RichB

Speccing a new server (Poweredge1800) and have been told by a friend that it should be possible to have two smaller (40gb) disks RAID1 i.e mirrored and then two 250gb disks as standard storage.

Now Dell say you can't do that with SATA disks but my friend recommended that for our use, the SATA disks will be fine and then suggested this raid config.

Dell now suggest having 3x250gb RAID 5 giving us 500gb of useable space.

We are putting the hardward raid controller in.

My questions are:
Has my friend got his wires crossed and you can only do that with SCSI (where the price does go up a bit too much)?
Are Dell simply trying to sell a more expensive system by saying it must be SCSI?
Can I have RAID 1 with two smaller disks (OS and critical files) and RAID5 with 3x250gb?

The server will be running SQL server as well as SBS/exchange

Thanks,
Rich

ozzy

If the server supports hardware RAID then I don't see why you can't mirror 2 SATA drives for the OS and then have another RAID 5 array for storage.

It all depends on how many SATA drives the server supports and what RAID controller is used. The theory is sound, but maybe it's not possible with the way the Dell server is spec'd.

Not sure just how good SATA is, but I'd always try to get SCSI where possible. Even with no one accessing our PowerVault NAS the performance dies a death if you start copying lots of data to/from the server. It's got IDE RAID and I really regret buying it.

ChrisB

All comes down to the number of channels on the RAID controller and what it supports. Well, IMHO at least.

Lum

SATA drives and SATA controllers are often found in servers these days and are significantly cheaper than SCSI with not that much drop in performance (if any, providing you get the right drives)
Beware of the cheap SATA controller cards that only do RAID 0 and 1 as these are basically software RAID. Adaptec do some nice "proper" SATA RAID cards.

I imagine Dell don't want to supply you with SATA as SCSI has a higher profit margin. scan.co.uk sell some very nice SuperMicro servers with hotplug SATA RAID, my GF works for a business ISP and they love them.

I should also note that I used to work for a company which at another branch made certain parts for Dell systems, built to their specs and requirements, and had a police of not using Dell kit for their own operations. Read into that what you will.

I can't comment on their servers as I've not used them, but I have a couple of great horror stories about design flaws and problems with their desktops and laptops