hardrives/server

Maxine, generally the limiting factor on hard drive size is the BIOS. Since you have a fairly new system I don't think you'll have a problem.

Both ext3 and reiser provide journaling of the file system which helps if you have to shutdown quickly (or crash). Both systems will allow fairly quick validation and recovery compared to ext2. The advantage of ext3 over reiser is that ext3 is backwards compatible with ext2. Ext3 is essentially ext2 with journalling attached. So if you need/want to have that capability then use ext3. I currently use reiser on a couple servers that I've built, and I also use it on my laptop, so that's my bias

If you are mainly wanting to use your new file server for Windows (good idea), then configure the system and then set up SAMBA for particular "shares" (directories). I'm just in the process of doing that with a couple systems for a client. Look through this forum for other issues around SAMBA, but the biggest "gotcha" is that you will have to modify the guarddog firewall to allow SAMBA to communicate with the outside world.

I have not yet worked with Mepis SOHO, so I can't give you any advice on that at the moment.

One question, you mention the 4x250GB drives. How were you planning on connecting them? As separate drives or RAIDed together in some fashion? Also, if these have an IDE interface then there should be no problem for the OS to recognize them. But I know there have been some folks with difficulties with the SATA interface (don't know if it applies to the SOHO edition of Mepis).

Jon

Thanks for reply

The drives are ide and will all be on seperate ide cables. In windows you have to enable Biglba for dives more than 137gb to be recognised. Will this have to be done in mepis or will mepis automatically recognise the full 250gb capacity.

One of the nice things about Live CDs Maxine, is that you can "try before you buy" (commit). Don't make any changes in your BIOS, other than possibly changing it so that you can boot from the CD. Boot the system with the CD and see if Mepis "sees" everything. If the drives have not been used for anything (are COMPLETELY blank), then you can use QTParted to look at the drives. It will show you how large the drives are.

So I don't think you will have a problem, but post back what you find

Jon

jon

thanks for the reply again. I wanted some advice prior to purchasing the drives and didnt want to buy the drives and then findout it does'nt work ?.

I have a question if you can help ?

I have inserted the HDD (250gb) on to pci ide controller and it was recognised as hda1 mnt/flash in fstab file. I then went to qtparted and tried to create partition and format. However, it tells me that it is a virtual partition.

Can you explain or point me in the right direction of how I can add the drives to the system.

I first installed the operating system(mepis 3.3.02.t03) and then am trying to install the hard drives one by one to the ide pci card controller.

On adding the drives they are recognised but get recognised as mnt/flash (fstab). Is there a howto on adding/formatting/reconfiguring fstab for the drives to work ?

maxine

thanks

Maxine, it sounds strange that each new drive is being recognized as "/mnt/flash". How are each of these drives connected to your system; are they being initially connected via a USB connection?

If you "installed" Mepis, didn't you do it to the first hard drive or do you mean that you are running from the Live CD?

The /etc/fstab on Mepis is "dynamic". The very first time you install Mepis it first examines your installed hard drives and builds a section of "static" entries. Most of those partitions should be for Windows, "swap", "/", and possibly "/home". However, it also creates a "dynamic" section where it places things like USB drives, external drives, floppies, etc. Those are the ones that are normally connected to "/mnt/something" directories.

So back to a couple questions (sorry). Each of your drives is on a separate cable, but is it on a separate controller?

Your first drive, the one onto which you will install the OS on, should be /dev/hda. Is your CD recognized as /dev/hdc? The fact that Mepis is identifying /dev/hdaone, it means that there's a partition on the drive. QTParted should normally just see /dev/hda with no partitions.

If you are inserting only a single drive at a time, then you will have to manually change your /etc/fstab. So can you please post how your intend to lay out your system (number of partitions, mount points, etc.). With that info, I can show you how to lay out /etc/fstab if you want/need that info.

Bottom line: /dev/hda1 should be mounted as something other than /mnt/flash...

Jon

Hello jon

Thanks for your reply.

I have set up 1 hard drive 40gb on primary ide as master. I have dvd rom on secondary ide as master ( both motherboard ide's).

I then have a pci ide card controller with 250gb drive as master and 250 gb slave on ide 1 on card. I then have a 200gb drive as master on ide2 on card controller.

All drives are recognised. However, the following appears when i boot up from live cd using mepissoho3.3.2.t02 /simplymepis 3.3.2.t03

dev/hda ( 250gb master on ide card controller)
dev/hdb (250gb slave on ide card controller)
dev/hdc (200gb master on ide card controller)
dev/hde (40gb master on ide motherboard)
dev/hdg (dvdrom)

I installed mepissoho on hde but it lets me boot up to selection screen and says that mepis on hde but does allow boot into operating system.

Would it be easier to install mepis on hard drive (40gb) and then to install each drive individually. If so how do I go about completing task. I bought the drives new. Shall i first format them in windows ? can I install the drives and then format them. If I install each drive individually will it return mnt/flash and then i would have to alter fstab?
I intend to to use 1 partition for each drive. Do I create 3 primary and 1 extended or does this not apply to linux ?

I am sorry for all the questions but are you able to assist.

thanks

Your description of the device names given by the Live CD is helpful! You see that your 40GB drive is being detected last. You say you already loaded Mepis onto the 40GB drive before you started this? Yes, I have two ideas. The first is to go into the BIOS and see how it's identifying the additional PCI cards. You may have to turn off plug-and-play detection by the BIOS and see if you can tell the BIOS which order to identify the cards. If not, is there any type of jumper or switch on the PCI card itself that you can set its order?

The tutorial provided by grgii on your other post looks useful. A little dated, but still useful

But yes, I would try the "little-bit-at-a-time" approach: plug only the first 40GB drive in and get it working. Next put in the first PCI controller, but not attach any drives and boot with the Live CD and see if it reports any errors or changes device assignment. Next, plug in one more 250GB hard drive. One thought just came to mind. On the 40GB drive is the jumper set to "Master" or "Cable Select"? I'm sure you know this, so I'm just checking the obvious

But in installing the first 250GB drive it would be interesting to see how the system detects it. You need to make sure that the hard drive detection is consistent since you don't want to load the OS and various drives only to have the OS "forget" how things are to be mounted!

Let me know what you find out, and I'll see if I can dig up more info for you too

Jon

It seems that you are having the same issues that I experienced (see other issue you opened). It appears that your ad in card wants to be the first controller. That is what happened to me.

It sounds like you could try reinstalling grub with the OS center app from the CD first. If that doesn't work, try moving the 40 gb drive to the primary channel on the pci card and try to reinstall grub again. You may have to change the boot sequence in your bios to boot the primary on the pci controller.

You will need to partition and format the new hard drives and then mount them where you want thme to be seen on the system. If you haven't done all of this before in linux, it may seem a little confusing at first. I am a windows user turned linux user and it takes a little while to sort things out at first. Believe me, it is worth it.

Yes grgiii, things can get confusing when plugging in hardware! As I've mentioned on the other post Maxine, if you need some help making sense of this and the instructions to use, please let us know. We're here to help, and we don't even need your credit card number

Jon