[SWLUG] Ubuntu Server Install No CD

[Keith Edmunds]

On 09/05/2006 2:45:23 PM +0100
Daniel Morgan <me at plod.tv> said:

> I am trying to do an install on an old server I have lying around. The
> trouble is I want to use all the IDE channels for hard drives (I
> intend to use them all in a software raid at install). The server has
> no CD drive, but does have a floppy drive. Last time I set up this
> server I used debian, and installed off network/floppy.
> 
> I've been looking round but getting lost in all the jargon.

Looking for what?

Are you contemplating using RAID-5 or RAID-1? RAID-5 is very
compute-intensive, and if this is an old server then you may find the
performance drops a bit too far under load. Also remember that you can
only write to one drive on a given IDE channel at any one time, so if
you're writing to 3 or 4 disks on two channels then again you may hit a
performance problem. Of course, you may have more than two IDE channels
in which case you can put each of three drives on its own channel.

There's no real reason why you can't put CD and hard disk on the same
channel - time was when this would slow the channel to the speed of the
slowest device, but that's no longer the case. If you're using RAID-1,
and thus only need two disks, this would be the easiest way of fixing
the installation problem.

You might also think about future maintenance - if there's no CD (and,
if an old server, presumably no opportunity to boot from a USB device),
then that could present problems. You probably don't want to try to
diagnose a no-boot system from TOMSRTBT, good thought it is!

If I've missed the point or made some wrong assumptions then please put
me right.

Keith

-- 
Keith Edmunds

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