IDE- vs. SCSI-based NAS

What are the kinds of applications for which and IDE-based NAS is more suitable than a SCSI-based NAS device?
Usually, the ATA (or IDE which is more technically correct) drive-based solutions have less capacity than the SCSI or Fibre Channel-based NAS devices. The ATA drives usually have less performance due to RPMs and also are more susceptible to performance variations due to rotational vibration issues since a single processor is handling the command execution as well as the servo positioning (that's one way they save costs).

In general, you should look at capacity and duty cycle but in general you won't see much difference between the solutions. The capacities are very large now and the network is usually the performance bottleneck and not the NAS device. So, no easy answer but I wouldn't rule out either solution for most environments where NAS is used.

Randy Kerns
Evaluator Group, Inc.

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