P4 motherboards with RAID

[gpint]

I have a friend who wants to build a deceent sized machine with a ton of storage space. He is a photographer and is going digital in a few months. He will be storing tons of large photos on this machine, and will be using different adobe products. He needs a machine with a ton of storage space and RAID5. Any suggestions? Is there a good motherboard with a good built in raid controller, or should I buy a seperate card. Price is a concern, so we are looking at IDE drives rather than SCSI.

[Darren Wilson]

Unless a company such as Tyan or Supermicor have a P4 board with IDE RAID 5 on it, I don't know of any that do. A few have RAID 0 or 1 such as the Abit TH7II-RAID (Socket 478) or TH7-RAID (Socket 423) (both i850 based boards) & a couple of the MSI range. It looks as if your friend will have to get a seperate controller card to run RAID 5 arrays.

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I am my own Judge , Jury & Executioner. Although I am availabel for Weddings, Birthdays, Bahmitzvahs, etc,etc......

[gpint]

Thanks Darren, do you know of any good IDE RAID controllers?

[Darren Wilson]

The Adaptec PCI IDE RAID controllers are very good but very expensive. The Promise version is also good but I cannot remember off hand if this has RAID 5 functionality or not.

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I am my own Judge , Jury & Executioner. Although I am availabel for Weddings, Birthdays, Bahmitzvahs, etc,etc......

[HIESLanMan]

I've been pretty happy with the 3Ware IDE RAID controller. And at under $400, it would be hard to beat the price, I think.

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There ARE no Power Users!

[gpint]

I was just quoted on the following specs from a local shop.


Teac 16X/10X/40X CDRW w/Roxio 5.0 Easy CD Creator

CPU-P4-1.7-R
Intel® Pentium 4 1.7G Socket 423 Retail Box

InWin (P4) S508-IW Mid Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS

Toshiba 16X/40X IDE DVD-ROM

Teac 1.44 Floppy Drive

3 Ware Escalade 6800 IDE Raid 5 Controller

4 Western Digital 80G 7200 RPM ATA/100 IDE Hard Drive

Keytronics PS/2 104 Keyboard

MSI 850 Pro ( MS-6339 )P4 850 Chipset Mainboard

TRENDnet TFM560 56K V.90 Fax/Modem

2 256 MB RAMBUS 800MHZ RIMM

Microsoft PS/2 Intellimouse

Power Color M64 32MB TNT2 AGP Video Card

1 Year Parts and Labor Warranty

total: 2,492.01

[Darren Wilson]

Gpint, i wouldn't go with teh Socket 423 P4 unles you don't intend on upgrading this system for a long long time. The Socket 423 has now been'discontinued' and has been replaced by the Socket 478, which Intel now will make the faster chips on only. The Abit TH7-II series has the S478 socket / i850 combination, and is getting very very good write ups (and deservedly so as well).

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I am my own Judge , Jury & Executioner. Although I am availabel for Weddings, Birthdays, Bahmitzvahs, etc,etc......

[gpint]

Thanks for the info Darren. I will be sure to go for the 478. Also would you recommend the Adaptec card over the 3Ware.

[Darren Wilson]

I haven't used teh 3Ware card personally but they are all about the same really to be honest.

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I am my own Judge , Jury & Executioner. Although I am availabel for Weddings, Birthdays, Bahmitzvahs, etc,etc......

[AnyTwo]

I think what you really ought to do is find out why he wants to keep so much data on a hard drive. I work with an aerial photography company and they archive photo's onto CD's. When the job is done, it's done. They keep about 10% of their photo's (thier more popular shots) on the hard drive for quick access for advertising and new clients, and a few reprints.

Be a real friend and look at the business process, not just the technology.


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