Teraserver: Why we went PC instead of Xserve

[saabmp3]

Sorry if my orginal post above was considered flaming the poster. I agree that the PC has it's place, my argument was that your just not comparing a server to a server which meany people have pointed out to you. Good job using the PC, x86 with Linux is prolly perfect in this situation.

BEN

 

[mim]

Originally posted by acj
I'm glad I posted this. It has been very interesting.

Great.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm always keen to find out how people are setting up their networks. There are so many different options, and each have their own frustrations - it's good to have real world stuff posted.

Cheers!

 

[szark]

Originally posted by acj
I'm glad I posted this. It has been very interesting.

...At work we're on broadband so updates are automatic and invisible (and undoubtedly frequent!)

I also agree this is a very interesting thread.

Just wanted to point out one thing that some of the people in my company's IS department wished they had remembered to do: be sure to check on those "automatic and invisible updates" once in a while to make sure the system is actually performing them!

 

[wrc fan]

What everybody seems to be forgetting here, is that there is no way to do a Raid 5 on a Mac. The only options are 0 and 1. Sure you could set up 2 hardware raid 0 then use software to raid 1 them together to get a raid 0+1, but I really wouldn't want to do a software raid on such critial storage as this sounds.

Lastlly, if you have your server only connected to the internal network and never use it to access the internet (i.e. don't use outlook to check your email), then you should not have to worry about viruses. If you don't have all your computers safely behind a firewall, then I would suggest doing that right away.

 

[acj]

Originally posted by oaklandbum
What everybody seems to be forgetting here, is that there is no way to do a Raid 5 on a Mac. The only options are 0 and 1. Sure you could set up 2 hardware raid 0 then use software to raid 1 them together to get a raid 0+1, but I really wouldn't want to do a software raid on such critial storage as this sounds.

Lastlly, if you have your server only connected to the internal network and never use it to access the internet (i.e. don't use outlook to check your email), then you should not have to worry about viruses. If you don't have all your computers safely behind a firewall, then I would suggest doing that right away.

Indeed we SHOULD be safe because we don't use the server on the internet. But then again, they are always finding new security flaws in windows. Maybe a virus will come though when the virus scanner is downloading its update

RAID 0+1 is nice, but gets expensive the more drives you add, where RAID 5 gets more economical with more drives. But are you sure there is no RAID 5 hardware card available for Macs?

 

[wrc fan]

Originally posted by acj
But are you sure there is no RAID 5 hardware card available for Macs?

If there is, then it is for SCSI (as I haven't looked at those), but there are none for ATA that I can find.

 

[mim]

Originally posted by oaklandbum
If there is, then it is for SCSI (as I haven't looked at those), but there are none for ATA that I can find.

Well, again - firewire. I know I've seen 4 - 8 drive raid5 firewire enclosures...and I'm almost certain they're Mac compatible.

But never having used one I can't be certain. I'm sure clarification is only a google away...

 

[wrc fan]

Originally posted by mim
Well, again - firewire. I know I've seen 4 - 8 drive raid5 firewire enclosures...and I'm almost certain they're Mac compatible.

But never having used one I can't be certain. I'm sure clarification is only a google away...

OK, there are FireWire raid 5 systems (which are also quite expensive, at least the ones I found), but I was meaning internal PCI controllers. I guess they don't really care about doing that since new Macs can't hold that many drives, but it would sure be nice for my PowerTower Pro that I believe I could stick 8 hard drives in, if I got a new power supply that could handle that many.