lordofduct
Established Member
Some of you may be getting tired of the boring questions I ask, but that is the way I am. I am someone who likes to learn and will read or build something with no real beneficial outcome except for the knowledge I gain from doing it. I love to ask questions and I am always asking 'why' when I do anything. As a child while watching TV I was more interested in knowing WHY my TV worked and how it received television programs as apposed to the actual program that was on.
This has caused me to start 100's of projects growing up... Many of them you guys have heard about, and more times then not you hear nothing more after its completion (or destruction) as it has become moot to me and my interest had faded. I feel that this constant hunt for knowledge is a good thing as for someone who is actually rather young in the computer world has learned more on my own as apposed to any of my friends around town that have been on computers for their entire lives and even gone to school to get certifications.
This gets me on to my new project, in a realm I am not very well knowledged in, time for learning. The thing is before I even build the project itself, I want the hardware to be functioning the best, and that is why I am here.
I have researched my questions, I put together answers, but I am not fully satisfied with them.
------
I want to learn how a server works. So I am building a linux server box out of a P3 and an SY-6IZA motherboard with the purposes of hosting files for my LAN on it with a low power source, routing firewalling the internet too my computers on the LAN, hosting my FTP server on dedicated 24/7 AND as a testing area to learn about webhosting and other things I have NO idea or knowledge about.
For starters I want my data to be secure. A lot of data is transferred over my network to my multiple computers. This data that is stored on the server I want backed up so I am electing a RAID set up with redundancy (RAID1 most likely).
In this set up I have a PCI server NIC with 4 ports for the LAN, each port with it's own dedicated chip. This is going to suck a lot of bandwidth from my PCI bus I know. I am debating where I should put my RAID. I have 2 options:
Option 1: PCI IDE controller with hardware RAID0/1. This has a ATA100 controller on it and will do the RAID1 in hardware so the PCI bus won't be flooded with copies of data caused by software RAID (as each disc is a parody). Downside is that my PCI bus is already flooded with data being sent over my NICs. I have the internet coming in which is minor, but I also have large movies, data files, and the sort being shared between computers on a constant bases and their is again the FTP server and stuff I DL'd.
Option 2: Linux Software RAID done over mobo's IDE channels. I don't a lot about the IDE channels. Are they on a seperate bus then the PCI (I believe they are)? Or is their bandwidth dependant on the useage of the PCI bus? If not this has the advantage of not being interfered with by the network data transfers, but it is only ATA33/66.
--------
Another thing. I have an HTPC for recording TV on... if I mounted one of the drives from this server onto it would I be able to write directly to it? Do you think the network could handle that much data transfer? And this would also flood the PCI bus again making the NIC slow down... BUT what if I used bus mastering. Would that allow direct write from the NIC to the IDE controller?
Wow, sorry for the long post, if you have any other comments about what to expect stepping into the waters unknown to me (the server part that is) please tell me.
If you're interested in what the system is:
P3 600mhz 66mhz FSB 9x
Soyo SY-6IZA, OC'd to 100mhz FSB as it is limited to 6x so as to get the 600mhz still
128MB PC100 sdram
1 port generic 10/100 NIC (for the WAN)
D-Link DFE-580TX 4-port 10/100 Mpbs server NIC (mainly because I wanted everything in one box as apposed to a switch and the server box)
100W ATX PSU (this also limits me on if I use the PCI IDE controller and the # of HDDs I have)
An assortment of HDDs to choose from.
The SY-6IZA has no onboard video, for initial set up I will be using a craptastic little video card, but after that I plan on doing everything through remote or SSH or something of the sort.
And there will only be a CD-ROM connected during initial install.
This has caused me to start 100's of projects growing up... Many of them you guys have heard about, and more times then not you hear nothing more after its completion (or destruction) as it has become moot to me and my interest had faded. I feel that this constant hunt for knowledge is a good thing as for someone who is actually rather young in the computer world has learned more on my own as apposed to any of my friends around town that have been on computers for their entire lives and even gone to school to get certifications.
This gets me on to my new project, in a realm I am not very well knowledged in, time for learning. The thing is before I even build the project itself, I want the hardware to be functioning the best, and that is why I am here.
I have researched my questions, I put together answers, but I am not fully satisfied with them.
------
I want to learn how a server works. So I am building a linux server box out of a P3 and an SY-6IZA motherboard with the purposes of hosting files for my LAN on it with a low power source, routing firewalling the internet too my computers on the LAN, hosting my FTP server on dedicated 24/7 AND as a testing area to learn about webhosting and other things I have NO idea or knowledge about.
For starters I want my data to be secure. A lot of data is transferred over my network to my multiple computers. This data that is stored on the server I want backed up so I am electing a RAID set up with redundancy (RAID1 most likely).
In this set up I have a PCI server NIC with 4 ports for the LAN, each port with it's own dedicated chip. This is going to suck a lot of bandwidth from my PCI bus I know. I am debating where I should put my RAID. I have 2 options:
Option 1: PCI IDE controller with hardware RAID0/1. This has a ATA100 controller on it and will do the RAID1 in hardware so the PCI bus won't be flooded with copies of data caused by software RAID (as each disc is a parody). Downside is that my PCI bus is already flooded with data being sent over my NICs. I have the internet coming in which is minor, but I also have large movies, data files, and the sort being shared between computers on a constant bases and their is again the FTP server and stuff I DL'd.
Option 2: Linux Software RAID done over mobo's IDE channels. I don't a lot about the IDE channels. Are they on a seperate bus then the PCI (I believe they are)? Or is their bandwidth dependant on the useage of the PCI bus? If not this has the advantage of not being interfered with by the network data transfers, but it is only ATA33/66.
--------
Another thing. I have an HTPC for recording TV on... if I mounted one of the drives from this server onto it would I be able to write directly to it? Do you think the network could handle that much data transfer? And this would also flood the PCI bus again making the NIC slow down... BUT what if I used bus mastering. Would that allow direct write from the NIC to the IDE controller?
Wow, sorry for the long post, if you have any other comments about what to expect stepping into the waters unknown to me (the server part that is) please tell me.
If you're interested in what the system is:
P3 600mhz 66mhz FSB 9x
Soyo SY-6IZA, OC'd to 100mhz FSB as it is limited to 6x so as to get the 600mhz still
128MB PC100 sdram
1 port generic 10/100 NIC (for the WAN)
D-Link DFE-580TX 4-port 10/100 Mpbs server NIC (mainly because I wanted everything in one box as apposed to a switch and the server box)
100W ATX PSU (this also limits me on if I use the PCI IDE controller and the # of HDDs I have)
An assortment of HDDs to choose from.
The SY-6IZA has no onboard video, for initial set up I will be using a craptastic little video card, but after that I plan on doing everything through remote or SSH or something of the sort.
And there will only be a CD-ROM connected during initial install.