scsi raid (i finally get it er sorta but enough i think)

[Wolfsraider]

been reading up on scsi bandwidths and uses and was looking at raid for a while but today i finally found the answer to my questions.

i was looking to go scsi raid for a server and for my website using a p-4 2.2,i was told it was overkill and probably out of my range.

but until today i hadn't seen any numbers to convince me not to do you know how many searches you have to run with google to get the numbers for scsi raid u160 15000rpm drives lol

but using a standard desktop motherboard it is apparently unfeasible especially anything over 2 drives 60 mb x2 = 120 mb >100 ata spec or 20 mb wasted on sustained transfers and max 69 bursts are worse so with the u160 15000 drives more than two single or raided are a waste and raid 0 isn't acceptable in 32 bit mobo's right because of topping out the ata 1oo/133 ceiling also since there are what 2 64 bit mobo 64/66 then choices are very limited

u320 makes this even worse even though they sound great

so i will be revising my system to omit raid scsi at least until i learn much more (linux your next lol)

i will still be going mostly scsi for the faster seeks,the it just feels faster, the no 6 second wait for the cdrom to spin up before using the mouse and the biggie downloading surfing and burning all at tha same time lol drool

any comments about scsi: cdrw's,dvds,scanners, and on a side note ls-120 what for?is it really all that?

ps i think i found a 27 inch used black monitor for 329.00 us used

any comments on the scsi appreciated

heres the specs for the computer

Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 Processor (Northwood) 1.6GHz, 400MHz FSB, Socket 478 (No Memory) Retail

Abit TH7II-Raid i850 P4 Skt478 RDRAM ATX Motherboard w/Audio, RAID Retail

ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV 64MB DDR Video Card w/DVI, Video in & Video out Retail

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy PCI Sound Card w/FireWire port

Adaptec SCSI Card 29160

Seagate Cheetah X15 36LP ST336752LW 36.7GB 68pin 15k RPM 3.7MS Ultra160 SCSI Hard Drive

Subtotal: $2345.93

now original budget was in the 3000,00 plus range so help me out on what's left

oh and the case is a cube server case unless you can recommend why that wouldn't work or can tell me of problems associated with same?

thanks all

any and all coments welcomed partial or full

 

[RSMemphis]

What OS are you going to run?

For a server, you don't want RAID 0 - it's suicide.
You want RAID 1, or, if you can afford it, RAID 5.

For Linux and FreeBSD, there are software RAID 5 solutions, which will however tax your system.
Hardware SCSI Raid cards may really be out of your league.

If the SCSI controller only handles a RAID 5, you probably still avoid the 32 bit PCI bottleneck.
For RAID 0, it does not matter anyway.

Hey, here's a thought for you. This is a server, right? One network card? Maximum of 100 MBit/s, or about 8-10 MB/s when including all the overhead for tcp/ip...

So, don't worry about the SCSI-PCI bottleneck unless you have 2-4 network connections that will be fully used (T1 or better)

 

[Oyeve]

Let me know if you are in the market for SCSI raid cards. I have several and am looking to sell them cheap. PM me.

 

[Wolfsraider]

<< For RAID 0, it does not matter anyway. >>



what do you mean here?

xp pro is the os i am thinking of using/with a linux flavored dual boot ,but not sure which flavor maybe apache and suse but still researching that end lol



<< If the SCSI controller only handles a RAID 5, you probably still avoid the 32 bit PCI bottleneck. >>



would this be due to read/writes between the drives and the slower outputs to the pci bus?



<< Hey, here's a thought for you. This is a server, right? One network card? Maximum of 100 MBit/s, or about 8-10 MB/s when including all the overhead for tcp/ip... >>



yes on both accounts




<< So, don't worry about the SCSI-PCI bottleneck unless you have 2-4 network connections that will be fully used (T1 or better) >>



are you saying that it would handle this ok/decent? or would it be better to say go with a 15k boot drive and a raid 10k array on a 32 bit bus or would that make a difference?ie...would the losses be cost effective in 15k vs 10k or is this an apples to oranges comparison?

and thanks for answering rsmemphis


Oyeve:

yes i am intrested,but in fairness it might be a little bit before i am ready to make purchases are you ok with that?as i am still unclear as to the road ahead for now,grasshopper must train harder now lol

thanks guys for the imputs , mike

wow and thanks for responding to a newbie in the scsi field so quickly

 

[ChrisIsBored]

You might save your budget a bit by changing processors as well. P4's aren't built for servers, they're desktop/multimedia processors. Find yourself a good Tyan motherboard for either a P3 setup or AMD.