Hi List I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ? The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid? Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, John -- Guy Fawkes, the only man to enter the house's of Parliament with honest intentions, (he was going to blow them up!) Registered Linux user number 414240
gjgowey at tmo.blackberry.net
2007-Sep-21 09:43 UTC
[CentOS] Central file server advice please
Exactly how much throughput are you realistically anticipating? What connection are you going to use? 802.11 or 10/100 or gige? And yes, the chips will pretty much always give you better performance with raid. Geoff Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld. -----Original Message----- From: John Bowden <j-alan at btconnect.com> Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:58:27 To:CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> Subject: [CentOS] Central file server advice please Hi List I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the best option for the file and print serving ? The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or using software raid? Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, John -- Guy Fawkes, the only man to enter the house's of Parliament with honest intentions, (he was going to blow them up!) Registered Linux user number 414240 _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS at centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, John Bowden wrote:> (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two > ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the > best option for the file and print serving ?You realize the mythtv setup (if this machine is going to be the 'backend') really should be on a separate box? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Wildman, CISSP, RHCE jim at rossberry.com http://www.rossberry.com "Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine
John Bowden wrote:> I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a > central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP > and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, > (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two > ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the > best option for the file and print serving ?Probably> The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA > raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a > GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and > JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. > Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or > using software raid?Some digging on Google seems to show that the IT8212F chipset is a "halfway" hardware RAID that offers some performance improvement over software RAID. The Sil3512 chipset appears to be pure "fakeraid", in which case you are better off putting it in non-RAID mode (in your BIOS) and using software RAID.> Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list > would be appreciated. > Thanks in advance, JohnThe other consideration is migration. If your motherboard dies some night, you can take Linux software RAID disks, transplant them onto another motherboard, jump through the setup hoops, and be back in business (because the RAID is tied to Linux, not the motherboard). If you use the motherboard chips for RAID at all, that will not transfer to another motherboard (except possibly if you get another motherboard with the same chipset and BIOS). Even if you migrate in a non-failure situation, you will not be able to move the drives to another motherboard (mobo) until you either 1. copy the data to another drive somewhere install old drives on new mobo set up drives on new mobo in new RAID array re-sync drives copy data from temporary drive back onto array or 2. Set up new mobo with new drives Do initial setup/sync on new array copy entire drive contents from old machine to new machine over network Compared to connecting drives to a new mobo and having a new install of Linux recognize the array and set it up for you, there is quite a bit of difference in convenience. My cursory Google search did not give me any data about how much performance improvement you would get from the hardware in the ITF8212F chipset, as opposed to an all software solution. If mass throughput is not your primary goal (e.g. serving multiple video streams at once without any glitches), software RAID may take a little longer to set up at first (though I believe you can do it as part of your install, if you answer the questions right), it may be easier to live with later on. Ted Miller Indiana, USA
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 at 10:58pm, John Bowden wrote> I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a > central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP > and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, > (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two > ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the > best option for the file and print serving ?Samba for file serving, CUPS for print serving -- both Win2K and XP can handle IPP.> The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA > raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a > GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and > JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. > Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or > using software raid?Without digging out the specs of those cards, I'd lean heavily towards software RAID, mainly for ease of management and compatibility. -- Joshua Baker-LePain QB3 Shared Cluster Sysadmin UCSF
John Bowden wrote:> I have a Gygabyte GA-7N400 PRO2 with a 2.6 mHz Athlon cpu. I want to set up a > central file storage for 2/3 users using 6/7 machines. A mixture of win2k, XP > and various Linux distros (my home network). It will be used to store files, > (docs, music and DVD ) for all of these machines, print server, (two > ink-jets), mail server and later on a myth tv set up. Would SAMBA be the > best option for the file and print serving ? > The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA > raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. The IDE raid chip is a > GigaRaid IT8212F chipset. It supports raid 0 or raid 1 and raid 0 + 1 and > JBOD. The SATA raid is a Silicon Image Sil3512. It supports Raid 0 or 1. > Would I get better speed performance using the chips to manage the raid or > using software raid? > Oh and I will be using the CentOS 5 install dvd. Any advice from the list > would be appreciated.If you are interested in an appliance-like setup for serving files, printers, email and some other things, you might like the SME server from http://www.contribs.org. It's based on centos code but with a kickstart install and completely web based administration. It will automatically install as raid1 if it sees 2 disks, or as a 'broken' raid set if you only have one so you can easily add the mirror later (a very nice trick). Since the configuration is all built by web/perl scripts it is hard to do additional customization, but in a multiple machine setup you might find it easy to take advantage of its features. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
John Bowden wrote:> The mother board has 2 X IDE channels, 2 X IDE channels with raid and 2 X SATA > raid channels, that's up to 10 hard drive devices. ...Sometimes those IDE channels w/ raid only support 1 drive per channel. anyways, putting two devices on one IDE channel w/ raid isn't a very good idea, if either device fails in certain modes, it can take out the IDE channel. Whatever.... I'd configure it all as JBOD, and implement raid-1 (mirroring) or raid1+0 (stripe/mirror) in Linux.