I was wondering if i could get some input on the colo server i'm building. I'm not sure if i want to go with IDE Raid or Scsi Raid. Will i really notice a major preformance boost if i used the more expensive scsi U160 drives vrs a ATA 66/100 drive? If i was to use scsi it woudl be 18GB drives whiel if i used IDE it woudl eb least 40GB drives. I really don't knwo which i want cheap and lots of space or less space faster. So any suggestions or opinion are welcome. Oh and the Drives will be in Raid 5.

Running on a:
TYAN S2462UNG Dual AMD Socket A mainboard.
2 AMD Athlon MP 1.2Ghz 3D NOW!
1GB DDR PC2100 Registered
4U Rackmount Case

Running Linux 2.4.5
IDE card = 3ware 6800

One important point is that as far as I know there are no IDE-Raid-controllers with a hot-swap feature, so if one hard disk fails you will have to shut down the IDE system to replace the drive - with a SCSI system you can hot swap the drive.

Actually most IDE RAID *controllers* support hot-swap drives, the problem is more often that you need drive bays designed for that purpose (something to do with disconnecting data lines before the power lines IIRC).

However while I'm replying, I really can't see why you would want such a system. Dual processor Athlon? Quite apart from the question of cooling 150W of cpus, dual athlon systems are very new and there is no evidence that they will be even remotely stable yet. (Even the existing single processor Athlon boards are quite unstable, and dual processor systems are always harder/more expensive to stabilize than single processor systems). The same could be said for using the 2.4 linux kernel.. being up to date is good, but there is a reason why the "bleeding edge" has that name.

Oh, that's something I have overlooked - a dual Athlon system. I conform to Cperciva, I would never use a brand new mainboard for a server.
BTW, Cperciva, you said "even the existing single processor Athlon boards are quite unstable" is something I can not understand. They are not unstable, take a look at their actual market share :) they are very fine! Nevertheless, I would wait at least half a year before I would try to build a server with a Dual Athlon system.

Market share has absolutely nothing to do with stability. Athlon motherboards crash. Generally, for that matter, anything made with VIA chipsets tends to crash. A good demonstration of this is Anandtech... they decided to be "innovative" and use a cluster of Athlons as web servers, only to find later on that each system would crash on average once a month for no apparent reason.

If you look at server motherboards from Tyan or Supermicro, you'll see that they are far more expensive than other motherboards with similar performance; the difference lies in the extra capacitors, more careful layout, etc. which make the difference between crashing once every week and crashing once every decade.

This is my last post in this thread as I don't want to start a senseless flaming session regarding Intel<->AMD.

Athlon motherboards crash. Generally, for that matter, anything made with VIA chipsets tends to crash.
What a nonsense. I have built several Athlon system myself, some of them run 24/7. No crash so far.

they decided to be "innovative" and use a cluster of Athlons as web servers, only to find later on that each system would crash on average once a month for no apparent reason.

There are several cluster systems with Athlons (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, NASA, National Science Foundation (NSF), Boeing, University of delaware with 132 Athlons).
Do you really think all those companies und universities are stupid?

If you look at server motherboards from Tyan

Agreed. So you think Tyan is stupid because they are building a server board for a Athlon?

:D

The board and cpus might change but that not what i was asking... I'm more interested in is if i shoudl use IDE or SCSI raid and if the cost vrs preformace is worth the cost of scsi...

:)
I suggest using SCSI - you will find no professional server using IDE, this is just an idea in the hosting industry to keep prices low.
As IDE drives are getting better the raw performance difference of the drive itself is not very much, but if your server experiences high load you will notice the difference. You also will see a lower CPU load with SCSI.

Originally posted by cperciva
Market share has absolutely nothing to do with stability. Athlon motherboards crash. Generally, for that matter, anything made with VIA chipsets tends to crash. A good demonstration of this is Anandtech... they decided to be "innovative" and use a cluster of Athlons as web servers, only to find later on that each system would crash on average once a month for no apparent reason.


They need BIOS update 1007 for the ASUS A7V. There is a problem in the VIA South Bridge that is worked around.

We have been using Athlon-based servers since they first came out, and running them under FreeBSD, they are 100% rock-solid once the South Bridge issue is fixed. Of course, we're using ASUS; results may vary with other motherboard manufacturers.

Kevin

you will find no professional server using IDE, this is just an idea in the hosting industry to keep prices low.

Not really true. It all depends on the use of the server.

Not really true. It all depends on the use of the server.

Absolutely agree. We ship lots of units with mirrored IDE drives. Recently, I have been using the Promise SuperTrak 100 Kit, with the Promise carriers, and it works great. Of course, different controllers work better or worse under different RAID levels. The type of data, and the amount of data will also effect the throughput speeds. There is an excellent article on this subject at the following links (IDE vs. SCSI, and Promise vs. 3Ware)
http://www.storagereview.com/welcome.pl/http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200102/20010214ST1000_vs_Escalade_1.html

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Roundups/IDE_RAID/index.html

Aloha,
use scsi if you are serious
here is some good reading
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/index.html

scsi is better at multitasking also way better MTBF and access speed sustained throughput etc...

again if you want look at a lot of hosts dedicated servers why on the upper end do they give you scsi and look how much it costs to get a scsi set up over a ide setup quite a bit so if you are doing this do it right get scsi
any host who says ide is every bit as good as scsi is not telling the whole truth especially if they offer scsi systems for way more.
the old saying if it is to good to be true ....
do your research you will go scsi
check out http://www.hypermicro.com for good prioces and service

best of luck