RH9: How should I install HD's?

[merker19]

Hi All:
I'm getting ready to install the Server edition of RH9 so I can host my website, FTP site, sendmail, and anything else I can think of. The problem is I'm new to Linux and what little I know seems to be bogging me down on the planning stage. I guess I can give it a shot, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to hit complications because I've tried something similar before... but before I get any further, I'll lay it out so you can decide.

I have a BP6 with dualie 500Mhz Celery chips and 384MB's of RAM. I have an old skool IBM Deskstar HD that has 6Gig's of space. I have a new OEM Western Digital drive sporting 160GB's of space. I'd obviously like to use the WD drive, but I'd also like to use HPT366 Ultra ATA/66 channel so I can get the performance I'm looking for in a server... can I just plug it in and see if the RH CD will recognize it? Don't I need the drivers? Last I looked, the RH CD didn't work the same way as Windows does and ask for the appropriate SCSI/ATA drivers... or do I have to do an install first on my 6Gig drive and then add on the 160Gig?
TIA,
_merker19

PS --Hyperspace, that Q6 VTT ($2) Fix works great. My bp6 couldn't be happier... well maybe it could... an upgrade of memory!

[24seven]

Hmm, you might be better off using the 6Gb drive on the normal ide as a system drive, then use the 160Gb drive as storage for your site and ftp etc.. Then if you ever need to reinstall there is not a problem of backing stuff up. (I use this method in windows as well).

As for which controler to use for the 160Gb, I am unsure, some say the HPT366 is unstable therefore it might not be wise to use it in a server.

I dont normaly use it on mine but recently I have had too due to the amount of drives in the machine so I put the system drive onto the HPT366 on the theory it dosent matter too much as that drive has no important data on and that it will help the general speed of the machine.

Linux has HPT366 suport built into the kernel, so it should just work. Other wise install it on the normal IDE and add the suport for the HPT366 and then move it to the HPT366.

[hyperspace]

PS --Hyperspace, that Q6 VTT ($2) Fix works great. My bp6 couldn't be happier... well maybe it could... an upgrade of memory!

Great News!

[merker19]

Hey 24/7:
Are there any performance gains or losses between the two solutions(Install OS on disk1, storage on disk 2 ---OR--- Install ALL on disk1)?
Thanks,
_merker19

[24seven]

You might see a small performance gain with the OS on one disk and the data on another, as it can read from them both at the same time.

Heavey usage of the storage disk wont slow down the OS as its on a different disk.

[Homer S.]

As far as I experienced, RH9 does quite well with HPT366 hard disks.
I've two of them as /dev/hde and /dev/hdg, and they both are working fine (as they were seen during install, of course).

[merker19]

Awesome. Thanks for the input. I finally installed RH9 and I pretty much let RH do its thing and accepted all the automatic settings. RH setup my HD as follows:

HD 1 (on IDE Channel 1)
\boot
FREE SPACE

HD 2 (on HPT366 Channel 1)
\
SWAP

It seems to be running fine. The only problem I'm experiencing is connecting my internal IDE Zip 100 drive. Every time I connect it, the RH bootup process hangs on it and spews out "Lost Interrupt." Does anyone know how to fix this? Thanks in advance.
_merker19

[Homer S.]

I found this post about a trouble like yours. It could be either a matter of setting your IDE Zip 100 drive as noauto in /etc/fstab, or activating automount, or both.

[merker19]

Thanks Homer. I don't know if it'll work after removing the line, but it's worth a shot.
_merker19