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Still, as Joe said...SCSI is still out there for the having if you really wanted it badly enough.

I've never cared for SCSI. Everything must have it's own ID number, it must be properly terminated and cable length cannot exceed a certain amount. May have been cutting edge back in 1985, but is outdated by todays standards. Let's go with Firewire or something even better. Just plug it in and don't even think about trying to set it up, because it won't be necessary.

I never said IDE is no good. IDE drives are an incredible value and they generally work fine. But in my experience, they are much more likely to abruptly fail than are SCSI drives (I just replaced a dead 40GB IBM IDE drive last week, less than 1 year old). Therefore I don't like the idea of using IDE in mission-critical network servers. When an 80GB IDE drive costs $120, while an 80GB hot-swappable SCSI drive costs $600 (or more), there are valid technical reasons for the price disparity. If Apple used SCSI or fiber-channel in the Xserver instead of IDE, the price of the box would be WAY higher. But its reliability and performance would also be better. Hot-swap SCSI should be offered as a factory option in that system for customers who want it and are willing to pay for it.

Serial ATA would be great. But it is vaporware. And it may always remain as vaporware. Ultra ATA is trying to incorporate RAID capability. But Firewire can do it better. And with Firewire2 looming on the horizon, the Ultra320 SCSI standard may certainly be rendered moot. Hell, with the bandwidth USB 2.0 supports we may soon be seeing USB 2.0 external hard discs.

I'm rooting for things like Firewire and USB 2.0. ONE single type of cable connection. No f**king terminators or IRQs or "is this channel loaded up" nonsense. I realize SCSI is up to Ultra320 standards now. But you are still limited to 7 devices per channel and 15 devices total, with all the continued adapter and terminator headaches.

I've had a few SCSI computers in my time and my dual PII 400MHz was pretty much the last I will ever stomach owning. Items like SCSI based Zip drives and CD-RW drives were extremely problematic. The freaking Zip drive never ever worked right. If anyone is going to buy any kind of new SCSI based system DO NOT under any circumstances buy anything where SCSI is integrated into the motherboard chipset. That is pure, utter garbage.

I loaded DOS 6.22 and Passgas 3.1 on it.

Workstations and utility servers: IDE is perfectly good and much less expensive. SCSI is unnecessary unless you want the nth degree of performance and reliability, and cost is not an issue.

Mission-critical servers: IDE bad. SCSI much better. Initial cost may be higher, but long-term reliability and performance are improved over IDE.

Older SCSI ZIP drives and other external SCSI peripherals that require user configuration of IDs, termination, etc. are a pain in the ass and obsolete.

Newer SCSI system designs for mission-critical applications DO NOT require messing with termination or SCSI ID numbers. I would avoid any such SCSI device like the plague (although tape backup systems still usually require configuration). Fortunately or unfortunately, most high-performance tape backup solutions for networks and servers are SCSI (or fiber-channel, or SAN). If a tape drive is IDE, it's a given that it's a consumer-grade piece of junk.

Firewire, serial ATA, etc: Bring it on!