How many PCI IDE controllers can a system handle?

eP?

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Mar 12, 2000
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We're looking at building a server. We want to maximize storage space while spending the least amount of money possible (doesn't everyone?) so we naturally decided to go with IDE drives. We are planning on using a Tyan dual Athlon MP MB, either the Tiger MPX (S2466) or the Thunder K7X (S2468), with the maximum 4GB of RAM. We'd then like to install at least two PCI IDE cards to support a CD burner and around 12 IDE hard drives. Is this a pipe dream or can it be done? We will be using Redhat linux. Will there be any problems with Linux and this many IDE drives? BTW, the drives will 120 GB drives.

Does anyone know if future dual processor Athlon based boards will support more than 4 GB of RAM? We'd eventually like to go to 8 GB or beyond. I know there are several Intel based boards which can do this, but the cost for the similarly configured Intel setup is nearly $700 more.

Thanks
 

Derango

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Jan 1, 2002
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First of all, IDE and a file server = not a real good idea.

And it will work with as many PCI IDE controllers as you have PCI slots for.
 

miken

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Mar 22, 2000
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IDE and File Servers are like Oil and water.

That is unless it's not a mission critical server, and it doesn't matter when a drive goes out.

Go get a few big scsi drives instead of alot of small IDE's. You will have a hard time finding a board that will go above 4G in the AMD arena, unless you start clustering, they just aren't moving that way fully yet.
 

eP?

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Mar 12, 2000
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Thanks for the replies. I guess I should have embellished a little more. This is not a file server as most people know it. We have a Dell file server that has several backups run daily for our critical data and everything there is run off of 4 73 gig scsi drives. This machine is for data analysis of brain waves. We more or less just need a place to dump the data sets until I can back them to tape. It needs the RAM because we load the data sets into memory and do complex matrix decomposition of the data. I just need several drives for many large data sets that are created on a daily basis.


Thanks again.
 

Derango

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Jan 1, 2002
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Originally posted by: eP?
Thanks for the replies. I guess I should have embellished a little more. This is not a file server as most people know it. We have a Dell file server that has several backups run daily for our critical data and everything there is run off of 4 73 gig scsi drives. This machine is for data analysis of brain waves. We more or less just need a place to dump the data sets until I can back them to tape. It needs the RAM because we load the data sets into memory and do complex matrix decomposition of the data. I just need several drives for many large data sets that are created on a daily basis.


Thanks again.


Ah, it should be fine then...just backup real quick :)
 

zephyrprime

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2001
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I sounds like you may not know about RAID adapters. They allow you to connect multiple hard drives together and have them act as a single drive. You can also have mirroring and striping and such. Check out www.promise.com or www.adaptec.com.