Cheap SCSI Contoller for slack box?
 

Hello,
I've been using linux for almost 10 years now and I still feel like a newb! Of course, the good thing is that everything I learned about linux 10 years ago is still valid, as opposed to windows where you have to re-learn everything every 3 or 4 years!

Anyway I've got a slackware 10 box running as a fileserver to my windows-based LAN and I'm starting to have IDE hard drive failures. I'd like to put in a SCSI drive so that I have a little more reliability (isn't that the main reason for SCSI?).

30G SCSI drives can be had for super-cheap these days, but I'm confused about the controller card part. I guess I need a PCI SCSI controller, but how do I decide which one to get? I'd like to keep it as cheap as possible. Any help would be appreciated!

Cheers, and thanks in advance!
dbc

Here's a quick summary since I kind of rambled up there:
1. Linux is great, but hard!
2. Are SCSI drives more reliable than IDE in a server configuration?
3. How do I go about choosing a cheap SCSI controller and why?

Ad 1) It's not hard at all :}

Ad 2) Yes, they generally are. SCSI HDDs have always had a
higher guaranteed MTBF and used to come with a 5-year warranty
for yonks ... SCSI (in terms of interface) is also much better at
concurrency and command-queueing (even though recent SATA
is catching up in that department).

Ad 3) By choosing one that the kernel supports out of the box :}
In terms of price/performance you're probably best of with
one of the SymBIOS series (successor of NCR). I've seen some
of those around for as little as 50US$...


Cheers,
Tink

thanks!
 

Thanks, any suggestions on where to get one? I'm finding a pretty wide range of prices on google...

If you were in NZ ... :}


Cheers,
Tink