Hi List I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ? The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid? Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, John
Exactly how much throughput are you realistically anticipating? What connection are you going to use? 802.11 or 10/100 or gige? And yes, the chips will pretty much always give you better performance with raid.
Geoff
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.
-----Original Message----- From: John Bowden j-alan@btconnect.com
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:58:27 To:CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Subject: [CentOS] Central file server advice please
Hi List I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ? The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid? Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, John -- Guy Fawkes, the only man to enter the house's of Parliament with honest intentions, (he was going to blow them up!) Registered Linux user number 414240 _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
gjgowey@tmo.blackberry.net spake the following on 9/21/2007 2:43 AM:
Exactly how much throughput are you realistically anticipating? What connection are you going to use? 802.11 or 10/100 or gige? And yes, the chips will pretty much always give you better performance with raid.
Hardware raid gives better performance. Both of those are "fakeraid".It won't perform any better than software raid.
actually it'll perform WORSE in many cases than Linux software raid.
Scott Silva wrote:
gjgowey@tmo.blackberry.net spake the following on 9/21/2007 2:43 AM:
Exactly how much throughput are you realistically anticipating? What connection are you going to use? 802.11 or 10/100 or gige? And yes, the chips will pretty much always give you better performance with raid.
Hardware raid gives better performance. Both of those are "fakeraid".It won't perform any better than software raid.
William Warren wrote:
actually it'll perform WORSE in many cases than Linux software raid.
Used to (bar buggy firmware, incompatibilities). Most hardware raid cards nowadays not only have sufficient processing power, they also come with decent sizes of RAM cache which helps swing things a lot in their favour.
If the load goes beyond what the card can handle, then yes, Linux software raid is the way to go.
Scott Silva wrote:
gjgowey@tmo.blackberry.net spake the following on 9/21/2007 2:43 AM:
Exactly how much throughput are you realistically anticipating? What connection are you going to use? 802.11 or 10/100 or gige? And yes, the chips will pretty much always give you better performance with raid.
Hardware raid gives better performance. Both of those are "fakeraid".It won't perform any better than software raid.
I mistyped..hardware raid is the way to go. FRIAD will perform worse than Linux software raid most times..:)
Feizhou wrote:
William Warren wrote:
actually it'll perform WORSE in many cases than Linux software raid.
Used to (bar buggy firmware, incompatibilities). Most hardware raid cards nowadays not only have sufficient processing power, they also come with decent sizes of RAM cache which helps swing things a lot in their favour.
If the load goes beyond what the card can handle, then yes, Linux software raid is the way to go.
Scott Silva wrote:
gjgowey@tmo.blackberry.net spake the following on 9/21/2007 2:43 AM:
Exactly how much throughput are you realistically anticipating? What connection are you going to use? 802.11 or 10/100 or gige? And yes, the chips will pretty much always give you better performance with raid.
Hardware raid gives better performance. Both of those are "fakeraid".It won't perform any better than software raid.
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On Monday 24 September 2007 12:33:39 William Warren wrote:
I mistyped..hardware raid is the way to go. FRIAD will perform worse than Linux software raid most times..:)
Feizhou wrote:
William Warren wrote:
actually it'll perform WORSE in many cases than Linux software raid.
Used to (bar buggy firmware, incompatibilities). Most hardware raid cards nowadays not only have sufficient processing power, they also come with decent sizes of RAM cache which helps swing things a lot in their favour.
If the load goes beyond what the card can handle, then yes, Linux software raid is the way to go.
Scott Silva wrote:
gjgowey@tmo.blackberry.net spake the following on 9/21/2007 2:43 AM:
Exactly how much throughput are you realistically anticipating? What connection are you going to use? 802.11 or 10/100 or gige? And yes, the chips will pretty much always give you better performance with raid.
Hardware raid gives better performance. Both of those are "fakeraid".It won't perform any better than software raid.
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
What can I use to benchmark the different raid set ups. I could do an all software raid trial and then an all hardware raid set up, (fresh install each time) and find out which is the best for my set up. Bear in mind I still think of myself as a Linux newbie (and a CentOS virgin), but keen to learn and the best way of learning is to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.
John Bowden wrote:
What can I use to benchmark the different raid set ups. I could do an all software raid trial and then an all hardware raid set up, (fresh install each time) and find out which is the best for my set up. Bear in mind I still think of myself as a Linux newbie (and a CentOS virgin), but keen to learn and the best way of learning is to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.
I recommend bonnie++ and spew, both of which are available in the rpmforge repo.
On Tuesday 25 September 2007 15:24:48 Mark Foster wrote:
John Bowden wrote:
What can I use to benchmark the different raid set ups. I could do an all software raid trial and then an all hardware raid set up, (fresh install each time) and find out which is the best for my set up. Bear in mind I still think of myself as a Linux newbie (and a CentOS virgin), but keen to learn and the best way of learning is to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.
