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Page 5 of 5 RAID Setup
If you’re implementing a RAID storage subsystem, you’ll need to setup the type of RAID your hard drives will be operating in. There are a number of RAID levels to choose from if you’re using a card like the AMI Express 300 that I’m using. If you’ve gone with IDE RAID, your only options are RAID level 0 and level 1. Because this is an entry level home and office server, we’ll only be dealing with levels 0 and 1. Any level higher than 1 and the cost of building the server begins to increases almost exponentially.
While this article wasn’t intended to be a guide on RAID, I’ll briefly touch base on what RAID is and what levels 0 and 1 do.
RAID, is a type of hard drive setup that let’s you use multiple drives together to effectively be one physical drive. If you’re setting up a RAID configuration that only has logical partition on it, your operating system will only see it as being one drive, even though you may be combining the capacities of two physical drives together. Below is a picture of the BIOS setup in the AMI Express 300 RAID controller.
Level 0: This level is commonly referred to as “striping”. Striping let’s you combine the storage capacities of two or more drives into one logical partition and splits data evenly among the drives. If you are using two drives, and you want to write 1MB of data to the system, each drive will hold half of the data, thus improving write and read speeds because either one of them only does half the work of a single drive system. RAID level 0 offers no data protection schemes at all. It’s just like using one large drive.
Stripe Size: Stripe size is the size of the data chunks that are split between drives in RAID level 0. The stripe size refers to how large each chunk is. Usually, stripe sizes default to 64K but can be changed. Having a large stripe size is only beneficial on an array that stores large files. If lots of small files are used, sticking with a stripe size that’s small increases performance.
Level 1: This level is commonly referred to as “mirroring”. Mirroring enables you to write the same information from one drive to another and thus, if one drive fails, you’ll have the other drive, containing the exact same information as the first, to back you up. Level 1 doesn’t offer any speed benefits at all and is used just for redundancy purposes.
If you’re using a high-end SCSI RAID controller, there should be plenty of other settings you can play around with in its BIOS. Be careful though, regardless of whether you’re using a SCSI or IDE RAID controller, messing around in the RAID BIOS after you’ve defined the array and installed stuff on it, can totally wipe the array clean just like that. Sometimes the confirmation questions that pop up are ambiguous and you may end up choosing an option that you otherwise wouldn’t have if you knew what the results would be.
Get to know your RAID controller thoroughly before attempting to do any serious array setup. That’s just my recommendation, whether you choose to listen or now, is entirely up to you!
After you’ve defined an array, simply proceed to partition and format the array as if you were using a single drive. If you’re using two or more arrays, treat each array like one physical drive and partition and format it like you would any other drive. Operating System Installation
Finally, you’re done building the server, and now you’re wondering which operating system you should use. Generally, I recommend using Windows 98SE or Windows 2000 Professional/Server. If this is your first time setting up a server, Windows is probably the best choice for you.
You may have heard the benefits of using Linux, BSD, or any other of the oddities on a server, but the truth is, if you’re not using the server for mission critical applications, it’s not worth installing one of these operating systems. Some of the reasons why you would choose these “workstation and server” operating systems are because you need high security and speedy networking. The drawback comes when you have to sit down and learn how to use these operating systems. Linux, for example has a steeper and longer learning curve than Windows and it’s more technically difficult to manage.
For a good web/FTP/file server that has a high uptime, choose Windows 2000 Professional. Windows 2000 Server has many corporate and enterprise features that too, has steep learning curves and is often times, unnecessary for a home server.
If you’re primarily a gamer, going with Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 98SE would be the two best choices. I pick Win98SE over Me because 98SE is faster than Me is and 98SE seems to work with more drivers. The only drawback with 98SE is its love for rebooting after even the slightest configuration change.
I’ll be covering the installation of Windows 2000 Server and Linux in the next couple of articles so look out for those.
Conclusion
Although it’s not difficult, building a complete server from the ground up can be a stressful task. Figuring out what you need and how much it’ll cost is always a pain. Make things easier for yourself and layout a plan for the server because a plan can save time and money.
The server I just built is suited for the home and the office. There are many things that we can do with this server but I’ll go into detail about features and function in a later article. The configuration I went with is powerful enough for almost any home user and even powerful enough for a large office, although targeted at the small office.
Component wise, I used a lot of new devices that are hardly outdated. If all you have is left over parts from older systems, they can be just as effective in a server. Remember, your server isn’t going to be the primary machine you use to work and play. It’s going to be sitting there, in a corner, or underneath your desk, doing what you built it to do. It’ll be lonely and no one will tend to it, but hopefully, if you do everything right, it’ll stay lonely.
A good server hardly needs attention. A good server will stay on for long periods of time -- I’m talking weeks and months, not hours. Because of this, you’ll want to pick from the best components that you can, avoid making poor compromises and take the time to learn about what it takes to run a server efficiently. Also, don’t build a server if you don’t need one!
Hopefully, you’ve learned how to setup a good server that’s powerful and efficient enough to handle whatever your needs are. Check back later to find out how to setup Windows 2000 Server and the highly acclaimed Linux OS. Until then, thanks for reading.
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