Dual Socket A Motherboards

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Feb 27, 2002 4:55 pm

Sleep,

that trash is strewn aboot all over the Internet. that's cool.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 6:44 am

If you're looking for a dual athlon board check out http://www.tyan.com/ and have a look at the Tyan Tiger series. They provide dual processing at acceptable cost.

Concerning RAID, I'm running a RAID level 0 (stripeset) consisting of two IBM 7200 rpm disks and yes, it is fast (according to Nero the data transfer rate varies between 50 and 68 MB/s for the different partitions). The nice thing about a RAID 0 (besides high performance) is that you don't lose disk capacity and gain the ability to have partitions that are bigger than a single disk.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 7:56 am

Yeah Phantom lord, except that if one of your hard drives crashes you lose all of your data. The entire stripe set will be trashed. My personal feelings are that RAID 0 is a last resort option. In fact, I don't consider it an option at all. Why take the risk of generating so many points of failure??

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 8:38 am

I know, but I see it like this:

The probability of a single HDD crash is very very low (<0,1%). The combined risk of running a two disk RAID is still very very low. And half of the data would be lost anyway if one disk crashes (according to Murphy it would be the important ones).

I haven't experienced a HDD crash in the last 12 years, I've only lost data because I forgot to backup stuff before tinkering with my computer.

Any piece of software and much more than that any user is a much bigger risk for a computer system than a RAID is.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 11:15 am

by Phantom Lord
The probability of a single HDD crash is very very low (<0,1%). The combined risk of running a two disk RAID is still very very low.

There are a lot of the 0.1% here in this very forum. I am not one of them, but we've seen a lot of HDD crashes from various users. Also, I would say I've seen about a 3% rate of HDD crashes here in the workplace on new computers within the first six months of operation. I don't know what my users do with their machines but HDD these days in the workplace have a high mortality rate.

I haven't experienced a HDD crash in the last 12 years, I've only lost data because I forgot to backup stuff before tinkering with my computer.

Again, there will be a lot of envious users here with that statement.

Any piece of software and much more than that any user is a much bigger risk for a computer system than a RAID is.

I most certainly agree with this statement but if you are going to use two HDD why not just mirror and/or duplex them. Disk Duplexing provides almost as low a latency for read/write as stripe sets.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 12:54 pm

Well, I don't mirror because there is nothing on my computer at home that's worth the trouble and the performance decrease. I'm working as a software professional 10 hours a day and my computer at home qualifies as a toy at best. Here and then and put some stuff on CD Rom and that's it for security issues. Believe me, I do things far more dangerous than my RAID to my computer at home. Nevertheless there was no situation in the past where the machine didn't work for more than 24 hours and in case of such an emergency I have an unused HDD with a fresh OS and basic tools on it lying in the drawer.

Of course, one could could take six HDDs, build three RAID 0 stripesets and build a RAID 5 from those three drives and so on, but hey, this a fun computer (and not a canadian school project).

But I actually haven't heard of duplexing before. How does it work?

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 5:04 pm

Disk duplexing is disk mirroring except each drive has it's own controller, thus, speeding up the write times as with with a mirror each write is done twice. With duplexing, each write is done twice except it is simultaneous.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 8:04 am

Originally posted by Ned Flanders
Disk duplexing is disk mirroring except each drive has it's own controller, thus, speeding up the write times as with with a mirror each write is done twice. With duplexing, each write is done twice except it is simultaneous.

So is it the same as network duplexing when data is passed both ways at the same time without collisions?

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 8:26 am

So is it the same as network duplexing when data is passed both ways at the same time without collisions?

I suppose it is a similar concept, a fail safe method of fortifying data. I must confess I'm not familiar with network duplexing.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 9:59 am

Originally posted by Ned Flanders
So is it the same as network duplexing when data is passed both ways at the same time without collisions?

I suppose it is a similar concept, a fail safe method of fortifying data. I must confess I'm not familiar with network duplexing.

It is a method wherby the network Switching Hub (doesn't apply to normal hubs) passes data between two computers at the same time, rather than waiting for the previous burst to end before starting sending again. i could do a funky diagram of it, but it is hard to explain

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 10:42 am

I've found an easy article that basically explains the difference here.

As Ned said, if you duplex each drive has it's own controller, so a single controller crash won't kill the system.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 10:50 am

Sleep,

I've never heard switches as referred to performing network duplexing. Switches as opposed to hubs are intelligent (as long as you configure them). Hubs have to broadcast to all ports in order to figure out where the true destination of the packets are. Thus, all the collisions. Switches can be configured so they know where to go without the broadcase so yes, one computer can transmit to this computer and that computer can transmit to that computer simultaneously. Additionally, switches have the benefit of providing full bandwidth per port instead of hubs which distribute bandwidth over the total number of ports.

So, yes, I've heard of network duplexing, I've just never heard it called that.

@PhantomLord,

thanks for the link and is your avatar one of those far side sheep. Gary Larson is a riot, what a twisted individual. I'm on the same page as that guy.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 3:50 pm

Yeah, it's a card carrying certified Gary Larson sheep. Gary Larson's sheep have that "ignorance is bliss" look. The image itself is linked - not uploaded - so hope the site where it's linked to doesn't go down suddenly.

Gary Larson's a fantastic cartoonist, a Gary Larson off-the-wall calendar is my major motivation to get up every morning.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Mar 06, 2002 9:11 am

I had one of those last year and read the whole thing in a day.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Wed Mar 06, 2002 9:51 am

Well, I try not to read those of the next half year and hope that I forget them until then. The question is: What will I do after the first of July?