IDE vs. SATA

[Rock And Roll Over]

The system I am working on putting together has 2 IDE connections and 2 SATA connections. As it stands right now, I have one SATA HDD and one SATA DVD-RW. My question here is:

Would it be OK (system resource wise) to get an IDE hard drive to use as the "root" system and a much larger hard drive for the recordings or should I do that vice-versa?

[GMaq]

Hi,

You are probably correct to use an IDE as a System or OS drive and use a large SATA for your Data (hey that rhymes). You will get more speed out of the SATA even if it is an older 150 one. The only tricky thing might be if the BIOS will let you choose IDE or SATA as the primary drive interface. That may or may not be an issue though, I can't say because I don't have any mixed SATA/IDE machines on the go myself.

[Rock And Roll Over]

Well as I experiment with that server (and wait for the 1010LT to arrive), I'll give it a try and see what happens. I'll post back my findings.

[trulan]

If your BIOS refuses to let you choose to boot from your IDE drive, you could always install an OS (Ubuntu, or even Windows (gasp)) on a little partition on the SATA drive, then install AVLinux on the IDE drive and install grub to the master boot record (of the SATA drive).  That way, the system will look to the MBR on the SATA drive, which will point to grub, grub will let you choose AVLinux, and AVLinux will boot and run from the IDE drive.  Then put a nice big ext3 partition on the SATA drive for your data and you're all set.

BTW my desktop has one SATA and one IDE drive.  BIOS lets me choose which drive to boot from.  I currently have three Linux installations (why?) on the IDE drive and Windows and my Data on the SATA.  The IDE drive seems to be easily fast enough to run the OS.

[efflux]

In my opinion the best plan would have been to use an external USB DVD drive. That's what I have on my Linux desktop. My system with AVLinux currently only has one SATA drive with a partition for audio just to keep things tidier. I've never actually had a problem with using a system drive for streaming audio but it may depend on how many tracks you use.

However, I have another set up now which is incredibly fast. I've back tracked to a Macbook Pro and I'm using Ardour Mixbus. I still have my AVLinux set up that I'm experimenting on. What I have done is put an SSD drive in the Macbook which is amazing. No problems with anything yet when it comes to audio streaming but the real beauty is the immense speed up of loading anything from the drive. On a new Linux system it would probably be insanely fast. It's not that cheap though but OSX is bloated compared to Linux so it helps more.

[Rock And Roll Over]

Well as I experiment with that server (and wait for the 1010LT to arrive), I'll give it a try and see what happens. I'll post back my findings.

I got it to boot from the IDE drive with no issue, however, when I try to access the SATA drive, I get this error:

org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-fixed auth_admin_keep_always <-- (action, result)

I'll be Googling to see what I can come up with a little later. Lots of fun stuff to tinker with.

I am also assuming that the SWAP should be on the same phycical drive as /root and /home.

In my opinion the best plan would have been to use an external USB DVD drive.

Why do you say this? Not saying you're wrong, just asking.

[Rock And Roll Over]

... Post modified to combine questions ...

[rayj]

I got it to boot from the IDE drive with no issue, however, when I try to access the SATA drive, I get this error:

org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-fixed auth_admin_keep_always <-- (action, result)

Try logging into that disk as root in your file manager (this has a menu entry under 'tools', I think). Pretty sure it's a permissions issue.

There are ways to have the disk mount at boot, presumably by editing fstab. You can change the file permissions with chmod/chgrp/chown. Not sure what the best options are...

[Rock And Roll Over]

Just goofing around, I created a directory called /home/allen/data and as su at the command prompt I typed mount -o loop /dev/sdb1 /home/allen/data and it mounted and I could open the directory but I couldn't write to it nor could I navigate into the lost+found directory so I just need to figure out how to properly add it to /etc/fstab so that the user allen can access it.

I'm getting there!

[efflux]

I suggested an external USB DVD because I was in a similar position to what you are in. I was going to put two SATA drives in and having my DVD as external meant that I only attached that when needed. Then I had both my SATA connections free (and no ATA) just for drives even if in in the end I never put another drive in. I also disable everything not in use from the bios.

[Rock And Roll Over]

Cool. Thanks, efflux.

[GMaq]

R&R Over,

You can use the Remastersys Control Panel to mount all drives at boot just go to the system management tab and select that option and reboot. You really shouldn't have to mess around with the fstab to use that drive, If you click on the SATA drive in PCManFM so it is mounted in /media you should just have to go to /media and right click on the folder that corresponds to your SATA drive as root and modify the permissions for user 'allen'.

[Rock And Roll Over]

Thanks GMaq. I'll tinker with that some time today.

Edit: Found it. Mounted it without issue. Didn't add any user to it yet though. This is a test install on smaller hard drives. LOL