I am a new IT Manager, learning on the job you could say. We are upgrading servers and looking to add speed. We want to add a SCSI hard drive to our file server. The server is nothing more than a Gateway 800 mhz desktop running Red Hat 7.2 Professional Server. How do you go about purchasing and installing a SCSI hard drive? Is there an expansion card to buy first? Does that mean we will have an external drive?
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SCSI Hard drive suggestions and install
- Thread starter SpecSys
- Start date
Hi SpecSys!
If there isn't already a SCSI-hos-adapter in this machine you will have to purchase one.
After that you can go for the SCSI-harddisk. If you get an internal or external HDD is of your choice.
I don't know how big your enterprise is but if you going to expand (buy a big server for example) in the nearer future I would recomment to put the disk(s) in an extra 19'-rack.
If the 800 MHz machine is all you've got and you need only a few (let's say up to 4) disks, you can put them in the server's case.
Please be aware that you should think about purchasing an IDE-harddisk. These disks are a lot cheaper and only slightly slower than SCSI-drives. But if you really need high performance then go for SCSI.
Hm... I hope this wasn't too confusing!
cya
frag patrick.metz@epost.de
If there isn't already a SCSI-hos-adapter in this machine you will have to purchase one.
After that you can go for the SCSI-harddisk. If you get an internal or external HDD is of your choice.
I don't know how big your enterprise is but if you going to expand (buy a big server for example) in the nearer future I would recomment to put the disk(s) in an extra 19'-rack.
If the 800 MHz machine is all you've got and you need only a few (let's say up to 4) disks, you can put them in the server's case.
Please be aware that you should think about purchasing an IDE-harddisk. These disks are a lot cheaper and only slightly slower than SCSI-drives. But if you really need high performance then go for SCSI.
Hm... I hope this wasn't too confusing!
cya
frag patrick.metz@epost.de
- Thread starter
- #3
Thanks for the reply. We are running 4 servers right now and we are upgrading our main engineering file server. It is currently a 550 with 256 RAM and 40 GB IDE HD. Running NT. We are switching to Linux and SCSI to improve speed. So far tests have been good.
- Thread starter
- #5
Well, the Linux tests have gone well and proved much faster than NT4 servers.
I am the guy they hired
We are a small firm, and they are looking for a cheap solution. I have an AS in graphic design and webmastering...computer tech is a side job/hobby, so they expect me to know everything!
I am the guy they hired
We are a small firm, and they are looking for a cheap solution. I have an AS in graphic design and webmastering...computer tech is a side job/hobby, so they expect me to know everything!Price difference for SCSI isn't that great for the additional quality that you get with scsi. And you can get several flavors of SCSI that improve throughput.
You can put up to 7 hard drives on one controller (15 on some). The drives are assigned by device IDs that are jumpered on the drive.
Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
You can put up to 7 hard drives on one controller (15 on some). The drives are assigned by device IDs that are jumpered on the drive.
Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
The questions I'd ask before going to SCSI are:
1) How many users (theoretical maximum) would access the fileserver at any one time?
2)How much space is required?
3) what network speed is you LAN connection
4) Are there any processor heavy programs or databases running on th eserver or is it a just file repository?
5) what is the average size of the files held on the server.
The cost of a large and fast access SCSI hard disk is far higher than a virtually equivalent speed IDE ultra ATA drive.
If you have a very high number of users or the files are very important(read mission critical), you would be better to consider RAID 1 (at least) instead of a basic SCSI setup.
If your network connection is not 100mb minimum, it should be.
Ram is cheap, fill all the holes.
Without knowing any more details it would be hard to give a really good indication.
PS Ed Fairs' siggy is what I'm thinking right now. ***************************************
Party on, dudes!
![[cannon]](/data/assets/smilies/cannon.gif "[cannon] [cannon]")
1) How many users (theoretical maximum) would access the fileserver at any one time?
2)How much space is required?
3) what network speed is you LAN connection
4) Are there any processor heavy programs or databases running on th eserver or is it a just file repository?
5) what is the average size of the files held on the server.
The cost of a large and fast access SCSI hard disk is far higher than a virtually equivalent speed IDE ultra ATA drive.
If you have a very high number of users or the files are very important(read mission critical), you would be better to consider RAID 1 (at least) instead of a basic SCSI setup.
If your network connection is not 100mb minimum, it should be.
Ram is cheap, fill all the holes.
Without knowing any more details it would be hard to give a really good indication.
PS Ed Fairs' siggy is what I'm thinking right now. ***************************************
Party on, dudes!
Go SCSI for file servers, they are far superior when accessing multiple files at once. Most businesses can easily afford the cost of SCSI drives, and the benifits are definately worth it. Just a few months ago I upgraded the harddrives in a Novell server from old bahemoth SCSI-2 drives to 80mbit/sec LVD SCSI drives. If you search around pricewatch or some other scsi dealer websites, you can find decent prices on these drives.
