What kind of [RAID] system works best?

[Bill Eldridge]

> >
> > If you have any experiences with hardware for a powerful fault-tolerant
> > redundant RAID system on the budget of $10000 or less, I'd be interested
> > in finding out what kind of hardware you got and whether you have any
> > problems with it.

I'm currently testing out some SCSI->IDE RAID 5 systems
(not banging on them too rigorously at the moment, but 
no obvious flaws so far).

Basically, you get a SCSI interface that the computer sees,
but the enclosure holds 3 IDE drives, and the whole thing
snugs into a tower chassis.  RAID 5 at about $2200 for
12 Gigabytes (using 6 Gig Seagates).  I figure by the time
the warranty ends on the IDE drives, IDE will be dead anyway,
and keeping a few extra IDE drives around for hot swaps isn't
too expensive.

I wouldn't stream video off this, but for a lot of uses,
seems pretty effective.  Model I'm using is from Proware, Dataplum.
www.proware.com.tw, but there are other competitors out
there.  (They also have a SCSI->SCSI version, but then of
course the price goes up...)

--
Bill Eldridge
Radio Free Asia
bill at rfa.org