If you know SCSI
 

Basically, the only thing I know about SCSI drives is that they are expensive and fast. I just started doing some research and found this: “the SCSI controller can multitask, so the CPU is not locked up during hard disk operations.”

Is SCSI the real answer to speeding up PokerTracker? Would the difference be large? Does a 15000 rpm SCSI drive actually “work” over twice as fast as a 7200 rpm IDE? Even faster than that because of the multitasking? Or will the difference be less than that because of things I don’t understand?

Any tips, hints, links to “how to” information appreciated.

Thanks.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

[ QUOTE ]
Basically, the only thing I know about SCSI drives is that they are expensive and fast. I just started doing some research and found this: “the SCSI controller can multitask, so the CPU is not locked up during hard disk operations.”

Is SCSI the real answer to speeding up PokerTracker? Would the difference be large? Does a 15000 rpm SCSI drive actually “work” over twice as fast as a 7200 rpm IDE? Even faster than that because of the multitasking? Or will the difference be less than that because of things I don’t understand?

Any tips, hints, links to “how to” information appreciated.

Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think it would make that much of a difference. I'm using a 10k SATA drive (western digital raptor) and don't see much of a speed increase.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

what if they were set up as a raid?

Re: If you know SCSI
 

http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-in...ormanceFactors

they have forums as well

short answer: don't worry about scsi or raid

Re: If you know SCSI
 

can you set up SATA drives on RAID?

Re: If you know SCSI
 

Re: If you know SCSI
 

Thanks for the link.

Why do you say “don't worry about scsi”? Are you speaking from experience or from what you’ve read?

The more I’m reading the more it sounds like it will make a big difference, particularly in seek time which is extremely important in database access. It appears to me that a fast SCSI drive actually would “perform” at more than twice the speed of an IDE. Not?

Re: If you know SCSI
 

scsi is for servers. U dont' need that kind of power for poker. If u want, the best thing to go for is western digital raptors set up in raid 0. That is fast and much cheaper and more compatibale that scsi. raptors run around 130 i believe a piece and u get two, set up raid 0.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

The real trick to speeding up pokertracker is to get away from access databases.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

/sigh

I know I don’t “need” the power. That is not the question. The question is “Will a SCSI drive significantly reduce the lag when PT accesses the database?”

I am not concerned with cost, only with performance. From my past few hours of research, it appears that a computer boots twice as fast and programs open twice as fast just because of the drive speed. It also appears that the random seek time of SCSI drives is less than half of that of IDE – and it seems to me that that seek time is the actual bottleneck in database access.

Has anyone here used a SCSI drive?

BTW, from personal experience, I can tell you that Raid 0 makes very little difference even if it is set up correctly, using two channels.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

I personally use a couple of 15k RPM 73GB scsi disks set up in a raid 1 with some good soundproofing, but all you really need to check is seek times and somewhat pay attention to cache size. Eventually you get onto limited improvements the quicker your disks rotate. And yes, the trick to speeding up pokertracker is to stop using an access db. I'll take SCSI over IDE/SATA any day unless I'm looking for a cheap huge disk array where I've got a good number of failsafes. IDE disks especially are built for desktop use, not longterm hard disk usage. SCSI disks are built for server usage, where access is going to be hard and continuous. The strange thing is, from what I understand the actual platters are pretty much identical, the only difference is the disk hardware, cooling, and some mechanics.

There are some very good SATA disks out that may not eclipse SCSI in quality and performance, but they're certainly a damned good substitute for half as much money.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

performance wise, u are not going to get a lot more out of scsi than rators in raid 0 for party poker. If u were running a server, thats a differnt story. It is ridiculous to spend so much on scsi drives when u get diminishing positive results for such things as to run poker tracker and 16 tables at once if u want and some other stuff, but u have to have a good proces and a good amount of ram at least a gig.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

[ QUOTE ]
The real trick to speeding up pokertracker is to get away from access databases.

[/ QUOTE ]

quoted for truth

Re: If you know SCSI
 

i'm speaking from vast experience

if cost is not a concern, you should house your database on a ramdrive or solid state disk

Re: If you know SCSI
 

Unanimous against. OK. Let me just hope the nature of my beast allows me to take the advice and not cause me to go ahead and try it anyway. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Ramdisk is an interesting idea, definitely the fastest solution. I haven’t used it for years – something to think about.

