SCSI or SATA?

[akshatp]

I am building an Exchange server for a small business client/friend of mine and they have 4 employees. The server will be running all the time.

My question is it really worth the extra dollars for a SCSI RAID controlled and SCSI drives?

Right now, his current exchange server is running on a Dell Precision Workstation with a single SCSI Seagate drive, and has been running for 4 years now with no problems.

I dont want to make him spend an extra 1000 dollars or so if it isnt really necessary. i was thinking a two SATA drive configuration running RAID 1 should be okay? I doubt both drives would ever fail at the same time.

Thoughts?

 

[Lord Evermore]

It would depend on how important the employees' time is and how important the uptime is of the machine. If a hard drive fails, SATA RAID ought to let the system keep running so that you can get out there and replace the drive later, so during business hours there should be no downtime. If it doesn't matter that it's down for awhile during off-hours, then I'd say it sounds like it'd work fine. Given that it's been running for 4 years and nobody was concerned about the possibility of that one drive failing, I'd say a RAID1 SATA array would be enormously more reliable and beneficial to the productivity of the company.

 

[Blain]

This may be a good alternative for you...
HD racks for hotswap SATA HDs. If it would benefit them, a RAID 0+1 array wouldn't be too expensive.

 

[Soulkeeper]

yeah sata is a great option for small businesses right now
i just picked up 2 sata 320GB drives and plan to put them in raid1 when they arrive
another option would be 4 drives in raid10 (which i feel is better than raid 0+1/1+0/5) giving both speed and redundancy benefits
scsi is mostly if you got 1000 bucks you won't notice gone and/or if you absolutely must have the fastest possible drives on the market
as far as hotswapping goes i havn't really checked much into doing that with sata but i think it could be done if you spend enough on a controller card

 

[SuperSix]

Sheesh... :disgust:

There's a few factors to think about.

How many people will be connecting to this server?
What type of "serving" with this server do?
(Application, storage, Exchange)

SCSI definately has it's place. Yes, SATA is fast, SATA3g has good hot-swap capabilities, but for REAL, near line servers, SCSI is still the best (albeit expensive) solution. SATA still can't touch SCSI for pure I/O. (

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD1500ADFD_6.html
See section labeled: IOMeter File Server Pattern -Raptor vs 10,000RPM SCSI Drives"

Lord Evermore - " I'd say a RAID1 SATA array would be enormously more reliable and beneficial to the productivity of the company. "
SATA is more reliable than SCSI? "beneficial to the productivity of the company"? Huh? A RAID 1?

Are you a politician?

If ANYTHING, run a RAID5 with an addiional hotwap...

 

[jose]

Just get a Hardware based raid 5 controller in a 64bit pci-x controller.

Include enough drives to have hot spare's. ie 3 - 4 hd's in raid 5 and 1 -2 ded. hot spare's.

I use both w/ LSI controllers. (scsi & sata) .. I use 15k scsi for application servers and 7200rpm wd raid ed. drives for mass storage.

The most important is use a "REAL" hardware controller. I recomend LSI ...

Regards,
Jose

 

[SuperSix]

Originally posted by: jose
Just get a Hardware based raid 5 controller in a 64bit pci-x controller.

Include enough drives to have hot spare's. ie 3 - 4 hd's in raid 5 and 1 -2 ded. hot spare's.

I use both w/ LSI controllers. (scsi & sata) .. I use 15k scsi for application servers and 7200rpm wd raid ed. drives for mass storage.

The most important is use a "REAL" hardware controller. I recomend LSI ...

Regards,
Jose

Another vote for LSI - they make Intel's RAID cards.

3Ware/AMCC is also a good brand. Promise and most Adaptec's are not hardware RAID cards.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: SuperSix
Lord Evermore - " I'd say a RAID1 SATA array would be enormously more reliable and beneficial to the productivity of the company. "
SATA is more reliable than SCSI? "beneficial to the productivity of the company"? Huh? A RAID 1?

I was referring to the fact that ANY sort of redundant solution would be more reliable than a single drive, whether it's SCSI or not.

 

[akshatp]

4 employees connect to the server

 

[n0cmonkey]

Don't build, buy a Dell or HP. It's worth it.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: akshatp
4 employees connect to the server

If I were doing a cost benefit analysis, I would price out both SCSI and SATA, and then weigh the cost difference against the hourly pay rate average of those 4 employees.

I would also factor in an estimated annual cost to own - that would include support from the vendor, etc.

And, ultimately, what would the benefit be of changing from what they are presently using. With all that info, your friend can make an intelligent business decision. You don't necessarily want to be the "blame officer."