Server M/B worth it??

[RayGr]

Hi,
I've decided to build myself a workstation class PC.
The problem is that I want to get 2 15k Seagate Cheetach 15k.3 drives
in stripping mode for great disk speed. To do that I have 3 options:
- Software RAID0(e.g. win2k strip volume) and some cheap SCSI-3 card(or onboard chip) with normal M/B- Cheapest solution
- Hardware RAID0 with 32-bit PCI card (e.g. Adaptec 2100S) and normal M/B - Medium Solution(about $250 more expensive than Cheapest)
- Hardware RAID0 with 64-bit PCI card (e.g. Adaptec 2110S) and server M/B - Expensive solution. (about $600 more expensive than Cheapest)
The 2 disks alone will cost $500.

I would like to void buying a dual CPU board(the XEONS are Pricey) but I currently do not know of any Single CPU boards with 64-bit PCI slots. Also I don't know whether a Radeon 9700 Pro will work properly on a M/B with AGP Pro.

I have no experience in setting up workstation PCs so I would like to know whether the speed improvement between the three solutions
can justify the price difference.
I mainly do software development and gaming.

Thanks

 

[floccus]

I would advise against software raid. You can find a nice solution using a board with raid built in, which most server/workstation boards do. I'm not sure what else you want on the board so I'm not going to recommend any, no use telling you to get a board with gigabit ethernet if you're never gonna use it. Xeons are expensive, but you can go the route of dual Athlons which would be cheaper.

But my heart always says, that if you're going to build a high end system, go all out. It would make more sense to not get the 15K.3 drives and get something at 10K and get a better board. The board is what interfaces with everything, so even if the HDs are smoking fast, it wont mean a damn thing if the memory controller is a piece of crap.

 

[ststelx]

I am in the process of setting up a bunch of workstations and servers. Ebay is probably the way to go. I bought 6 Seagate Cheetah X15 drives, at 36 GB each and an Adaptec 3410S RAID card. I did not buy the battery backup option. This whole setup cost about $600. The people to buy these from are called CSC. They are atually really good (they're a supplier of new and old drives and thats all they do). They do jobs for Sun and others.

I also went with the Storcase DE100's at U160 16-bit. Those carriers are very nice, if not overpriced.

I would NOT buy old stuff off eaby unless you are willing to put up with 20% failure rates for items in quantity (sometimes it makes financial sense because you need 2, and each normally costs $1000, and on ebay you can get 10 for $200. You can buy tons of them until you make up the retail cost).

Also, remember that striped drives are more likely to fail. If the MTBF of the drives is 1.2 Million hours, together, the MTBF is half that because the chance of failure in any one drive is doubled because now you have 2 instead of one (probability rules). Also, in RAID 0 you can't have redundancy / protection. RAID 5 is a little slower too. What I have done is gone with RAID0+1 (two identical / mirrored sets of RAID0 drives). This is fast and provides protection. A fifth drive acts as a hot spare. I know it is a real waste of disk space to do it this way, but it is the best combo of speed and redundancy as I know.


StStelx

 

[mechBgon]

Increasing the transfer rate beyond that of a single 15k.3 may not have as big of an effect on system-level performance as you might think. StorageReview.com tested a RAID0 of two fast Maxtor IDE drives and the system-level benchmarks increase by less than 10% in most cases. Personally, if I had two 15k.3's then I'd set them up as single drives, and make sure to put one pagefile on each of them.

mwave.com carries a single-Xeon board with 64-bit PCI if you're interested: link It runs about $290. Make sure to read the specs closely; it appears to take EPS or GES power supplies, you would want to check into that at supermicro.com first.