New hard drive in an Indigo2

From: Doc <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
Date: Tue Mar 12 13:15:02 2002

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Christopher Smith wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Doc [mailto:doc_at_mdrconsult.com]
>
> > I've got a Mylex PCI 20mbit adapter (DAC960[PL?]) I'll trade you
> > cheap. It's my opinion that on a non-server box, the gained speed is
> > minimal compared to the lost storage capacity suffered with
> > any reliable
> > RAID, unless you really need to mirror your data.
>
> Well, I've got a Mylex EISA RAID that would probably have a
> better chance of working. :) This machine has no PCI bus,

  Oh.

> Anyway, shouldn't a decent RAID allow you to select the mode
> so that it only does striping ?

  Didn't I say "reliable"? Even RAID 0, plain striping, carries a
certain overhead in drivespace. The big problem is that with simple
striping you lose everything if you lose anything. RAID is *expensive*,
even if you get your adapter free. Drivespace overhead, tuning slices,
matching drives, power consumption, noise, etc. BIG cost is the
price of drives, for example 5x9G drives vs. 1x36G.

<My Not-So-Humble Opinion>
  A multi-channel adapter or multiple adapters, running JBOD, with
intelligent filesystem groupings, will probably boost your speed as much
as RAID will. (Assuming a single-user general-use Unix desktop.) RAID
can be tuned to big sequential reads or writes, or a lot of small r/w,
but it's damn difficult to get middle-ground or all-around performance.
</My Not-So-Humble Opinion>

  All that said, it's good practice and fun.

        Doc
Received on Tue Mar 12 2002 - 13:15:02 GMT