classiccmp server hardware

[Jay West]

> I'm a little puzzled towards this hardware vs. software RAID,
> and worrying about computrons (aka CPU speed).
Everyone who is talking about "software raid is ok because I've used it 
without trouble"... that's a pretty insufficient argument. Kinda like 
someone saying "Oh, you can format double density floppies to single density 
and it works great because I did it". B.S. - a little education and you'd 
see why it's precarious. I've seen people who argue about that because they 
have "proof it works fine". Just wait till a few months go by and their data 
doesn't appear anymore :) Not that software raid doesn't work, it does, and 
quite well. But all I'm saying is a better argument might sway me. That one 
doesn't.

Look at what has to happen with software raid. The software has to set up 
twice as many DMA transfers, handle twice as many interrupts, block waiting 
on I/O twice as many times, and send double the data across the bus. I'm 
aghast that many of the classiccmp'ers here aren't revolted by that just on 
principle. The same mentality got us MS/Windows "Oh, don't worry about the 
cpu cycles, it's just trivial to add this little pop-up box...". Trivial 
adds up.

Jay "vying for freds 'grumpy old' title" West