Thanks guys.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

[ QUOTE ]
There are some very good SATA disks out that may not eclipse SCSI in quality and performance, but they're certainly a damned good substitute for half as much money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: If you know SCSI
 

[ QUOTE ]
if cost is not a concern, you should house your database on a ramdrive or solid state disk

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course building a RAM drive to hold the DB would probably require a new motherboard, as many these days have problems with even 2GB :-( Sheesh, my old 440GX board would do 2GB no problem. Stupid timing issues with DDR, bah I say.

EDIT: duh, cost no issue. Well if you really want to spend a buy-in to the big game at Bellagio, go right ahead :0)

FWIW I plan on putting the Pokertracker DB on a RAID5 SATA array when the PostgreSQL implementation is released. I figure I got this hardware raid chip on the mobo, might as well use it :0)

Re: If you know SCSI
 

[ QUOTE ]

FWIW I plan on putting the Pokertracker DB on a RAID5 SATA array when the PostgreSQL implementation is released. I figure I got this hardware raid chip on the mobo, might as well use it :0)

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't have a hardware raid chip on your motherboard, you have a shitty software implementation that still uses the processor for raid calculations. And you better check to see if that onboard even supports raid5.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

[ QUOTE ]
http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-in...leDriveVsRaid0

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Thanks for the link. I've seen you say that many times, but it was good to see some numbers to back it up.

Freakin

Re: If you know SCSI
 

[ QUOTE ]
You don't have a hardware raid chip on your motherboard, you have a shitty software implementation

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you know, I hate it when people are right. This is what I get for not paying attention to the latest hardware. You assume that just because software raid chips didn't do raid5 a couple years ago that anything that does raid5 must be a hardware raid solution. bleh the thing won't even work in a proper OS either (non M$). Time to buy a new motherboard I guess... I could really go for one of those 90 micron Athlon64's :0)

Re: If you know SCSI
 

hardware raid cards aren't particularly expensive, promise makes some pretty good ones, 3ware as well although if I remember correctly 3ware either stopped making 32-bit cards, or just stopped making 32-bit IDE cards. And of course, adaptec makes some good ones as well. But really, hardware raids are pretty overrated when your CPU/RAM isn't going to be fully tasked towards serving something else. The only reason I'd lean towards a hardware raid is if, like you're talking about, I'm going to be using another OS where the software raid just won't function or if I want a braindead solution where I won't have to instruct somebody how to resync a new disk.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

It’s been so long since I’ve used a ramdisk I didn’t even realize that Microsoft no longer includes it. Bah. The ramdisk.sys in Windows now is just an “outline” of what an actual driver might look like. WTF.

Oh well. Next step. Just for the heck of it I ordered an LSI Logic LSI8951U Ultra2 LVD SCSI Card, Western Digital 9.1GB Ultra2 10K RPM SCSI Drive, and cable, all for $45. Can I shop or what. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Not high end stuff but it should be enough to firmly convince me whether or not ...

If it makes a noticeable difference I’ll come back and gloat. If it doesn’t, I’ll just keep quiet so I don't have to read all the "I told you so" posts.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

you wasted your money. that hard drive is ancient and it would be retarded to compare it to anything.

http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-in...ormanceFactors

[ QUOTE ]
in the end, a drive's interface (ATA, SATA, SCSI, SAS, etc) has little effect on its performance. Like spindle speed, an interface exerts its effects more through manufacturer and market positioning. Note that while SCSI drives are undoubtedly more expensive than their ATA counterparts, they are not necessarily faster for non-server use. In fact, the safe rule-of-thumb is that given equal spindle speeds, a current-generation ATA drive will be faster than a current-generation SCSI unit.

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...and yours is not remotely close to a current generation drive. western digital hasn't manufactured a scsi drive in years.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

You need one of those scsi cards with a 10-led light bar. those are awesome.... too bad my only machine that ever had EISA died, otherwise mine would still be running.....

Freakin

Re: If you know SCSI
 

astroglide, let me make one thing clear right off the bat – I don’t doubt at all that you already know more about disk drives than I will ever know. That point is not in question. I am not disagreeing with you, I am trying to understand why you say what you say and where my thinking is going wrong.

It is my understanding that a SCSI system uses a chip on board the controller to control disk access and an IDE drive uses the CPU. We see this evidenced when CPU usage goes to 100% during database accesses. What I am reading on the link you provided is that the SCSI controller will eliminate much of that CPU usage. Am I wrong about that?

My current hard drive has a seek time of 8.9ms. The old SCSI drive I ordered has a seek time of 5ms. My current drive spins at 7200 rpm. The SCSI drive spins at 10000 rpm. Don’t these speed differences in themselves mean that the time it takes for the database updates will be significantly reduced simply because the drive is faster – even if I am wrong in my understanding of CPU usage?

