Re: SATA vs SCSI

> But the time has come to plan for the future and upgrade where
> appropriate. We're looking at switching to Windows 2003 and buying another
> server to host SQL Server and Exchange. We're at about 40 users at the
> moment but have plans to grow to 100+

A poynant little anecdote to this discussion... We have a secondary storage
server running an dual Athlon MP 2800+ with lots of RAM and SATA RAID-0
sub-system. It's full of non-critical information such as archives, CD-ROM
images etc. It's backed up once a month onto 5 LTO tapes.

Anyway, we managed to fill the 600GB volume so bought another Sil3112 SATA
RAID controller and two 400GB Samsung SATA drives. I have wasted an
afternoon trying to get it working:

o Creating RAID-0 array in the BIOS froze but appeared to create the array
o Attempting to extend existing volume ended up with broken volume as the
BIOS hadn't actually created the array
o Updated the BIOS on the Sil3112 and voila - creating array was instant and
didn't freeze
o Attempting to use the array though in Windows 2000 Server caused server to
freeze, hang and generate lots of disk errors
o Attempting to use drives non-RAID and still lots of errors in the log
about timeouts, bad blocks etc.
o Adaptec SCSI adapter decided to pack up as well so can't restore the data
on the same server
o BackupExec's facility to store a tape catalog on the tape nevers seems to
work so it'll take 10+ hours just to catalog
o Then another 48 hours to restore original 600GB :-)

Computer's aren't easy sometimes <grin>

Low down is that it's either a) broken RAID controller, b) incompatability
with Samsung drives, c) incompatability with Tiger motherboard, d) faulty
drive, e) it's the phase of the moon.

So not exactly glowing success for SATA RAID...

Cheers, Rob.


.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: SATA vs SCSI
    ... >> another server to host SQL Server and Exchange. ... we managed to fill the 600GB volume so bought another Sil3112 SATA ... > o Creating RAID-0 array in the BIOS froze but appeared to create the array ... Your mention of the Adaptec host adapter packing up suggests that it might ...
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