Re: [H] Pending conversion?
Eli, Pardon me for not responding sooner. You threw me a curve. What you ask me about, I have never even thought of. When I purchased, I chose to add a server to my LAN. Simple as that. History: My server came to me used with acceptable credentials, w/loaded OS, ready to 'play' with. It came to me with a fully installed RAID5 array. It has essentially the very same RAID5 array now, except that today I have 2 hot spares in place. I still consider this machine my local, in-home LAN server learning platform. Yes, it does do what I consider important functions; chiefly, it runs my ESET Enterprise Server/RAS/RAC/Mirror needs. Besides that, it is also my WINS server for my LAN. Probably a separate topic! It is NOT a domain controller (still under study). It came to me with a functional RAID system which I had never owned/built. I have learned much about the care and feeding of a commercial-grade (my belief) RAID system.. Thank you Collective! But, yes, it is a SCSI U160 system. Hence my Initial Pending Conversion. I conjured that I might be able possibly convert from SCSI to SATA without a lot of cost/grief. I am still looking at Bryan's shares and trying to comprehend the following discussion from yourself, Greg, Bryan, and Joshua. All of which I read and try to follow. Admit, much of which leaves me in the dust. No harm, no foul. Thanks folks. My bad, not yours! I could, perhaps, agree that I am playing with a piece of equipment I should never have come in contact with. Fine. Too late! LOL! Best, Duncan On 08/09/2010 23:39, Eli Allen wrote: I don't understand why you want a raid controller. Are you really doing anything that is disk i/o bound? or is it to keep from losing data? Would seem like almost any modern m/b with low end CPU would be faster and you can just use the built in raid to do a mirrored raid. On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:26 PM, DSincdx7...@bellsouth.net wrote: Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
My feeling is I hate servers (just talking about the hardware) unless I really need one. For most home use I don't really see why you'd need one. The main reason I dislike them is they are very loud. But then there is: RAID arrays that they come with really aren't so useful. Are you really disk IO limited or need a really large amount of storage (greater then 2TB)? Does downtime really matter? A raid array with a large number of drives will make the drives dies faster from all the vibrations of that many drives (i.e. hot swaps add to this) Why do you care about hotswaps? Sure a business may not be able to handle being shut down but your home probably doesn't need to be up 24/7. What is the chance of a HDD failing? Not much. So a mirrored raid array of two 2TB drives should be good enough. If you're really paranoid then get a third to keep in a static bag to plug in after a HDD fails, not as a hot spare. There are off site backup services that you can use over the internet if you really want to keep from losing data. If you're all Windows at your house the WHS (Windows Home Server) may be worth taking a look at as its good at automatting backups and sending it offsite. Sure a real raid will be much faster and email alerts when a HDD fails can be nice but you'll spend alot more money on it and is that really your bottleneck? I'm assuming you don't have lots of money to spend on this stuff. If its just about learning IT then the software is much more useful to learn by doing and having (i.e. spending money on) Either the linux path which I'm guessing is cheaper or use the money saved from not getting a pricy raid array to get a technet subscription which would get you all the MS server software you could need: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/default.aspx On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 4:17 PM, DSinc dx7...@bellsouth.net wrote: Eli, Pardon me for not responding sooner. You threw me a curve. What you ask me about, I have never even thought of. When I purchased, I chose to add a server to my LAN. Simple as that. History: My server came to me used with acceptable credentials, w/loaded OS, ready to 'play' with. It came to me with a fully installed RAID5 array. It has essentially the very same RAID5 array now, except that today I have 2 hot spares in place. I still consider this machine my local, in-home LAN server learning platform. Yes, it does do what I consider important functions; chiefly, it runs my ESET Enterprise Server/RAS/RAC/Mirror needs. Besides that, it is also my WINS server for my LAN. Probably a separate topic! It is NOT a domain controller (still under study). It came to me with a functional RAID system which I had never owned/built. I have learned much about the care and feeding of a commercial-grade (my belief) RAID system.. Thank you Collective! But, yes, it is a SCSI U160 system. Hence my Initial Pending Conversion. I conjured that I might be able possibly convert from SCSI to SATA without a lot of cost/grief. I am still looking at Bryan's shares and trying to comprehend the following discussion from yourself, Greg, Bryan, and Joshua. All of which I read and try to follow. Admit, much of which leaves me in the dust. No harm, no foul. Thanks folks. My bad, not yours! I could, perhaps, agree that I am playing with a piece of equipment I should never have come in contact with. Fine. Too late! LOL! Best, Duncan On 08/09/2010 23:39, Eli Allen wrote: I don't understand why you want a raid controller. Are you really doing anything that is disk i/o bound? or is it to keep from losing data? Would seem like almost any modern m/b with low end CPU would be faster and you can just use the built in raid to do a mirrored raid. On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:26 PM, DSincdx7...@bellsouth.net wrote: Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
