Clarence,
The configuration you propose raises a number of issues. It isn't that it should be hard to make work, rather there are lots of trade offs and choices to be made RE price/performance, expandability, etc. on which opinions vary. I think most of the general issues (SCSI vs. IDE, the role of what ZP has called KOT drives, backup strategies, etc.) have already been covered well on this thread.
I'd be glad to try to give you my opinions on specific trade offs you might decide to face, though I'm sure others will disagree. I'll summarize just a couple:
-Fast 5400 IDE drives from Maxtor and IBM are generally better bets than hotter, louder, more expensive 7200 drives unless absolute top performance is critical. (see storagereview.com for excellent discussion on this.)
-SCSI HDDs aren't generally worth the cost. You'll pay a big premium for performance that isn't noticably different. This makes sense only if you need lots of drives. Also, new IDE formats, USB formats, and eventually FireWire formats are the future; they will supplant SCSI on the mainstream desktop.
-don't worry about getting a sufficiently small KOT drive. Just format it into seperate partitions, and make sure your KOT drive is large enough to hold the critical ones.
Other questions for you to consider:
How much can you afford to spend on your system (or is this a "whatever it takes within reason" purchase?)
What gadgets will you likely attach (scanner, CD-R, video camera, other goodies, or pretty much a no-nonsense trading machine?)
What apps do you run? What OS? What are the implications for the storage space and performance you'll need?
In my consulting business, these practical issues are the kinds of questions I try to help clients wrestle with before settling on a configuration for them. Unfortunately, hardware sites on the net rarely have this focus--there is a preoccupation with getting every last nanosecond of benchmark performance or of having the latest and greatest technology.
I'll stop for now. Feel free to pose specific follow-ups to the thread.
Regards,
Dave |
