^^^       ^^^^^