I recommend bonnie++ and spew, both of which are available in the rpmforge repo.
Thanks I will have a look
On Friday 21 September 2007 10:43:49 gjgowey@tmo.blackberry.net wrote:
Exactly how much throughput are you realistically anticipating? What connection are you going to use? 802.11 or 10/100 or gige? And yes, the chips will pretty much always give you better performance with raid.
Geoff
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.
-----Original Message----- From: John Bowden j-alan@btconnect.com
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:58:27 To:CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Subject: [CentOS] Central file server advice please
Hi List I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ? The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or
- Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid
or using software raid? Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, John -- Guy Fawkes, the only man to enter the house's of Parliament with honest intentions, (he was going to blow them up!) Registered Linux user number 414240 _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
The m/board has an on board Realtek 8110S Gigabit chip (RJ45). All but the newest m/boards have 100 megabit nics and the switch is a 100 magabit, 8 port switch. the DSL modem is an "up to 8Mb connection" (generally about half that speed) with a 54Mb wireless point and 4 100 megabit ports. Only the laptops use the wireless all the other PC's are RJ45 wired. There is normally only me and the girl friend using the network. She browses the net. May be stream a film and a tv channel at the same time from the myth box when set up. Occasionally one or two mates round for a networked game of C&C Generals.
Very of topic Geoff but how easy is it to get your blackberry to talk with your Linux PC, for back up and editing files? I have an old Psion S5 that needs to be retired and have been looking at a Blackberry as a replacement?
On Fri, 2007-09-21 at 20:47 +0100, John Bowden wrote:
The m/board has an on board Realtek 8110S Gigabit chip (RJ45). All but the newest m/boards have 100 megabit nics and the switch is a 100 magabit, 8 port switch. the DSL modem is an "up to 8Mb connection" (generally about half that speed) with a 54Mb wireless point and 4 100 megabit ports. Only the laptops use the wireless all the other PC's are RJ45 wired. There is normally only me and the girl friend using the network. She browses the net. May be stream a film and a tv channel at the same time from the myth box when set up. Occasionally one or two mates round for a networked game of C&C Generals.
Generally speaking the Realtek Ethernet embedded on the motherboard are not really good for use in servers since they only have a little embedded RAM for buffering packets. I'm not sure how much that specific chip has ... 4 or 8K was common for RT chips. That said, you probably can get away with it in your situation, if the switch you are using supports 802.3x flow control and the other devices do also.
Paul
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, John Bowden wrote:
(docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
You realize the mythtv setup (if this machine is going to be the 'backend') really should be on a separate box?
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Wildman, CISSP, RHCE jim@rossberry.com http://www.rossberry.com "Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine
On Friday 21 September 2007 11:39:03 Jim Wildman wrote:
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, John Bowden wrote:
(docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
You realize the mythtv setup (if this machine is going to be the 'backend') really should be on a separate box?
Jim Wildman, CISSP, RHCE jim@rossberry.com http://www.rossberry.com "Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
I was hoping a 2.6 gHz 32bit Athlon with 3Gb of ram would handle Myth and the file storage.
On Fri, 2007-09-21 at 20:53 +0100, John Bowden wrote:
On Friday 21 September 2007 11:39:03 Jim Wildman wrote:
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, John Bowden wrote:
(docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
You realize the mythtv setup (if this machine is going to be the 'backend') really should be on a separate box?
I was hoping a 2.6 gHz 32bit Athlon with 3Gb of ram would handle Myth and the file storage.
It depends on your setup ... if you have a capture card that does Mpeg encoding then CPU power is not an issue. I have an 800Mhz Athlon XP (under clocked) system running a backend. The issue usually is if the box can keep up with the disk IO doing recording and streaming at the same time. I have two drives in the box, one for the OS and another for storing the video. The system does fine streaming to a front end at the same time it's recording std cable TV.
Adding file services with lots of IO might cause problems, it depends on the exact load your putting on it, adding RAM and using RAID 01 (mirrored and striped) may work. If you had issues, build a cheap sempon system to do the MythTV duties may be cheaper than making the server capable of doing both.
One note is RAID 1 is slower at writing that a single drive, but usually faster at reading.
Paul
On Saturday 22 September 2007 15:12:23 Paul wrote:
On Fri, 2007-09-21 at 20:53 +0100, John Bowden wrote:
On Friday 21 September 2007 11:39:03 Jim Wildman wrote:
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, John Bowden wrote:
(docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
You realize the mythtv setup (if this machine is going to be the 'backend') really should be on a separate box?
I was hoping a 2.6 gHz 32bit Athlon with 3Gb of ram would handle Myth and the file storage.
