RAID

OK, all my project and backup DVDs are finished burning. It's time to
pull the plug on this piece-o-crap Dell "precision workstation"
piece-o-crap and shift everything onto the new HP ML350. If I type
fast, maybe I can finish this post before another Maxtor piece-o-crap
C: drive dies. The HP is actually a server box: eight hot-plug RAID
drive slots on the front, redundant power supplies (2 line cords!),
redundant fans, redundant BIOS, impressive wiring and cooling, huge
steel case; weighs about 40 pounds. The mechanics and fit/finish are
superb. We have personal support people, with direct phone numbers,
who know what they're doing.

I just bought a dozen of them, so everybody will be running the same
iron. If any machine blows up, we can just pop out the drives, plug
them into a spare machine from the storage cube down the hall, and be
back up in a few minutes.

The RAID thing is awesome. If I pull out one of my raid-ed C: drives
and hot-plug a blank drive into that slot, it will automatically begin
cloning my system while everything goes on as usual. 40 minutes later,
I can pop that drive, put it in a baggie on a shelf, and have a
bootable clone system for any time I may need it.

John

 

John, are you running XP? If so, how do you take a drive from one box to
another without running into problems? Doesn't XP keep track of serial
numbers or something so it knows when you are running on different hardware
than the installation system?

Regards,

Mike Monett

 

Corporate versions don't care.

Graham

 

No drive or LAN card serial numbers then. That's great.

Thanks,

Mike Monett

 

I hope that you get many years of reliable service out of them.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

I'm at home now, running on the just-fired-up HP. XP (and all the
apps!) are a direct image of the ones I set up on my newish HP at
work. The machines are hardware identical so nothing can tell it's
been cloned. All I had to do was change a couple of IP addresses.

I did buy a copy of XP for each machine, so Microsoft should be
placated. But I'm actually running the same one on both machines now.
If I have troubles with Windows updates - the only way anybody will
ever notice - I have three choices:

Install another copy of XP directly on top of my existing XP at home,
just to change the ID number, a sort of no-op OS upgrade. That might
work and leave all my files and apps intact,

or

Do the updates at work and just re-clone now and then,

or

Don't do any updates!


I did the same thing when the c: drive crashed on my piece-o-crap Dell
at home. I cloned the c: drive from work and plugged the copy into my
identical home pc. That worked fine, Windows updates and all. It was
just a pain to work around the ghastly drive mounting and cabling
inside the piece-o-crap Dells.

Oh, did I mention that the Dells were pieces-o-crap?

John

 

Not an expert, but I think you will find that e.g. the ethernet card
MAC addresses are different, as are the hard drive serial numbers.

I believe you did mention that

 

Somebody told me that Windows doesn't check this stuff any more. It
was a nightmare when when they tried that; say, somebody plugged a
network adapter into a slot on a laptop, or added some ram, and
Windows quit working. I think they do check for multiple patch updates
from the same os serial number... the "Windows Genuine Advantage"
thing.

With RAID, I can swap hard drives four times a day!

No, seriously, they're not very good.

John

 

Er um, it most certainly is well aware of differences in the machines. For
one, the MAC address of the network adapter is used by windos as part of the
machines fingerprint. The CPU has a serial number too. It doesn't mean you
will have trouble, it just means that M$ *can* tell you have more than one
machine with the same product key in use. It also means that if you used
windos that needs activation (WPA), you are a little closer to having to
reactivate next time you change something about your hardware combination.
Just so you know.

 

Are these Maxtor's made after Seagate bought the company? I've
wondered if Maxtor was still junk post the buyout. [I just pay more
and get Seagates. ;-)]

I build my own PCs, so I wasn't familiar with that model. The HP clock
rate is low, but perhaps the high end silicon makes up for it.

RAID is certainly the way to go nowadays. If you don't mind a slight
dip in I/O performace, the software raid works quite well.

 

The problem with hard drives is not the hard drives themselves, but
the way they are transported and the temperature they have to work in.