Keyword there is most. I've actually had pretty good results with Intel's onboard Matrix RAID functionality, so long as you know its limitations, namely: 1. No ability to set up e-mail alerts when a drive has failed 2. No ability to set reconstruction/rebuild priorities--it's always 100%, which murders productivity during the process 3. No dedicated write cache for RAID5 and no BBU--but this one is fairly obvious. I have several real RAID cards at home (Areca, LSI) that I use for arrays that have parity, but Matrix RAID does a nice job with basic mirroring or striping, and I prefer it over software RAID. Interestingly, when you enable write caching in an Intel Matrix RAID R5 array, which uses your system memory and has no data protection via BBU, it actually performs fairly well, reaching around 100MB/s sustained writes. Pitiful compared to the 1200MB/s or more you can get on today's high-end controllers, but not bad for an onboard solution. Obviously, you put your data at great risk using write-back caching without a BBU, which makes it little more than an interesting footnote. On the other hand, I've seen other onboard RAID solutions (Silicon Image, and especially nVidia) fail at RAID1 in the most fundamental way--everything appears great, but it's not actually performing writes to one of the members. Greg -Original Message- From: hardware-boun...@hardwaregroup.com [mailto:hardware- boun...@hardwaregroup.com] On Behalf Of Bryan Seitz Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 11:31 PM To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com Subject: Re: [H] Pending conversion? Onboard 'raid' is like using 'mspaint' for professional photo editing. Just because it's there doesn't mean you should use it. Most onboard raid is utter garbage and can end up doing more harm than good. I would choose software raid over cheap onboard garbage any day. In fact, software raid isn't a bad idea here Duncan, however you will need a 'server' OS like win2k3/2k8. On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 11:39:42PM -0400, Eli Allen wrote: I don't understand why you want a raid controller. Are you really doing anything that is disk i/o bound? or is it to keep from losing data? Would seem like almost any modern m/b with low end CPU would be faster and you can just use the built in raid to do a mirrored raid. On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:26 PM, DSinc dx7...@bellsouth.net wrote: Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. ?Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). ?Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. ?I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. ?There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan -- Bryan G. Seitz
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
Depends on the point of the raid controller. I'm not saying its as good as a real controller but if he only needs as much performance as his old setup and wants the extra reliability then onboard mirrored raid is good enough and sould be faster then what he has now. Just because you can spend a much larger amount of money on something doesn't mean you should. You need to figure out what you're really after. File server in your home for media files with only a few computers? The slow WD green drives are plenty fast enough. I use two 1TB WD green drives using the raid built into the motherboard to span them for my media center box and thats plenty fast enough. On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:30 AM, Bryan Seitz se...@bsd-unix.net wrote: Onboard 'raid' is like using 'mspaint' for professional photo editing. Just because it's there doesn't mean you should use it. Most onboard raid is utter garbage and can end up doing more harm than good. I would choose software raid over cheap onboard garbage any day. In fact, software raid isn't a bad idea here Duncan, however you will need a 'server' OS like win2k3/2k8. On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 11:39:42PM -0400, Eli Allen wrote: I don't understand why you want a raid controller. Are you really doing anything that is disk i/o bound? or is it to keep from losing data? Would seem like almost any modern m/b with low end CPU would be faster and you can just use the built in raid to do a mirrored raid. On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:26 PM, DSinc dx7...@bellsouth.net wrote: Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. ?Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). ?Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. ?I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. ?There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan -- Bryan G. Seitz
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
Testing... Seems Thunderbird has taken to posting/responding here using my other account when I hit reply? Was wondering why it seemed like I was not involved in the conversation! Now to figure out why the Delivered-To: is not the account I reply from...
[H] Pending conversion?