It depends on your setup ... if you have a capture card that does Mpeg encoding then CPU power is not an issue. I have an 800Mhz Athlon XP (under clocked) system running a backend. The issue usually is if the box can keep up with the disk IO doing recording and streaming at the same time. I have two drives in the box, one for the OS and another for storing the video. The system does fine streaming to a front end at the same time it's recording std cable TV.
The O/S will be on its own drive on the non raid IDE. I will look around for a high end dual tunner dab card.
Adding file services with lots of IO might cause problems, it depends on the exact load your putting on it, adding RAM and using RAID 01 (mirrored and striped) may work. If you had issues, build a cheap sempon system to do the MythTV duties may be cheaper than making the server capable of doing both.
Can do if the machine struggles, but I wont be writing much from the network to it while I watch TV. may be an odd file and recording another TV channel at the most. Network backups can be set up to run when the machine is idle.
One note is RAID 1 is slower at writing that a single drive, but usually faster at reading.
Paul
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
John Bowden wrote:
I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
Probably
The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid?
Some digging on Google seems to show that the IT8212F chipset is a "halfway" hardware RAID that offers some performance improvement over software RAID. The Sil3512 chipset appears to be pure "fakeraid", in which case you are better off putting it in non-RAID mode (in your BIOS) and using software RAID.
Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, John
The other consideration is migration. If your motherboard dies some night, you can take Linux software RAID disks, transplant them onto another motherboard, jump through the setup hoops, and be back in business (because the RAID is tied to Linux, not the motherboard). If you use the motherboard chips for RAID at all, that will not transfer to another motherboard (except possibly if you get another motherboard with the same chipset and BIOS). Even if you migrate in a non-failure situation, you will not be able to move the drives to another motherboard (mobo) until you either 1. copy the data to another drive somewhere install old drives on new mobo set up drives on new mobo in new RAID array re-sync drives copy data from temporary drive back onto array or 2. Set up new mobo with new drives Do initial setup/sync on new array copy entire drive contents from old machine to new machine over network
Compared to connecting drives to a new mobo and having a new install of Linux recognize the array and set it up for you, there is quite a bit of difference in convenience.
My cursory Google search did not give me any data about how much performance improvement you would get from the hardware in the ITF8212F chipset, as opposed to an all software solution. If mass throughput is not your primary goal (e.g. serving multiple video streams at once without any glitches), software RAID may take a little longer to set up at first (though I believe you can do it as part of your install, if you answer the questions right), it may be easier to live with later on.
Ted Miller Indiana, USA
On Friday 21 September 2007 12:40:56 Ted Miller wrote:
John Bowden wrote:
I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
Probably
The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid?
Some digging on Google seems to show that the IT8212F chipset is a "halfway" hardware RAID that offers some performance improvement over software RAID. The Sil3512 chipset appears to be pure "fakeraid", in which case you are better off putting it in non-RAID mode (in your BIOS) and using software RAID.
I have two 250Mb ide drives and I'm going to ad another two. Set up with hardware raid, stripped for speed, to write the myth recordings to and the central file storage for the network. Then may be two (depending on finances) 750 Gb SATA drives software raided, mirrored for security to be used for a back up server for the network
Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, John
The other consideration is migration. If your motherboard dies some night, you can take Linux software RAID disks, transplant them onto another motherboard, jump through the setup hoops, and be back in business (because the RAID is tied to Linux, not the motherboard). If you use the motherboard chips for RAID at all, that will not transfer to another motherboard (except possibly if you get another motherboard with the same chipset and BIOS). Even if you migrate in a non-failure situation, you will not be able to move the drives to another motherboard (mobo) until you either
- copy the data to another drive somewhere install old drives on new mobo set up drives on new mobo in new RAID array re-sync drives copy data from temporary drive back onto array
or 2. Set up new mobo with new drives Do initial setup/sync on new array copy entire drive contents from old machine to new machine over network
Compared to connecting drives to a new mobo and having a new install of Linux recognize the array and set it up for you, there is quite a bit of difference in convenience.
My cursory Google search did not give me any data about how much performance improvement you would get from the hardware in the ITF8212F chipset, as opposed to an all software solution. If mass throughput is not your primary goal (e.g. serving multiple video streams at once without any glitches), software RAID may take a little longer to set up at first (though I believe you can do it as part of your install, if you answer the questions right), it may be easier to live with later on.
I have seen this option when installing Mandriva at the partitioning stage. This is my first CentOS install, (played with FC6 & F7). Not too clued up on LVM though, will be having a read of the LVM man pages.
Ted Miller Indiana, USA _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 at 10:58pm, John Bowden wrote
I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
Samba for file serving, CUPS for print serving -- both Win2K and XP can handle IPP.
The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid?
