advice wanted for linux software/hw raid

hello
situation: client with 15 seat mixed (98/NT/2K/XP) windows network
asks me to move server to linux. server will only do nat and
fileserving (samba). server is dual P3 800mhz box with Intel
integrated raid (2X 20gig scsi drives with AIC-7899 controller).
Client also wants a bunch more disk space.

question: rather than buy bigger scsi drives (expensive) would it be
easier to dump the hw raid and do a software IDE raid-1? (if I am
recalling correctly that raid-1 is mirrored disks). more specifically:

-on this size network with this box, would a sw raid perform well?
-I am planning to use redhat 9. which will give me more trouble
installation and config wise, the current hw raid, or a sw ide raid?

thanks for any advice,
josh

jjmerrow <jjmerrow@yahoo.com> wrote:
> hello
> situation: client with 15 seat mixed (98/NT/2K/XP) windows network
> asks me to move server to linux. server will only do nat and
> fileserving (samba). server is dual P3 800mhz box with Intel
> integrated raid (2X 20gig scsi drives with AIC-7899 controller).
> Client also wants a bunch more disk space.
>
> question: rather than buy bigger scsi drives (expensive) would it be
> easier to dump the hw raid and do a software IDE raid-1? (if I am
> recalling correctly that raid-1 is mirrored disks). more specifically:
>
> -on this size network with this box, would a sw raid perform well?
> -I am planning to use redhat 9. which will give me more trouble
> installation and config wise, the current hw raid, or a sw ide raid?

Only your client knows what they want exactly. :-) But, it's kind of
silly nowdays to talk about raid with 20GB harddisks, considering that
you can buy 300GB retail. Software mirroring sounds good, though.

--
William Park, Open Geometry Consulting, <opengeometry@yahoo.ca>
Linux solution for data management and processing.