lots of geeksters look down their nose at cnet .. but i actually like them.

didn't have time to read the whole thing, but noticed a few things right off.

first, benchmarks are programmed sequentially, which means they don't take into account scsi's multitasking capabilities. i ran benchmarks after upgrading to scsi's and found that real-world performance far exceeded what benchmarks indidcated.

2nd, he says this about the seek/access spec:

"But on the desktop? You'll never spot the difference."

That depends what you're doing with your pc. If by "desktop" they mean "surfing the web & checking email" okay. But even girls notice a big differece over an ide-based system.

lastly, they make a big deal about the price differential. the thing is, you only want scsi to run your os, apps & swap/page file. you don't need more than 18gb for that, even if you double/multi boot.

you can buy an x15-36lp for ~$200 .. that's thje fastest drive on the planet.

the proof is in the pudding and it depends on what you do. the more you access the disk, the more you'll appreciate a scsi boot drive.

i have banged heads in so many scsi-vs-ide threads that i don't ever want to do another. i was angry at ppl who told me 'scsi isn't worth the cost'. then i tried it for myself and wished i woulda jumped on board sooner. i tolerated a (relatively) slow ide-based machine cuz i listened to those clowns.

caveat: scsi is not for everyone.

you will find precious few ppl who have gone scsi and say it wasn't worth it for them. 98% of these ppl (like me) continue to buy scsi disks to this day. (i have 3 in my system - 1 15K & 2x10Krpm)

yeah, i can't imagine the guy actually used the drive for anything substantial. if he actually used an x15-36lp for a couple of weeks, and then went back to a system based on an ide drive, he'd be crying like a baby.