but if oyu use 200GB raid disks... you will NOT be able to boot from
it .. bios just too old
I hadn't thought about that.
So, what if I decide to go out and get a shiny new motherboard. Unless things have changed since the last time I bought a motherboard, most of them have two IDE channels on board. I know to build a RAID on IDE, I'll want the disks each as master on their own channel. Any problem with putting the CD burner as slave to one of the RAID drives? How about the idea of installing first to the old 8G drive, then building the RAID? In my example, I was planning on getting a Promise controller, which would have given me a total of 4 IDE channels. 2 seems a bit limited.
Or would I still need to add the Promise controller?
Boxes with lots of IDE cables in them tend to get hot becuase the ventilation's not good.
Also, if you hve two IDE interfaces, and you discover you don't have enough disk space, what then? Two drives on one IDE controller sucks.
Another controller generally means more big fat cables and worse ventilation, and more heat.
SATA is another matter. I've not actually set eyes on one yet, but skinny cables & better performance. Otherwise, SCSI is the usual recommendation.
A new mobo gives you the opportunity to get all the new technology - SATA, Gigabit, USB2 etc.
good idea ... or better still ... get a free (new) motherboard when you
buy 2x 200GB disks
you have your raid mis-configured if - if you cannot do hands off reboot when any of the disk dies
you have your system properly configured if
- the system should still work flawlessly even if a disk died
and keeps working till the 2nd disk dies, than you lost
everything
( it should be able to work w/o kb, w/o monitor )
Okay, it's taking me a few minutes to get my head wrapped around that
concept, but I think I'm catching up. I figured swapping the cable was
pretty easy, as I have physical access to the machine (it sits in the living
room). However, what you're describing is even better. Good to know that
it will work that well when set up properly.
If it sits in the living room, you really ought take a look at Via's Eden line. Some are fanless (or can be if you don't put too many disk drives in them:-))
You need two wires: 1. Power. 2. LAN.
If you're confident you can secure wireless, then you can get down to one wire.
Also, for backup, consider an external USB drive.
--
Cheers John
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