Advice building a very powerful server

[Elbatrop1]

RAID0=Speed (2 disks)
RAID1=Reliability (2 disks)
RAID0+1=both (4 disks)

D'oh!! (slapping forehead) TheMajor proves me wrong again! I looked at my post just now and just shook my head. Sorry, I didn't mean to give wrong info

 

[FuriousYellow]

Good choice with the AMD Opteron based server. Did you mean 2x Opterons? That would be ideal for a database server. The AMDs will give you better performance than Intel's equivalent, and will run cooler and last longer, plus you can compile in 64-bit support in the linux kernel. Just make sure you pick out registered DDR Ram. It is a bit more expensive, but is more reliable and stable and is required for Opteron boards. Still cheaper in the end than an Intel based system. I agree the WD Raptors would be a wise choice for hard drives, but still stripe them in RAID 0 config. If this server is just doing database work, then storage should not be an issue, even a database with a huge amount of entries dont take up too much space, they are quite efficient. And to answer your other question, no another drive cannot be added to create a raid0 without losing your data. You will need to back it up on a separate drive or on another server with lots of temporary storage.

Hope this helps and good luck

Edit: On a lot of new motherboards (if you are using onboard raid support) you can add two more disks and go from Raid0 to Raid0+1 without losing any data, it will just take some time to construct the mirror

 

[Dj_Diablo]

FuriousYellow and everyone, thanks for the great advice! Keep them coming.

Is there any way to identify RAM as "registered"? I found a few at stores and even eBay, but it fails to mention if the RAM is registered or not.

If I went with a RAID-0 setup for the database, would this be reliable without backup? Would the slightest problem corrupt the RAID array and destroy data on both drives? I know it would be wise to back-up 600GB of data, but at least for a month, we won't have money in the budget for another 600GB of storage.
If and when we by 600GB more, will it be a simple process to convert over to a RAID0+1 configuration?

Thanks for the help so far, we are much closer at narrowing the system specs down!

 

[FuriousYellow]

When you buy RAM it should say if it is registered or not. It is a little harder to find, as it does not go in most systems, but it is available at most computer stores. Try www.ncix.com At the top of the page, you can click on American prices if you happen to not be Canadian.

The RAID 0 should be reliable for a month. If the drives are defective, the defects usually turn up right away, or else they are good for quite a while. But I am not telling you not to back up tho. At least backup your really important stuff, because things do happen. Doubling the number of drives to go from RAID0 to RAID0+1 is a simple process, but it takes quite a while, because it has to create a mirror image of everything that is on the original 2 drives.