My Seagate 18gb 7200 rpm disks move 15mb/sec to/from the media. 3 of these drives running at full throttle can completely soak out my measily 40mB/sec (320mbit/sec) ultrawide SCSI. Even if 400mbit/sec firewire was available right now, it still wouldn't be much of an improvement.
Firewire's going to be great for scanners, digital cameras, and the like, but if you have a big stack of large capacity 10,000rpm disks connected to your server, you want ultra2wide SCSI 80mB/sec (640mbit/sec), not 400mbit/sec firewire.
Parallel Port Devices are not well suited for multitasking, multiuser systems. Pushing data through the parallel port is slow, and wastes tons of CPU time. Being able to do other things while you scan may not seem important at first, but keep in mind that a high resolution 8.5x11 scan at 1200x1200x32bpp represents over 100mb of data and on a parallel port scanner can take upwards of 2 minutes to complete! A decent SCSI interface can move 10-40mb/sec. Even the best parallel port interfaces won't move more than 2-3mb/sec.
With scanners, like all things, you get what you pay for. Shell out the extra $30-$50 to get the SCSI scanner and you'll find it performs much better. Scans complete faster, and your computer stays completely responsive while they're in progress.
If you still want to use a parallel port scanner, a small number of them are supported by SANE. Check the list before you buy.
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My Seagate 18gb 7200 rpm disks move 15mb/sec to/from the media. 3 of these drives running at full throttle can completely soak out my measily 40mB/sec (320mbit/sec) ultrawide SCSI. Even if 400mbit/sec firewire was available right now, it still wouldn't be much of an improvement.
Firewire's going to be great for scanners, digital cameras, and the like, but if you have a big stack of large capacity 10,000rpm disks connected to your server, you want ultra2wide SCSI 80mB/sec (640mbit/sec), not 400mbit/sec firewire.
Parallel Port Devices are not well suited for multitasking, multiuser systems. Pushing data through the parallel port is slow, and wastes tons of CPU time. Being able to do other things while you scan may not seem important at first, but keep in mind that a high resolution 8.5x11 scan at 1200x1200x32bpp represents over 100mb of data and on a parallel port scanner can take upwards of 2 minutes to complete! A decent SCSI interface can move 10-40mb/sec. Even the best parallel port interfaces won't move more than 2-3mb/sec.
With scanners, like all things, you get what you pay for. Shell out the extra $30-$50 to get the SCSI scanner and you'll find it performs much better. Scans complete faster, and your computer stays completely responsive while they're in progress.
If you still want to use a parallel port scanner, a small number of them are supported by SANE. Check the list before you buy.