[ale] RAID1 h/w suggestions

[James P. Kinney III]

On Sat, 2005-07-09 at 17:49 -0400, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> This really has more to do with WinXP than Linux, but the focus should
> be more on hardware than OSes or software.... ;-)
> 
> I need a highly robust hardware solution for a system currently running
> WinXP.  What I want is the ability to have a RAID1 (mirror) array across
> 2 disc drives (one internal, one external) where the external drive is
> replaced and moved to off-site storage every few days.  I would like to
> not have to bring the system down to do this, and would prefer if the
> hardware (or even WinXP) allowed for the insertion/extraction of discs
> and the auto-rebuilding of the array.  

There is code for creating software RAID with XP Pro. I can't speak on
it reliability.

I would not suggest attempting hot-swap on any winders platform. The
blurring of boundaries between hardware layer and OS and , etc. are too
extreme. The new 2003 server is supposed to support native software
raid, but my test installs crashed so often I gave up.

Solution: Get a hardware raid card and a removable drive bay and an
extra caddy. The system is going to bog down so badly during mirror
rebuild anyway that taking the system down for the 3 minutes it takes to
change out the drive is the minor issue. Besides, it a winders machine.
It needs to be rebooted anyway :)
> 
> Questions:
> 
>    Years ago this was SCSI only type functionality, does anyone 
>       know if SATA or EIDE can natively support hotswapping?  
> 
>    Does WinXP Pro support software RAID1, and will that work in
>       this case, if the underlying hardware supports hotswapping?
> 
>    Hardware suggestions?
> 
>    Alternate suggestions?
> 
> 
> Short explanation:
> 
>    This system is used for studio content development work (MIDI, 
>      etc) and produces lots of really large WAV/MIDI files that 
>      need short-term security and preservation.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Jim P.
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
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