SCSI Remains the I/O Interface of Choice for Workstations: An analysis comparing SCSI and Ultra DMA (PDF)
A White Paper prepared by Tom Martin and Andy Scholl of Adaptec, for the SCSI Trade Association

Summary
The new Ultra DMA claims to double drive performance, yet benchmark tests demonstrate a
performance gain of less than five percent over older EIDE drives.

 
Introduction
Users performing data-intensive tasks such as CAD/CAM, desktop publishing, and digital media
content creation continue to use high-performance workstations as their computing workhorses.
These applications test the workstation’s I/O power. Now SCSI, the traditional I/O powerhouse, is
facing challenges from the recently released Ultra DMA interface standard. Yet, benchmark tests on
Ultra DMA drives show limited performance improvements over previous generation ATA drives,
while similar benchmark tests on Ultra SCSI drives reveal significant performance improvements over
Ultra DMA. Further, the performance gap widens with the next generation Ultra2 SCSI drives.