Jonathan Sachs wrote:
I'm assembling a new system in a couple of months, and am facing the
old dilemma: SCSI or IDE disks?

I have traditionally insisted on SCSI disks because they're faster and
more reliable. Lately I've been having some hearing problems, though,
and the drive noise is bothering me. Thus I'm motivated to use IDE
drives in my next system if I can do so without too much compromise.

What about performance? If I run two or or three disk-intensive
applications under Windows, will there be much practical difference
between a pair of fast Ultra320 drives and a pair of fast IDE drives?

I will have at least three IDE devices: two hard disks and a CD/RW or
DVD drive. I'm assuming that each device should go on a dedicated
channel. If so, should I get a mainboard with four IDE channels built
in, or will an add-on adapter work equally well?

What about reliability? Are modern IDE drives reliable enough for all
practical purposes? (I define this to mean a negligible chance of
failure over a system life of three years, with the drives running
almost constantly.) Are there any popular brands or models which have
particularly good or bad reputations?

My mail address is jsachs177 at earthlink dot net.

I suggest neither SCSI nor IDE (meaning PATA) HDs, but SATA. SATA
is the successor to PATA, with better performance and better cabling.
I think that a good current choice would be SATA for HDs and PATA
for DVD/CD stuff.

Modern HDs have MTBFs, regardless of bus, on the order of 10 years.
What you get in practice depends a lot on the environment; pay real
attention to cooling (air flow) and make sure that your power supply
choice is based on attributes other than price.
--
Cheers, Bob