Pro/Con for W2K Server on IDE

[tech2admin]

Looking for a Pro or Con to install W2K server OS only on an IDE drive with all other programs/data on a Raid 5 array of 4 SCSI drives. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[butchrecon]

Cost compared to speed and capacity. IDE drives are much cheaper than SCSI. The biggest advantage IDE has is that it is much cheaper than SCSI. IDE drives are getting faster, bigger and comparably cheaper. SCSI, though still faster with their RPM and cache sizes, are the better drives. With proper maintenance and cooling, an IDE solution could be nearly as effective.

Keeping your data on the RAID 5 array is good way to ensure faliure does not stop your system. You should also look at putting in a backup solution as another redundant way to keep from loosing info.

James Collins
Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP, MCSA, Network+

 

[ricpinto]

Forget the IDE (quality/performance is very bad compared SCSI HDD).. The SCSI HDDs are way faster (15kRPM) and if you combine that with RAID adapter with multiple HDD. IDE HDD is out of the question. Use IDE HDD for workstation.

Anyway you have already a RAID adapter (array controller), I suggest this config:

OS use mirroring - logical drive 1
DATA - use RAID 5 - logical drive 2

 

[Nijasan]

If you're looking at buying new equipment, the 10k rpm sata western digital IDE drives are pretty quick. The downside is that they're only 36 gigs.

 

[ricpinto]

Ok let's talk about pros and the cons.

Pros:
Cheap

cons:
1. Slow
2. must down the server when it fails or let's say down time is long.
3. Bottleneck is your IDE HDD. RAID 5 HDD will always wait for your IDE because OS is in there.
4. No hradware fault tolerance. When it fails, your server is also down.

RAID 5 will read and write on "stripe" on all of the HDD at the same time. The more HDD you include, the more faster is the read/write. Compared to performance/fault tolerance, IDE HDD is not on the same league.

 

[rkochis]

Because you mention four drives and RAID 5 I am assuming this is a production server. I would stick with ricpinto's suggestion.

Ques: Are you attempting a Win2k upgrade without replacing the existing OS? Do you have room on the existing drives?

Note to ricpinto: There are hardware-based IDE RAID controllers from Silicon Image that support mirroring and online hot spare, but only RAID 0 and 1.

 

[ricpinto]

rkochis:Thanks 4 the info on IDE RAID.


Anyway IDE RAID is just an info not a suggestion to the current situation because tech2admin got existing array controller already. He can create another logical drive or depending on the capabilty of his controller, he can purchase another hdd and expand/add to existing RAID 5 for additional free space.

 

[tech2admin]

Thanks for the solid input. Believe I will stick with RAID5 for OS & data and use IDE for immediate archive/backup along with tape backup.