- Thread starter
- #9
Its a small network, we are a small firm. There would be only 10-11 people accessing the file server at any one time...maximum.
The files are pretty good sized, especailly the Pro-E libraries. Our network is 100mbs and we are researching the gigabit cards at this point, but the hubs needed may be out of financial reach at this point.
I'll do some searching around for drives and controller prices. It seems I have seen controllers for around that 350 mark, maybe more...is this accurate or am I alooking at the wrong item? You are saying one controller can hold 7 drives? That is indeed good to know.
We would need 40 gig I am guessing. If we archive, we could probably get away with using a SCSI 36gb.
The files are pretty good sized, especailly the Pro-E libraries. Our network is 100mbs and we are researching the gigabit cards at this point, but the hubs needed may be out of financial reach at this point.
I'll do some searching around for drives and controller prices. It seems I have seen controllers for around that 350 mark, maybe more...is this accurate or am I alooking at the wrong item? You are saying one controller can hold 7 drives? That is indeed good to know.
We would need 40 gig I am guessing. If we archive, we could probably get away with using a SCSI 36gb.
See what you can find for caching controller. If such is still available in the form you need. Helps prevent thrashing.
I probably would go for 4-10s rather than 1-40. But that is how my mind thinks. Lose 1 and 3/4 of the data for other jobs is still there and usable while one is rebuilt. And given the requirement of multiple drives I might go for a drive cabinet separate from the CPU box. Make it like a CD farm. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
I probably would go for 4-10s rather than 1-40. But that is how my mind thinks. Lose 1 and 3/4 of the data for other jobs is still there and usable while one is rebuilt. And given the requirement of multiple drives I might go for a drive cabinet separate from the CPU box. Make it like a CD farm. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
If you have the money, read up on raid 1 - it basically uses 3 drives but reports them as 1.
3 x 18.1 gb drives = 1 logical 18.1 gb drive.
the "logical drive" uses 1 , mirrors it to the second and in case of failure rebuilds a complete image to the 3rd enabling you to remove dud drives should you need to.
Hardware for this is a little more expensive, but if you really wanna feeel safe...
***************************************
Party on, dudes!
3 x 18.1 gb drives = 1 logical 18.1 gb drive.
the "logical drive" uses 1 , mirrors it to the second and in case of failure rebuilds a complete image to the 3rd enabling you to remove dud drives should you need to.
Hardware for this is a little more expensive, but if you really wanna feeel safe...
***************************************Party on, dudes!
- Thread starter
- #12
We do have Raid drives in place on our current file server. We are now branching to a second file server. The one running RAID is currently slo in a dual-667 Poweredge box, but our p3-500 running Linux is blowing it out of the water. I have a good backup system in place, so we are basically looking for speed right now.
salmonsteak
Technical User
SpecSys,
I couldn't help but notice you making mention of Pro-E libraries. If this file server is going too or is already hosting a large pool of Pro-E libraries and files than I might suggest SCSI over IDE. I know from past experience that Pro-E anything is a huge resource eater and any additional performance boosters will definatly help your cause both short term and long term. Of course, this is only my two cents...
I couldn't help but notice you making mention of Pro-E libraries. If this file server is going too or is already hosting a large pool of Pro-E libraries and files than I might suggest SCSI over IDE. I know from past experience that Pro-E anything is a huge resource eater and any additional performance boosters will definatly help your cause both short term and long term. Of course, this is only my two cents...
- Thread starter
- #14
Yeah, the main reason to upgrade this server to Linux and also to SCSI if possible is because we are adding ProE files into the mix. Currently it is only servicing AutoDesk Mech DT files.
Our ProE guys keep telling me that we need SCSI hard drives and Unix boxes. Just trying to do the best we can with a limited budget.
Our ProE guys keep telling me that we need SCSI hard drives and Unix boxes. Just trying to do the best we can with a limited budget.
salmonsteak
Technical User
Take it from me... most of the problems you will encounter(providing you provide support to the departments using Pro-E) are going to be performance issues. My advice is to take care of those now while you can and everybody will be much happier in the end.
- Thread starter
- #17
currently m$...I would love to convert all our 4 servers to nix, but we have Global Shop accounting software running on the current raid server and I am not sure it will run on linux...plus it would be a bastage to backup and reconfigure the program on a re-install.
<-- curently moving all of our servers to Compaq Proliants with RAID etc .. 7 left to go. Later this year I have to do the conversion from SCO 5 to RedHat 7(.??), (60-80% speed increase from one *nix to another).
***************************************
Party on, dudes!
***************************************
Party on, dudes!
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