[Pc_Support] 3Ware Escalade 8000, 9500S and 9550SX -- WAS: Drives, RAID, backups oh my!

[Damien McKenna]

> > * What IDE controller do you recommend for a 64bit/33MHz PCI slot?
> 
> What storage do you want?

RAID-1.

> If you just want two (2) redundant drives, a $125 3Ware Escalade
> 8006-2LP (PCI64/66, slows down to PCI64/33) will do nicely.

I was figuring reusing the several 40gb IDE drives we already have, or
should I bank on getting replacement drives too?

> > * What happens in a RAID-1 array if one of the drives dies?

I should mention that these servers will all be running Windows Server
2000 (maybe 2003, depending on the budget).

> > How is it recovered?
> 
> If you have a hot spare already declared, the rebuild will be
> immediate.  A hot spare requires a spare channel and spare drive
> already allocated.

Unfortunately the RAID-1 cards would be going in the DL320's which only
have two drive bays, i.e. no hot-spare.  How does that affect things?

> > * Is "Ultrium" the same as LTO?
> 
> Yes, it's HP's Brand.  LTO is a multi-vendor standard.  HP inflates
> the model numbers to reflect the GB size of a 2.4:1 compression ratio
> IIRC.  E.g., Ultrium 960 for 400/800GB LTO-3.

Alrighty, that explains a lot.

A few follow-up questions:

Would having the OS partition (Windows Server 2000 or 2003) running on
RAID-5 be too much of a load on the drives?  If it would be I'd get
another two drives per DL380 and set them up as RAID-1.

It seems the SmartArray 5i is a fully hardware-driven RAID card after
all.  The user manual is at
http://docs.hp.com/en/225852-001/225852-001.pdf but it doesn't say what
the controller chip is.

Would there be much of a problem running Ultra320 drives on an Ultra160
controller?

Our current DL380 has only one processor (P3/1266MHz), would it be
worthwhile adding the second processor or should we not worry about it -
the appropriate CPU kits are on ebay for under $100.  On this note, the
DL380 uses the ServerWorks ServerSet III HE-SL chipset and not a crappy
Intel chipset.

Thanks again.

-- 
Damien McKenna - Web Developer - Damien.McKenna at thelimucompany.com
The Limu Company - http://www.thelimucompany.com/ - 407-804-1014
#include <stdjoke.h>