I have a very nice, perhaps, antique, W2K server. It trucks on just fine ATM. Certainly I can not afford to replace it with current new hardware. Yes, I can just retire/junk it! Might lower my yearly KVM bill even. I just do not see why ATM... LOL! (Stop laughing Bryan!) MS Updates have stoppedSO, My server is now behind. NOMO MS security business. ...Understand EOL in all of its' interpretations. Please do not preach! My Server's OS is EOL. Fine. I do not believe my Server hdw is EOL by a long shot. Well, unless the collective convinces me otherwise! I am willing to listen; if focused upon my project at hand. I would like to upgrade the base server hdw to WinXP. I believe I know what I need to do with all the data on the on-board RAID-5. The RAID-5 is SCSI U160 SC80. Yes, it can be fully retired.(tired of buying disks and paying TIM tickets when I goof, or, another goof happens. :) I am thinking of : a- yanking the Adaptec 3200S SCSI RAID card. To be replaced w/some form of SATA RAID card. My recent research tells me the WinXP might recognize this old card any longer? SO, (Stop lalughing, Bryan!) b. I will wash/retire all 5 of my SC80 18MB (10-15Krpm) hard drives. Suitable SATA replacement will be purchased..(I knew this day would come!) Stop laughing, Bryan!!! c. Yank the U160 SCSI Interface card off my RAID cage. Replace it with whatever cabling necessary to re-connect the RAID cage to my pending NEW SATA Raid card (a). d. Installing my current WinXP O/S. Pray that IT may sorta do some Server duties...? Do the wizards of the collective think this is a good plan? Please do not preach Vista at me. Please do not preach Win7 at me. That is a possibility only if I hit some lottery! I have WinXP pro only. I may consider Debian Linux(except I fear the learning curve ATM!) Bryan! Stop laughing!! :) Best, Duncan
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
Comments inline: On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 02:56:09PM -0400, DSinc wrote: I have a very nice, perhaps, antique, W2K server. It trucks on just fine ATM. Certainly I can not afford to replace it with current new hardware. Yes, I can just retire/junk it! Might lower my yearly KVM bill even. I just do not see why ATM... My server is now behind. NOMO MS security business. ...Understand EOL in all of its' interpretations. Please do not preach! My Server's OS is EOL. Fine. I do not believe my Server hdw is EOL by a long shot. Well, unless the collective convinces me otherwise! I am willing to listen; if focused upon my project at hand. I would like to upgrade the base server hdw to WinXP. I believe I know what I need to do with all the data on the on-board RAID-5. The RAID-5 is SCSI U160 SC80. Yes, it can be fully retired.(tired of buying disks and paying TIM tickets when I goof, or, another goof happens. :) I am thinking of : a- yanking the Adaptec 3200S SCSI RAID card. To be replaced w/some form of SATA RAID card. My recent research tells me the WinXP might recognize this old card any longer? SO, (Stop lalughing, Bryan!) b. I will wash/retire all 5 of my SC80 18MB (10-15Krpm) hard drives. Suitable SATA replacement will be purchased..(I knew this day would come!) Hmm... Sata raid isnt a bad choice as long as you get a decent controller. 3Ware isn't a bad bet for consumer applications. The only issue is, what type of PCI slots do you have, certainly no PCI-E. Any PCI-X ? That being said, the cheapest PCI-X 3ware on newegg was only 4 ports @ $309. 3Ware: PCI-X: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116052 Areca: PCI-X: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816131001 Adaptec: PCI-X: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103009 On the lower end you have: PCI: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115030 d. Installing my current WinXP O/S. Pray that IT may sorta do some Server duties...? Depends on what you need... for a simple file server, XP is probably fine. Please do not preach Vista at me. Hell no. Please do not preach Win7 at me. That is a possibility only if I hit some lottery! Hell no for a server, I actually like it on a modern desktop though. I may consider Debian Linux(except I fear the learning curve ATM!) It's higher than you probably want/need, unless you have someone local to teach. -- Bryan G. Seitz
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
Yeah, conclusion: wait until it's time (when you can afford) to replace the box entirely :) On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 04:46:15PM -0700, FORC5 wrote: cheaper/better to update the MB IMO fp At 12:17 PM 8/9/2010, Bryan Seitz Poked the stick with: Hmm... Sata raid isnt a bad choice as long as you get a decent controller. 3Ware isn't a bad bet for consumer applications. The only issue is, what type of PCI slots do you have, certainly no PCI-E. Any PCI-X ? That being said, the cheapest PCI-X 3ware on newegg was only 4 ports @ $309. -- Tallyho ! ]:8) Taglines below ! -- Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights. -- Bryan G. Seitz
