[rescue] x86 power question

[John Francini]

On 13 Nov 2006, at 14:13, velociraptor wrote:

> At this point, I may just begin from scratch.  Without another x86 box
> to narrow down the problem further, I don't really know what else to
> try.  And, to be honest, I'm tired of fscking around with it, even
> though I'd like to know the root cause.  Often the "tired of it" gene
> beats up the SA gene these days.
>
> It sucks that it works perfectly fine with no boot disk when started
> off of a LiveCD. :-(


>
> I've even toyed with the idea of OS X server on the Quicksilver
> running SW RAID 5, but I start twitching when I think about that on
> IDE disks.

Why? Apple's own XServes and XServe RAID products are built upon IDE  
disks.
However, the disks Apple certifies are server-grade mechanisms,  
rather than the stuff that Dull slaps into their cheapo boxes.
That's partly why the Apple disk modules cost a fair bit more than a  
J. Random IDE drive of equal capacity.

XServes also dedicate an IDE controller to each spindle, so each  
drive is a 'master'.  On the IDE-based XServe RAID box,
each of the 14 disk slots has a dedicated IDE controller as well.

You can buy bare server-grade IDE drives as well. One advertised as  
such is the
Western Digital Caviar RE (Ultra PATA 100) or the
SATA version. They're a fair bit cheaper than SCSI equivalents.

Just my $0.02.