Hello Graham, ... but you can of course RAID0 SCSI disks too so that's not really a factor. If cost is a concern, by all means consider ATA disks, but since the machine spec' given by Michael's original post seems uncompromising, you might as well have the best of everything!
BTW, a good friend of mind swore by RAID0 ATA disks and was giving me a demo of their speed when the controller flashed up an error message. The end result was that he lost everything on his disks because a damaged stripe took out all data... at least when a un-RAIDed disk fails in a localised area, there's a chance to get most of the data back. Don't get me wrong, RAID0 has it's place but you've really got to know what it's doing and what the risks are. Regards, Warren Vick Europa Technologies Ltd. http://www.europa-tech.com > Slaving away in London UK Me too... more coffee? -----Original Message----- From: GrahamOB [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 12:14 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: MI-L Hardware Specs OK, here's my tuppence-worth (about 3 cents, so you're getting good value) Don't bother with SCSI. For a cost-effective and, above all, fast solution, use a pair of the biggest, fastest ATA disks you can find with a RAID controller, configured as RAID-0. This stripes the data across the pair of disks, effectively doubling the transfer rate (less a little overhead). I use a set-up like that with a couple of 40GB drives, and it handles even pretty big raster files very fast. BTW, has anyone noticed what a good games machine this would make? Imagine Half-Life or Unreal Tournament on that - yummy! GrahamOB Slaving away in London UK ----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Vick, Europa Technologies Ltd." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 12 September 2002 23:32 Subject: RE: MI-L Hardware Specs > > Hello, > > Why would all three disks be working at the same time? Once the OS is > loaded, it may only occasionally load extra components. Ditto for > applications. There used to be a case for putting the swap file on a drive > of it's own but with 1GB of memory, it's unlikely one will see any page > swaps unless the user runs half a dozen apps at the same time. > > My recommendation is to upgrade to a good SCSI disk controller and Ultra-160 > drives. In my experience, disk speed is as important as the processor with > memory only a problem if you don' t have enough. Lots of excess memory is > not going to make the machine faster. > > Regards, > Warren Vick > Europa Technologies Ltd. > http://www.europa-tech.com > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 10:49 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: MI-L Hardware Specs > > > As long as you are building a machine, I would suggest that you use three > separate hard drives. put the OS on one, the programs on the second, and > the > data on the third. the first two can be 5 to 10 gig in size (you use the > spare space for temp storage and print spooling). The third should be large. > this is more efficient and will speed up data transfer (instead of having > the > head of one HD doing all the work, you have three HD's working > independently). You should also have a back up (removable?) hard drive (or > two) for long term data storage (just in case your main storage drive goes > bad - it is hell when that happens). > > you did not specify your bus speed/memory speed. there are new memory chips > (very expensive) that work at 5 to 10 times the speed (data transfer) of the > SDRAM > > s. figuers > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 3014 > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 3015 > --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 3016 --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 3017
