Network File Server

Bob wrote:

On Mon, 03 May 2004 06:27:42 GMT, "Mr. Grinch"
wrote:

As I mentioned, I am thinking outloud about doing several things, like
having a DVD player-computer hooked to the TV and using it to be the
network file server where we can have data backup/recovery.

I think it can work. I think you were mentioning Celeron 400?

Actually that was a minimal machine someone else suggested. I am
thinking about a 500 MHz K6-II machine running Win2K with 384 MB.

The only
thing I'm concerned about are anything that might have high CPU usage. So
far, the highest cpu usage tasks you've mentioned would be DVD playback,
and, TV recording, if you intend to record TV programs with the tuner.

I do not plan to record TV on the computer.

You can get cards with dedicated MPEG encoding and decoding.
One example might be the ATI (All In Wonder) cards. The 9800 AIW has a TV
tuner, and is supposed to have accelerated mpeg encoding, mpeg decoding,
DVD
decoding, and DivX decoding too. I can vouch for the accelerated mpeg and
DVD decoding, all ATI cards have had this for some time. Web reviews of
this card have shown reduced CPU usage for DivX playback on same systems
with
different video cards. I'm not sure how they do the mpeg encoding though.
There is a cheaper version, the 9600 AIW. It's slower for 3D but I think
it
offers the same feature set as the 9800. It also comes with their latest
wireless remote control and software, which is supposed to be quite good.
So
one card might be able to do it all. If I built a shoebox PC to be a
media
player, I'd want one of these cards. But it does raise the system cost.

Thanks for the info.

There's one problem with the 9600 All-In-Wonder--it's the only board in the
All-In-Wonder series that has two VGA outputs but they got that by removing
any DVI capability. If HDTV is in your future then you're likely going to
miss the DVI.


--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Bob wrote:

On Sun, 02 May 2004 23:12:33 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

But I was thinking about a removeable disk drive, one which I would
mirror and then take out to put on the shelf. I would put a third
drive in and let the system mirror it.

That's a backup. You're only mirrored when both drives are in the
machine. If the RAID system you're using will allow it try a triple
mirror, two drives stay in the machine and one gets rotated for backup.

I want to be sure I understand what you are saying. I have two drives
in the mirror configuration. I stop the machine, remove one drive and
replace it with a third drive, put the second drive on the shelf. Why
would I need a "triple mirror" - and exactly what is such a thing?

You have two drives in the machine, permanently mirrored, so that if you
lose one you haven't lost anything. You have a third drive that you mirror
to the first two that you store on a shelf for backup in case something
eats the mirrored pair. If you remove the mirror drive and replace it
there's a time while the mirror is rebuilding that you aren't mirrored--if
your machine gets very low traffic so the cost of lost data if the main
drive fails during the remirror is minor then it's an acceptable risk. If
it's a production server then that risk is unacceptable.

Incidentally, there's another option with backups. Use a mirrored pair with
a third drive to which you image the contents of the mirror. The image
will be compressed so will typically be about half the size of the actual
stored data, can be easily restored (Drive Image has a DOS-based utility
that allows the image to be restored with nothing more than the drive and a
boot diskette), and it's possible to retrieve individual files or
directories from the image.

Since you're running networked it might not even be necessary to have the
third drive, just image across the wire to another machine.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Mon, 03 May 2004 07:38:01 GMT, "Mr. Grinch"
wrote:

Compaq SmartArray and
Compaq Fiber Channel controllers can do this. Guess I'm supposed to call
them HP now? Old habits die hard.

Compaq maintains a separate business presence although

www.compaq.com -- h18000.www1.hp.com

But I would not rule out that perhaps newer cards can. If I had to pick one
that might be able to do it, I'd pick the ATA RAID cards from 3Ware, because
they are the "high-end" of ATA RAID controllers and seem to have the most
features and best support. 3Ware are the ones I'd want if I could afford
them. They've also been doing ATA RAID longer than Adaptec.

I just wrote 3Ware sales asking them.

My next choice would be Adaptec, because they tend to have a bit more support
than the rest.

Set up channel 0 for RAID 1, set up channel 1 for RAID 1. Leave 2 disks in
Channel 0. Pull all disks from channel 1, leave it empty. Pull a disk from
channel 0. Put it in Channel 1, same drive position. Try and mount it and
read it.

Is there any reason in principle why that would not work? After all
you do have Channel 1 set up for RAID, so you would think that the
card would deal with the archive disk properly. I assume the card will
allow you to put only 1 disk in a RAID-1 Channel.


--

Map Of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:
http://www.freewebs.com/vrwc/

"You can all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."
--David Crockett

(Bob) wrote in
:

On Mon, 03 May 2004 07:38:01 GMT, "Mr. Grinch"
wrote:

Set up channel 0 for RAID 1, set up channel 1 for RAID 1. Leave 2 disks
in Channel 0. Pull all disks from channel 1, leave it empty. Pull a
disk from channel 0. Put it in Channel 1, same drive position. Try and
mount it and read it.