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan On 08/09/2010 15:17, Bryan Seitz wrote: Comments inline: On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 02:56:09PM -0400, DSinc wrote: I have a very nice, perhaps, antique, W2K server. It trucks on just fine ATM. Certainly I can not afford to replace it with current new hardware. Yes, I can just retire/junk it! Might lower my yearly KVM bill even. I just do not see why ATM... My server is now behind. NOMO MS security business. ...Understand EOL in all of its' interpretations. Please do not preach! My Server's OS is EOL. Fine. I do not believe my Server hdw is EOL by a long shot. Well, unless the collective convinces me otherwise! I am willing to listen; if focused upon my project at hand. I would like to upgrade the base server hdw to WinXP. I believe I know what I need to do with all the data on the on-board RAID-5. The RAID-5 is SCSI U160 SC80. Yes, it can be fully retired.(tired of buying disks and paying TIM tickets when I goof, or, another goof happens. :) I am thinking of : a- yanking the Adaptec 3200S SCSI RAID card. To be replaced w/some form of SATA RAID card. My recent research tells me the WinXP might recognize this old card any longer? SO, (Stop lalughing, Bryan!) b. I will wash/retire all 5 of my SC80 18MB (10-15Krpm) hard drives. Suitable SATA replacement will be purchased..(I knew this day would come!) Hmm... Sata raid isnt a bad choice as long as you get a decent controller. 3Ware isn't a bad bet for consumer applications. The only issue is, what type of PCI slots do you have, certainly no PCI-E. Any PCI-X ? That being said, the cheapest PCI-X 3ware on newegg was only 4 ports @ $309. 3Ware: PCI-X: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116052 Areca: PCI-X: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816131001 Adaptec: PCI-X: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103009 On the lower end you have: PCI: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115030 d. Installing my current WinXP O/S. Pray that IT may sorta do some Server duties...? Depends on what you need... for a simple file server, XP is probably fine. Please do not preach Vista at me. Hell no. Please do not preach Win7 at me. That is a possibility only if I hit some lottery! Hell no for a server, I actually like it on a modern desktop though. I may consider Debian Linux(except I fear the learning curve ATM!) It's higher than you probably want/need, unless you have someone local to teach.
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
sometimes I think blown caps were a blessing in disguise forcing updating :-[ I know my bad fp At 07:26 PM 8/9/2010, DSinc Poked the stick with: Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan -- Tallyho ! ]:8) Taglines below ! -- Do health nuts die of nothing?
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
FORC5, On this I can agree. Probably why it takes me 10 minutes to dig through a support site for a m/b. I still recall most of the detailed shares here about the capacitor issue. Sadly, it continues to pop up in 'older' machines. I still watch for puffed caps Don't know whose caps were used in my Server m/b. I check them about every 6mo during PM. Never seen a bad one. Even on the VR module. This old dog is really built well. I am still impressed with it after 6 years; and, I know it was in service years before I got it.. Best, Duncan On 08/09/2010 22:47, FORC5 wrote: sometimes I think blown caps were a blessing in disguise forcing updating :-[ I know my bad fp At 07:26 PM 8/9/2010, DSinc Poked the stick with: Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
I don't understand why you want a raid controller. Are you really doing anything that is disk i/o bound? or is it to keep from losing data? Would seem like almost any modern m/b with low end CPU would be faster and you can just use the built in raid to do a mirrored raid. On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:26 PM, DSinc dx7...@bellsouth.net wrote: Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan
Re: [H] Pending conversion?
Onboard 'raid' is like using 'mspaint' for professional photo editing. Just because it's there doesn't mean you should use it. Most onboard raid is utter garbage and can end up doing more harm than good. I would choose software raid over cheap onboard garbage any day. In fact, software raid isn't a bad idea here Duncan, however you will need a 'server' OS like win2k3/2k8. On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 11:39:42PM -0400, Eli Allen wrote: I don't understand why you want a raid controller. Are you really doing anything that is disk i/o bound? or is it to keep from losing data? Would seem like almost any modern m/b with low end CPU would be faster and you can just use the built in raid to do a mirrored raid. On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:26 PM, DSinc dx7...@bellsouth.net wrote: Bryan, I will print and parse your suggestions. ?Afraid I may be even more behind. The best I can offer are PCI-66 slots on an old Intel STL2 m/b (think this is ServerWerz chipset/design). ?Know this may be way past its' prime, but this beast just will not die. Yes, I may be trying to beat a horse that ain't quite dead yet. Still learning. ?I'll get back to you. Let me parse, absorb, and, think. ?There are a few times when Technology can just suck! Thanks, Duncan -- Bryan G. Seitz
