Raid on a DOS based PC?

[imported_bparks]

We have a dated computer system that we use at work that has DOS based software programmed to control every function of sensor, timer, switch, drive ,etc. for the production process of hardboard. The old 486 PC's are very durable in the extreme conditions of temperature and humidity and newer Windows PC's have failed in other areas. One PC hard disk did fail and it was necessary to send it out for data recovery to rebuild a new drive.

Is there a way to run a basic RAID setup on a 486 DOS based PC? What I mean by basic is I don't think we want RAID 5 rather just the ability to mirror the drive.

 

[Goosemaster]

could you setup a netowrk drive and have it copy all the contents of the drive at set internals or soemthing?

The issue is going to be drivers. That said, I'mp retty sure adaptec has a lot of DOS drivers for its equipment - not for all of it obviosuly, but at least for fast/ultra2 ..even lvd.

 

[Goosemaster]

http://adaptec.com/en-US/support/raid/scsi_raid/ASR-2100S/


ultra160 (ultrascsi 3) and it has DOS drivers

 

[Goosemaster]

Keep in mind that that scsi controlelr is slow as hell, but it will do the job fine for basic mirroring and stuff...nto a performacne card in the least

 

[Lord Evermore]

Do your 486 PCs even have PCI slots?

Addonics makes several SATA RAID cards that they say are DOS compatible.

There's also this. I think there are a couple of other brands of similar devices. This would be the easiest, plug it in and go option. Of course it's one more piece of hardware that has to survive your environment.

Do these systems need high-speed drive access? You could do a network boot so that the drives storing the data and OS aren't even located in the environment that's causing such problems (assuming the software could even handle such a thing).