From owner-freebsd-hardware Fri Jul 6 19:12: 8 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from comboard.com (comboard.com [204.201.245.242]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6D26237B405 for ; Fri, 6 Jul 2001 19:12:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from smurray@comboard.com) Received: from [204.201.245.243] ([204.201.245.243] verified) by comboard.com (Stalker SMTP Server 1.7) with ESMTP id S.0000346207 for ; Fri, 06 Jul 2001 19:12:06 -0700 User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022 Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 19:12:03 -0700 Subject: Seeking Hardware Suggestions for First FreeBSD System From: Seth Murray To: Message-ID: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Our small consulting company has decided to "dive into" BSD and wishes to build our own server to support some important projects. We are considering two designs and hope you might comment. High-system availability is critical: SCSI RAID SYSTEM Intel STL2 or TYAN S2510 Motherboard with appropriate processors. Intel SC5000 chassis with redundant power and hot-swap SCSI backplane. Appropriate SCSI drives configured for RAID 1, probably Seagate or similar Other common stuff Both boards are available with built-in SCSI controllers (Adaptec 7896 on Intel and LSI SYM53C1010 on TYAN). Will we need a SCSI RAID card (like Adaptec 2100S) or can vinum work directly through hot-swap backplane? Also, if we can go the vinum route, can we boot off of the RAID, or will we need a separate system drive? How does vinum compare to a hardware RAID controller as far as reliability and performance? IDE RAID SYSTEM TYAN also makes a board (S2515) with on-board IDE RAID (Promise Fastrak100). We're considering this board, instead, but see differing opinions in the message archives about IDE RAID operability. If we can go IDE RAID, we'd like to, and would select a different chassis (preferably with redundant power, fans, and hot-swap on the drives, if possible). Anyone working with this? We're favoring the TYAN boards because the already have two Ethernet ports, which we want to use for NAT, and both come with or without the on-board SCSI. Anyone have the skinny on STL2 vs. TYAN S2510 or S2515? The bottom line is we're seeking redundant power, fans, and RAID 1 in a happy little BSD box. Any recommendations are welcome and appreciated. Thanks for suffering a BSD rookie. +------------------------------------- | Seth Murray | The Communications Boardroom | smurray@comboard.com | http://www.comboard.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message