Without digging out the specs of those cards, I'd lean heavily towards software RAID, mainly for ease of management and compatibility.
My one piece of advice, coming from experience, is to buy a hardware RAID card from a reputable manufacturer, i.e. 3ware, Adaptec, LSI. I personally recommend 3ware, and have 10+ in various servers here in the office. The $200-$600 dollars you will spend will be well worth it if something ever should happen. You can swap out cards, and the raid array will be recognized, you can swap out drives on the fly, and they all support the newer RAID 6 for even better redundancy (I like RAID10, but I am paranoid). 3ware has amazing utilities for monitoring the array, either via the linux CLI, or via a secure web interface (nice when you use SSH port forwarding). It will send you an email when any errors occur (configurable detail levels) so this helps provide peace of mind. I can't stress how important a dedicated hardware RAID card is, regardless of the brand.
Just my .02
On Sep 21, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 at 10:58pm, John Bowden wrote
I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
Samba for file serving, CUPS for print serving -- both Win2K and XP can handle IPP.
The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0
- 1 and
JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid?
Without digging out the specs of those cards, I'd lean heavily towards software RAID, mainly for ease of management and compatibility.
-- Joshua Baker-LePain QB3 Shared Cluster Sysadmin UCSF _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On Friday 21 September 2007 16:39:46 Von Landfried wrote:
My one piece of advice, coming from experience, is to buy a hardware RAID card from a reputable manufacturer, i.e. 3ware, Adaptec, LSI. I personally recommend 3ware, and have 10+ in various servers here in the office. The $200-$600 dollars you will spend will be well worth it if something ever should happen. You can swap out cards, and the raid array will be recognized, you can swap out drives on the fly, and they all support the newer RAID 6 for even better redundancy (I like RAID10, but I am paranoid). 3ware has amazing utilities for monitoring the array, either via the linux CLI, or via a secure web interface (nice when you use SSH port forwarding). It will send you an email when any errors occur (configurable detail levels) so this helps provide peace of mind. I can't stress how important a dedicated hardware RAID card is, regardless of the brand.
Just my .02
On Sep 21, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 at 10:58pm, John Bowden wrote
I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ?
Samba for file serving, CUPS for print serving -- both Win2K and XP can handle IPP.
The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0
- 1 and
JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid?
Without digging out the specs of those cards, I'd lean heavily towards software RAID, mainly for ease of management and compatibility.
-- Joshua Baker-LePain QB3 Shared Cluster Sysadmin UCSF _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
A bit out of my price range for a home file server, but I will keep an eye out at the computer fair I attend.
John Bowden wrote:
I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ? The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid? Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated.
If you are interested in an appliance-like setup for serving files, printers, email and some other things, you might like the SME server from http://www.contribs.org. It's based on centos code but with a kickstart install and completely web based administration. It will automatically install as raid1 if it sees 2 disks, or as a 'broken' raid set if you only have one so you can easily add the mirror later (a very nice trick). Since the configuration is all built by web/perl scripts it is hard to do additional customization, but in a multiple machine setup you might find it easy to take advantage of its features.
On Friday 21 September 2007 16:24:24 Les Mikesell wrote:
John Bowden wrote:
I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ? The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid? Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated.
If you are interested in an appliance-like setup for serving files, printers, email and some other things, you might like the SME server from http://www.contribs.org. It's based on centos code but with a kickstart install and completely web based administration. It will automatically install as raid1 if it sees 2 disks, or as a 'broken' raid set if you only have one so you can easily add the mirror later (a very nice trick). Since the configuration is all built by web/perl scripts it is hard to do additional customization, but in a multiple machine setup you might find it easy to take advantage of its features.
I will have a closer look at this - looks interesting
John Bowden wrote:
The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. ...
Sometimes those IDE channels w/ raid only support 1 drive per channel. anyways, putting two devices on one IDE channel w/ raid isn't a very good idea, if either device fails in certain modes, it can take out the IDE channel.
Whatever.... I'd configure it all as JBOD, and implement raid-1 (mirroring) or raid1+0 (stripe/mirror) in Linux.
On Friday 21 September 2007 19:06:16 John R Pierce wrote:
John Bowden wrote:
The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. ...
Sometimes those IDE channels w/ raid only support 1 drive per channel. anyways, putting two devices on one IDE channel w/ raid isn't a very good idea, if either device fails in certain modes, it can take out the IDE channel.
Whatever.... I'd configure it all as JBOD, and implement raid-1 (mirroring) or raid1+0 (stripe/mirror) in Linux.
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I have had two 250 Gb drives on the same channel with raid 0 in windoz when I first brought the board. At the time the chip was not recognised in Linux. The SATA drives will have software raid and will get backed up to DVD R. i don't mind loosing a few tv recordings if the ITE raid set up has a problem.
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