Hard Drive Cappacity

Hi Robert. I'm Don..Dan posed the question for me. We're using windows 2000 server edition with service pack 4. A Belarc report states we have 4 controllers: Standard floppy, Primary IDE channel, secondary IDE channel and standard dual channel PCI IDE. Bus adapters include: Adaptec AHA-2930CU PCI SCSI Controller, AIC-7892 Ultra 160/m PCI SCSI Card, AIC 7896/AIC-7897 PCI Ultra2 SCSI Controller, Symbios Ultra3 PCI SCSI Adapter; 53C1010-33 Device (2x). BIOS is American Megatrends 070001.

We have a spanned volume on 5 drives including 2 IBM 36.70g SCSI's and 2 Seagate 73.40g and 1 Seagate 36.41g SCSI's. We are running out of space. I wanted to add a large capacity drive to the sixth bay and copy the information from the spanned volume and then change out to a RAID array with larger drives. The 5 drives are all U160 , 10K rpm 80 pin low voltage. I originally wanted to throw in a 300-400g U320 10K and I discussed this with the firm who usually helps us with these problems, but they say they don't believe it will work. I'm looking for a way out of this spanned volume problem. Does the above information help?

Where's the backup system here? While I don't see a problem with a 300GB or such SCSI drive, the problem is what if?

What if the drive contents 'go away' by adding said drive? What's the recovery plan look like?

-> After you sort that out let me share my cheap out. I've picked up 300GB IDE drives for such "bounces". The last 300GB was all of 129 bucks and now hums in some worker's desktop.

While I foresee no other big issue, the disaster recovery plan might be missing in action. I use that to backup, pull the old drives, install the new drives and then restore from the disaster backups. It also serves as a test of the disaster recovery plan. If the recovery fails, I can slide the old drives into place while we sort out why the disaster plan failed.

Bob

OOOS.. sorry. I didn't mention that part... We have an additional drive located in the machine with matching Seagate 400G 2A SCSI's (removeable) that we robocopy to and switch out every morning.

Thanks Robert!! I'll give it a whirl. I couldn't see a problem, but then newbies like me wouldn't. I still worry about "what I don't know". Makes me cautious... esp when people we pay for solutions say it wont work. I took over this position from previous IT guy who got fed up with people and computers and joined the Army. Didn't get much from him before he left so I run into all kinds of strange stuff. The company didn't expect the growth rate they had so they kept him on a tight financial leash... plus he was into shortcuts. ergo, we have spanned volume instead of RAID. But, I'm a'learnin and I appreciate your help. Best regards
Don

The guy that was needing the info, Dorwat, has posted more to digest in this discussion.

Appreciate your help, Robert.

Dan

The thread was regarding placing an ultra320 HD in an array (spanned volume) of ultra160's. The central question was ... so long as rpm's were the same, why could we not put one in. We need to get away from the spanned and convert to RAID.

Nothing stops us from mixing drives with different RPMs.

I think some "TechnoMyth" is at work there.

Bob

That was one part of the other firms quandry... Part one was about making sure we used same RPM speed because they said you can't mix drive speeds and the second part was about U160 vs U320... They also thought the data transfer rate differential would cause problems in a spanned volume. Everything I read spoke to the backward compatability of SCSI drives and that the only consequence would be that the U320 would be limiteed by the U160. To me, that wasn't a problem, if I eventually traded out all the drives... I'd have to update the SCSI interface...I've considered going to NAS as an alternative, but I've got time constraints... I'm researching NAS and that's a tough decision cost wise. We use 10/100 ethernet and wont be able to take advantage of the 10/100/1000 without modifications. The best option would be a self contained mini server with a processor and ram, but they are pricey. Of course, the SCSI drives are expensive in their own right, so it's a matter of eeny meeny miney moe... almost. Thanks again for keeping up with me on this one. Now I just have to start working on the purse strings and get an OK for $$$. I'm learning about lots of techno myths as I self educate. Have you had any experience with NAS? Is it all it's cracked up to be? Thanks also for your prompt responses. I appreciate your help.

If you crack open a NAS you find a board with a CPU, RAM and such as you find in a Server. The NAS benefit can be that you rarely pay up for a server OS or client licenses. However, NAS features are all over the map. Some have great configuration options, some have very little. No standard here so we get to dive in, make spreadsheets and compare.

The RPM story is mostly mythical. I'd rather not dive into a long discussion why, but they are right you need to keep the U160 or U320 SCSI speed all the same.

But if I've building a RAID, I do get identical drives.

Bob

OK.. So If I start with 10K RPM I need to stay with 10K RPM. Thanks Bob

Don