Is there any reason in principle why that would not work? After all
you do have Channel 1 set up for RAID, so you would think that the
card would deal with the archive disk properly. I assume the card will
allow you to put only 1 disk in a RAID-1 Channel.

Other than poor bios firmware or driver, I can't think of a reason why it
should not work. But I've run into it myself and you may find others who
have too, with the first sets of ATA RAID cards. Maybe it's different now
that things have matured somewhat?

The cards will allow you to put only 1 disk in a RAID-1 configured channel.
But for the initial configuration, every card I've ever used needs two
actuall disks in there for you to set up the initial config. It won't let
you configure a channel as Raid-1 if bot drives are not present. Once that
config is saved it should be business as usuall.

"J. Clarke" wrote in news:c75ag502qh0
@news2.newsguy.com:
r the info.
There's one problem with the 9600 All-In-Wonder--it's the only board in the
All-In-Wonder series that has two VGA outputs but they got that by removing
any DVI capability. If HDTV is in your future then you're likely going to
miss the DVI.

Yeah, that's one area where ATI seems a bit behind NVIDIA as far as features
go. Like you said, from what I've read, the 9600 is the only RADEON series
with dual display ability. But it looses DVI. My old Ti4200 has both dual
display and DVI, the second display can be DVI, VGA, S Video, or Composite.
At the moment it's going to my TV as composite. They just give you an S-
Video to Composite convertor cable. For VGA, I think it's DVI to VGA
convertor.

But I do miss the mpeg / dvd quality of the ATI cards, I think it's smoother
and looks better than NVIDIA.

All this stuff is pretty cheap compared to the price of large flat panel
displays!

"Mr. Grinch" wrote in
3.159:

(Bob) wrote in
:

On Mon, 03 May 2004 07:38:01 GMT, "Mr. Grinch"
wrote:

Set up channel 0 for RAID 1, set up channel 1 for RAID 1. Leave 2
disks in Channel 0. Pull all disks from channel 1, leave it empty.
Pull a disk from channel 0. Put it in Channel 1, same drive position.
Try and mount it and read it.

Is there any reason in principle why that would not work? After all
you do have Channel 1 set up for RAID, so you would think that the
card would deal with the archive disk properly. I assume the card will
allow you to put only 1 disk in a RAID-1 Channel.

Other than poor bios firmware or driver, I can't think of a reason why
it should not work. But I've run into it myself and you may find others
who have too, with the first sets of ATA RAID cards. Maybe it's
different now that things have matured somewhat?

I just found out why it might not work, following another thread in this
forum. It mentions that some ATA RAID conrollers, particularly ones embedded
in motherboards, only support a single RAID-1 array, not two (one per
channel).

So the first thing to confirm for any controller is if will allow two RAID1
arrays, not just one.

Mr. Grinch wrote:

"J. Clarke" wrote in news:c75ag502qh0
@news2.newsguy.com:
r the info.
There's one problem with the 9600 All-In-Wonder--it's the only board in
the All-In-Wonder series that has two VGA outputs but they got that by
removing
any DVI capability. If HDTV is in your future then you're likely going
to miss the DVI.

Yeah, that's one area where ATI seems a bit behind NVIDIA as far as
features
go. Like you said, from what I've read, the 9600 is the only RADEON
series
with dual display ability.

The 9600 is the only All-In-Wonder that has dual VGA. Every All-In-Wonder
is not a Radeon and every Radeon is not an All-In-Wonder. Every Radeon
board that I have ever seen that is not an All-In-Wonder has dual display
capability and the more recent ones have TV-out. However ATI reserves dual
DVI for their workstation boards.

But it looses DVI. My old Ti4200 has both
dual display and DVI, the second display can be DVI, VGA, S Video, or
Composite.
At the moment it's going to my TV as composite. They just give you an S-
Video to Composite convertor cable. For VGA, I think it's DVI to VGA
convertor.

So? No different from my old first generation Radeon board.

But I do miss the mpeg / dvd quality of the ATI cards, I think it's
smoother and looks better than NVIDIA.

All this stuff is pretty cheap compared to the price of large flat panel
displays!

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"J. Clarke" wrote in news:c77usm01lr5
@news1.newsguy.com:

The 9600 is the only All-In-Wonder that has dual VGA. Every All-In-Wonder
is not a Radeon and every Radeon is not an All-In-Wonder. Every Radeon
board that I have ever seen that is not an All-In-Wonder has dual display
capability and the more recent ones have TV-out. However ATI reserves dual
DVI for their workstation boards.

Understood. Thanks for the clarification.