Hi,

I'm about to build a server to replace a Sun E250. I'm building this as a web and email server. It will be used for a medium sized company. About 50 employees. It's not going to get a huge workout, but we'd rather have it be a little fast. Obviously, it will be running Linux (not sure what version yet, and suggestions are appreciated).

The setup is looking something like:

Tyan K8S Motherboard
2x AMD Opteron 246 CPU
2GB Crucial RAM
2x 74GB 10K RPM Disks (SATA or SCSI, not sure yet)
Antec True 550W Power Supply
4U Case

I think that's all the relevant info. Now, this will be my first server I'll build like this (I've spent a fair bit of time in the Sun/Solaris world and have built plenty of PC's, just not high end "PC" servers).

First off, any suggestions on the hardware are appreciated. If anyone know's I'm headed for a disaster let me know. If this sounds like way overkill, let me know as well but like I said, we'd rather go overkill than underkill.

Second, I'm a bit unsure if I should go SCSI or just get some Raptor SATA. I plan to mirror the disks. I know the MB mentions RAID support but I'm not sure if it includes RAID only on the SATA or SCSI also (may be a stupid question). I'm tempted to just go SATA because it's a bit cheaper, I know the hardware RAID works on the SATA, and should be plenty fast but I feel like as long as the MB has the SCSI, it might be stupid to not spend the extra $$$ on the drives. Are there any issues in Linux mirroring the disks? Or is it all done by the hardware? I know how I'd do this under Solaris, I'm just not up on the PC hardware.

Thanks in davance.

The only SATA hardware raid I trust, or for that matter has a reliable kernel driver is the 3ware series of cards, they'll work out of the box and it'll barely tack another $100 onto that beast. For SCSI there's the LSI megaraid cards, but honestly, I'm trying to get my boss over the squimishness towards software raid, its just as reliable, warns you arguably better, and... really, at least in the case of RAID 1, is faster.

Aside from that, I'm envious.

Cheers,

FInegan

So reguardless of whether I go SATA or SCSI, I should do software mirroring? So I'm assuming there isn't going to be a great deal of difference between a pair of SATA 10k RPM drives and a pair of SCSI 10k RPM drives?

What has changed that has made tha software raid more safe or fast than a dedicated hardware?