Keep in mind that my only objective is to minimize the time that the CPU is pegged at 100% during PT database updates. I am not questioning whether SCSI in general is “better” than IDE for a typical computer user or whether the difference is “worth it.” I am only trying to determine whether or not it will minimize CPU usage during database updates.

Where am I going wrong?

Re: If you know SCSI
 

If your CPU is pegged, then you're most likely not IO bound. You might check your data transfer rates to make sure you've got things like UDMA enabled (sometimes this gets shut off for one reason or another).

It really sounds like your box is just having trouble crunching the numbers on PT which isn't going to get fixed by a SCSI system, unless you also throw quad Xeons behind it.

Methinks those "database updates" are PT doing all kinds of B-Tree inserts, indexing, etc. Get an Athlon 64 and some SATA drives and be happy w/ the performance you get there


Just my .02

Re: If you know SCSI
 

[ QUOTE ]
The real trick to speeding up pokertracker is to get away from access databases.

[/ QUOTE ]

seriously, why sql isnt used still baffles me.
as far as how scsi performs with pt now...im running an x15 and performance is better than with a 7200, but it seems only slightly faster than my buddys 10k raptor. so it probably wouldnt be worth the extra money for just pt use.

i think its just pretty crushing to access that much data at one time...hardware upgrades wont get you there much faster.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

scsi cpu utilization under real load is going to be better than ata, but both are still in the low single digits in terms of percentage overhead (read: generally irrelevant). try copying your pokertracker database to your desktop using your ata drive. does your cpu utilization go insane then? the load isn't being generated there. pokertracker does name queries and misc preparation each time it is loaded (as evidenced by the xxx of xxx loading at the bottom of the screen).

for seek/rpms look at http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-in...ormanceFactors again. #1 is firmware/buffer. for non-server usage the buffer is where most things are going to be read (this could be spelled out better on item #3, it isn't extremely clear for casual readers). random seeking is only a priority concern on high-performance servers where all kinds of data from all kinds of points on the disk are accessed simultaneously. desktop multitasking does not generate that kind of load. this is also the only point where command queueing begins to matter.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

You can buy a solid state HD with a 3.5" interface.

If cost isn't a huge deal this is by far the best bet.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

Everything is talking about non-server usage. Maybe that’s my point. I’m thinking that the act of repeatedly reading and writing to a large number of non-sequential disk locations as the database updates makes this application come closer to server usage than to typical home computing.

For typical home computing, game play, file transfers like CD burning, stuff like that, the nature of the disk activity is mainly sequential reads and writes. When it comes to the PT database updates, the nature of the disk activity requires a great many seeks, both for reading and for writing – just like a server.

That’s what’s leading me to believe that the faster seek time, faster spindle speed, and the (perhaps) superior algorithms of SCSI should make a very noticeable difference.

Ah well. Mayb my little $45 experiment will teach me something. Believe it or not, I really do like learning new things.

Thanks for your input.

BTW, to those who mentioned it, PT will soon be switching to PostgreSQL.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

your database is one large file which will be stored in a contiguous segment on a properly defragmented hard drive. reads and writes done to it should be in a very localized physical zone, with the actuator not having to travel any signifigant distance.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

I defrag daily with PerfectDisk 7. All files are packed to the front of the drive leaving no empty spaces and the PT database files is always last since it changes the most frequently. The database file fragments immediately upon use, probably on the first import.

Maybe this is where is my understanding of how a drive and a database operates begins to be inadequate. I don’t really know how much seeking the drive needs to do for a file that is fragmented but still physically close together. I also don’t know how much jumping back and forth between the physically separated hand history file and the database file PT does.

One more thing that I don’t understand at all. It appears from the PerfectDisk display of the file locations that the newly fragmented sections of the PT database are not being written to the next available sector on the disk but are instead being written to the end of the disk. I’m not sure that I am interpreting the graphic correctly, since I thought Windows always assigns the next available free space for writes. Time to bury DOS and study up on the MFT Zone and NTFS, I guess.

If the updated sectors are actually physically distanced from the rest of the file then the seeks are certainly increased, with each seek being to the physical end of the disk rather than to a nearby sector. This enforces my thinking that the multi-tasking of poker resembles server usage more than it resembles typical home computer multi-tasking.

Re: If you know SCSI
 

The results are in. SCSI drive made no noticeable difference in CPU usage. Some of you already knew that.