Possibly OT... Hard Disk question

Folks - looking for some advice. I need to beef up my PC and am looking to get a couple of 250 GB hard disks to store all my images and catalogues

The PC is around 2001 vintage (HP Vectra) and has served me well. The processor and RAM is fine. I don't want to buy a new PC - just a couple of new hard disks. Trouble is, I'm not sure which ones I need.

The Computer Management console lists the two current hard disks as SCSI devices, but they're not. I'm fairly sure they are EIDE. The controller is an Intel 82801AA Ultra ATA. The two hard disks are IBM-DTLA-307030 and a WDC WD80-0BB-00CAA1.

On the web, I'm seeing IDE devices, EIDE devices, ATA100, ATA133, ATAII - you name it... So, if anyone can advise me on what I need, please let me know.

Thanks in advance and sorry if this is a little OT.

Dave

Personally Dave, I would go for a 'removable' HDD - like a USB one. USB is quite fast, probably as fast as your legacy parallel port on your Vectra. If it has USB2 enabled, even better.

As for the physical HDD, go for Western Digital or Maxtor - both I have, the Maxtor double (two on a RAID 0 configuration), have been going solidly for over 2.5 years, and no problems. My back up for them is a Western Digital.

Seanie.

I looked at the portable units but portability is not on the priority list... So the additional cost is not worth it really...

I was looking at WD Caviar disks... Two 250 gig disks for 210 euro - not bad I thought...

But I'd be interested in a raid configuration. How does that work? Is it inherent within the hard disk or do you need another piece of hardware or software to make it happen...? What does it cost? Will my PC be able to handle it?

Funnily enough, I was doing a job for Maxtor over the last few days. Pity there were no samples to take away...

Cheers

Dave

I actually faced this same decision last week and I decided to go the external HD route. I got two 200GB external drivers from IOmega, a company I trust. (UPS have 'lost' one but the one that did arrive seems to be doing the job nicely).

You're not going to running applications off an external drive or using it for Virtual memory so speed is not such a big deal really. If you have a USB2 port then you're flying. If you have a firewire port, even better!

Being a techie and hence properly sceptical about the reliability of hard disks and properly protective of my Data I'm actaully going the paranoid route. The reason I got two identical external disks is that I'm going to be using one to store my data and the other as a backup of the first using rsync. But that is getting into paranoid teritory!

Anyhow, external disks are my advice. You can hook them up to any PC and even take them with you when you are meeting someone and when ever you do get a new PC you just plug it out of the old one and into the new one and you're away!

Hope that helps.

Bart.

I looked at the portable units but portability is not on the priority list... So the additional cost is not worth it really...

I was looking at WD Caviar disks... Two 250 gig disks for 210 euro - not bad I thought...

But I'd be interested in a raid configuration. How does that work? Is it inherent within the hard disk or do you need another piece of hardware or software to make it happen...? What does it cost? Will my PC be able to handle it?

Funnily enough, I was doing a job for Maxtor over the last few days. Pity there were no samples to take away...

Cheers

Dave

Sorry, you posted this just as I was posting my last reply .... anyhow ... RAID!

I watned RAID too but came to the conclusion I couldn't afford it! You need a RAID controler to do RAID well, AKA a piece of hardware that sits between the HArd disks and your computer to present the disks as one disl to the computer and do all the funcky stuff behind the scenes for you. Unless your computer has a motherboard that was intended for a server it's un-likely to have a RAID controler.

There is such thing as software RAID but it is not reliable. I can tell you many many horror storries of total dataloss with software RAID _WITHOUT_ a disk failure. I was looking into it for a Mac at work and was told in no un-certain terms that it was a terrible idea!

Because I couldn't get a good RAID I dediced to 'simulate' RAID 1 (mirroring) with my two idenitcal disks and rsync.

Bart.

I have an Adaptec RAID 0 card - it fits into a PCI slot inside the PC. This would be your route Dave. RAID 1, will simply be the same card with a different chip built-in for the configuration. As Bart says, this is called 'mirroring' (the RAID 0 is called 'striping' (stripe)). That way, when you write or save anything to the hard disk, there will be 2 emulating as if 1 was installed. - if one disk failed for any reason, the second kicks in and Bob's your uncle. You just replace the failed one at your leisure, then the RAID copies everything from your remaining drive.

Still does not gurantee loss against data though. If your computer as a whole was hit with a massive power surge (lighting or other), then chances are everything in it will fry, hard drives and all - if the surge was to reach them.

Do the mirroring if you want - otherwise, go for the removable drive route (and it is still no ham to even have a back up of that one again too!).

Seanie.