[dba-Tech] Petulant PC

JC:
On reading the reviews for the card you recommend, I'm uneasy about the
return policy etc. So I looked at some of the others newegg.com has. My
ambitions (and wallet) are more modest than yours. The card and
support/return policy that caught my eye was the Promise card (
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102085). In the
past I have had hardware from Promise and was very satisfied.
Thanks for the pointer to newegg.

  On 6/3/07, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
> >
> > Arthur,
> >
> > Just go for it.  For about $500 you can get a dedicated raid controller
> > that
> > will handle 8 SATA 2 hard drives.
> >
> > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816131004
> >
> >
> > You can now purchase 750g hard drives for ~$240.
> >
> > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148134
> >
> > So for somewhere in the neighborhood of $750 you have the start of a
> > kickass
> > raid system. That is EXPANDABLE.
> >
> >
> > Now add two more of these same drives in a few months.  Dedicate one to
> > the
> > RAID5 redundancy, and another to data storage.  Now any disk can fail
> > without endangering your data.
> >
> > A few months later add another, and another and another.  Eventually
> > dedicate another drive to raid 6.  You now have a raid array where any
> > TWO
> > disks can fail without endangering your data.
> >
> > You can end up with 6 x 700 (real) or 4.2 terabytes of raid 6
> > storage.  That
> > should handle your issues with saving your backed up images for quite
> > awhile
> > I would think.
> >
> > BTW, that controller card is wicked fast, real life read data streaming
> > of
> > >400 mbyte / second when fully implemented.  Reads can stream data off
> > of
> > all available drives so the read speed is cumulative, as you add more
> > disks,
> > the streaming read rises.  Writes OTOH are at slightly less than a
> > single
> > drive.  This kind of performance is great for a data warehouse kind of
> > system where data rarely changes.
> >
> > I have two of these systems.  One has 8x 320 drives (300 real) in Raid 6
> >
> > with 6 of those drives actually available for storage.  I went with 320s
> > for
> > the first set because at that time (about a year ago) that was the sweet
> > spot.
> >
> > The second one I am still building out.  It currently has 6x 500gb
> > drives
> > (~470 real) in raid 5 with 5 drives available for storage, and when I
> > add
> > the final two drives one will go to raid 6 and the other for storage so
> > I
> > will have 6 x 470g of storage.    ATM 500g is the sweet spot, but the
> > 750g
> > drives are dropping like a rock so they will hit the sweet spot within a
> > few
> > months I think.
> >
> > The second system I actually built from the ground up using the raid
> > controller such that it actually boots off the raid, with a 200 gb
> > partition
> > for the boot disk.  The rest of the space is available for storage
> >
> > This fall I will probably build a system with two quad core processors
> > on a
> > single motherboard, and for that system I will build out a raid system
> > around the 750gb disks, booting off the raid array like I do with the
> > second
> > system I built.
> >
> > Yes, I know that it is not cheap to get in to, but the redundancy is
> > great
> > peace of mind, and it is expandable so that you can do it a piece at a
> > time.
> > The nice thing about a dedicated controller is that it is portable.  If
> > the
> > system fails, the whole shootin match can just be dropped into another
> > system.  With a raid based on a motherboard, this won't work unless you
> > get
> > another of the exact same board.
> >
> > John W. Colby
> > Colby Consulting
> > www.ColbyConsulting.com <http://www.colbyconsulting.com/>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> > [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur
> > Fuller
> > Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 4:40 PM
> > To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
> > Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Petulant PC
> >
> > The following is no help at all to your current situation, but since you
> > have used Ghost for a while, and I never have, even though I had it
> > included
> > in a previous version of Norton, I thought I would ask:
> >
> > Let's say your current boot drive has 250GB capacity and 150GB is
> > occupied
> > when you Ghost. How big is the Ghost file? Do you need another HD upon
> > which
> > to plant said file?
> >
> > The reason I ask is this: a bare-bones installation already comes with
> > my HP
> > computer. (This is achieved by partititioning the HD, creating a
> > read-only
> > partition with the initial image on it, then allowing you to start over
> > anytme by re-initializing drive c: from the r-o drive d:. However, even
> > though I love this ability, it still means after re-initializing I have
> > to
> > spend the better part of a day reinstalling Office, Office Developer,
> > SP1...n, NoteTab, winRAR, VS.NET <http://vs.net/>, SQL 2005 and so on.
> > So even though I can
> > reinit the original, I still lose a day implanting the rest.
> >
> > So let's assume that the total install that satisfies me is > 50% of the
> > disk. Does Ghost compress it? Even if it does, I think there is no
> > alternative but a pair of disks of whatever size in the machine of
> > interest.
> > Ok. Given that if I'm talking about a box with a 500GB disk, therefore I
> > need a pair, in fact three (the third on another box, so I can copy the
> > Ghost file to safety).
> >
> > This sounds:
> > a) like a recursive problem;
> > b) reminiscent of the days of FastBack, when I needed 50 3.5 disks to
> > back
> > up my HD (currently the number of dual-layer DVDs is smaller, let's see
> > 250GB / 4.7 GB = 50 + single-layer DVDs. That assumes the drive is full.
> > I
> > never let a drive get even 50% before I think it's time for another.
> > Fortunately prices plummet in relatively direct proportion with my
> > compulsive need to install more software and create new data.
> >
> > Either way, it seems that backup has been momentarily possible and then
> > suddenly impossible, then possible, then impossible, then possible, then
> > impossible (repeat until exhausted). Hofstadter, so to speak.
> >
> > Even the alleged massive storage of Blue-Ray apparently leaves us in the
> > FastBack situation of multiple disks. 200GB to back up, 50GB on a
> > Blue-Ray.
> > Back in the FastBack situation. If disk 3 has a problem, I have a BIG
> > problem.
> >
> > A.
> >
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> >
>
>