[MLUG - DISCUSSION] The Big RAID: the next to final chapter?

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

So Darrel Sharpe (thanks to Dr. Palaniappan) had a lot of
advice/quotes on RAID components that have now just about shaped up
into something I'd be willing to haul off and order in pieces
(Personalized Computers has oddly not gotten back to me yet, alas.)

Big changes made already are to nuke the humongous Antec case and
go with the Lian Li PC-70 aluminum job; turns out the big case needs 
very long IDE cables and has other issues including high price and 
low availability.

Changes still being contemplated are whacking this down to a 
uniprocessor, maybe exchanging 8x120 for 6x160 and a Promise RAID 
card (I'm not convinced that 200 GB drives are really the way to go 
yet), and fiddling with amount of RAM and such.  But here is what
is in the mix now:

case:  Lian Li PC-70         $ 239
PS:    Antec Tru550          $  99
fans?: dragon orb                ?
mobo:  MSI K7D-L             $ 212
procs: 2 x Athlon 2100+      $ 422
RAM:   4 x 512 MB            $ 860
disk1: 40 GB Maxtor          $  70
disks: 8 x 120 gb WD         $1224
flop:  who cares...          $  10
RAID:  3ware?                $ 500
dvd/cd  Pioneer DVR-104      $ 292
----------------------------------
                             $3930

Now the MSI motherboard has me a bit skittish, but linuxhardware.com
(among others) are pretty positive on it.  I think it has only one
ethernet connector on it and no SCSI option; it also ships with a
USB2.0 card since apparently all onboard USB support with this
chipset (used by other manufacturers, too) is wedged.  Hrmm.  It 
does make you wonder about single processor systems...

And I just noticed that I don't have a video card in that box; 
oops...imagine you see something cheap but effective there.

As usual, comments and flames alike are welcome.

jking


--
To unsubscribe, go to http://mlug.missouri.edu/members/edit.php

Archives are available at http://mlug.missouri.edu/list-archives/