Roger Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 For those of you that admin a Windows network. What are your thoughts on using SATA drives vice the traditional SCSI in a file server RAID5 environment? Server would be a Windows 2003 server, possibly with Exchange 2003. That is the current config now with RAID1 on 73gb SCSI drives. We will probably drop the exchange server for something else a little less demanding. Other than the obvious diff in cost which would endear the client when passed on. I am concerned about reliability. I am leaning towards staying with SCSI to remove the fear factor. So, your thoughts please... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 i recommend staying with SCSI as it definitely has a better track record. Make sure you do at least RAID5 with either SCSI or SATA and make sure your RAID hardware supports hot-swappable drives. This is obviously only important if uptime is crucial. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Posted January 24, 2007 Author Share Posted January 24, 2007 My pref is to RAID1 the OS with 2, 73gb and then RAID5 the data with 4 drives the 4th being a hot spare. But money is a constraint. Clients server is current RAID1 only with SCSI (added after purchase), with a separate data partition. The RAID was done via the OS 2003 Server. Again the money constraint. Well of course when the failure came it was an OS failure... Even following M$'s partition editing advice did not make the mirror usable. Fortunately he data partition was unhurt and we had multi-levels of backups as well. Tape, external disk and shadow copies (not a real back-up but a very good deal anyway). So the next server (this due for rotation out of service in about a year) will most likely be at least SCSI with RAID1 in hardware. I'm wondering if SATA just hasn't been around long enough yet to build a reputation ala SCSI. The RAID5 would be great but is not absolutely required. But at SATA prices... it is affordable. Thanks bro.. -Roger 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 My pref is to RAID1 the OS with 2, 73gb and then RAID5 the data with 4 drives the 4th being a hot spare. But money is a constraint. Clients server is current RAID1 only with SCSI (added after purchase), with a separate data partition. The RAID was done via the OS 2003 Server. Again the money constraint. Well of course when the failure came it was an OS failure... Even following M$'s partition editing advice did not make the mirror usable. Fortunately he data partition was unhurt and we had multi-levels of backups as well. Tape, external disk and shadow copies (not a real back-up but a very good deal anyway). So the next server (this due for rotation out of service in about a year) will most likely be at least SCSI with RAID1 in hardware. I'm wondering if SATA just hasn't been around long enough yet to build a reputation ala SCSI. The RAID5 would be great but is not absolutely required. But at SATA prices... it is affordable. Thanks bro.. -Roger I have a few servers with RAID5 and 6 SATA drives, so i cant say im against SATA, just prefer SCSI when its available. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
generic Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 220, 221, whatever it takes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webresellers Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 we have been using SATA drives (as well as SCSI) for years... For the price difference between SCSI and SATA, we can buy 2x the SATA drives that are 3-4x larger than scsi for the same money. so we just rotate drives in/out of severs every 3 years, need it or not. Not to mention we are using various raid levels, backups, etc. The point is. we have never had a disk failure, and performance has been fast, and dependable. You can I/O bind a SATA disk before a SCSI disk. SCSI drives are much better for mutli connections to the disk. But, no matter how your slice it, the head can't be in 2 places at once, and the difference the in the avg. seek time (1-2ms) is not enough to really worry about. Hope some of this helps. We currently manage well over 300+ servers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 we have been using SATA drives (as well as SCSI) for years...For the price difference between SCSI and SATA, we can buy 2x the SATA drives that are 3-4x larger than scsi for the same money. so we just rotate drives in/out of severs every 3 years, need it or not. Not to mention we are using various raid levels, backups, etc. The point is. we have never had a disk failure, and performance has been fast, and dependable. You can I/O bind a SATA disk before a SCSI disk. SCSI drives are much better for mutli connections to the disk. But, no matter how your slice it, the head can't be in 2 places at once, and the difference the in the avg. seek time (1-2ms) is not enough to really worry about. Hope some of this helps. We currently manage well over 300+ servers. Very good information and very impressed that such a large host is using WHMCS. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DataHosts Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 ***HIJACK*** webresllers...just a question and not trying to be a jerk. Went to your site to view it and found this: http://www.webresellers.net/downloads.htm Hosting Billing Software WHM Auto Pilot - The best CPanel hosting client management billing system available However, you do use WHMCS but list WHMAP as the best. Why are you not using WHMAP if it is the best in your opinion? Again..not trying to be a jerk but found that odd to see. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webresellers Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 datahosts & others.... Sorry, that is a very old link what has since been revised. (thanks for catching that) We don't recommend WHMAP to anyone since we use WHMCS ourselves. We are x-whmap users. We are very firm believers that WHMCS IS THE BEST! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DataHosts Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 No prob...just saw that and was confused... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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