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going from SCSI to SATA setup in Dell Poweredge

Hi,
We just bought a refurb Dell Poweredge server with support for SCSi Drives and a built in RAID. However the prices of SCSI drives are pretty high and we are thinking of getting SATA drives with controller card. I need some direction into which Hard drives would work and what card to get.

tfjeff

we need to know what system you have, as there are several poweredge models. Truthfully, scsi disks are faster and more reliable...by the time you buy the sata controller and sata drives, you might end up spending about the same amount of money.

BrijBhasin

ASKER

Its a 2450 with P3 860mhz processor and 2GB of RAM

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tfjeff

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jamietoner

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BrijBhasin

ASKER

Could you explain this more "backplane is required to post the system."

jamietoner

if the backplane is not in the system it wont turn on, im not sure if the 2450 is one of them but the 2850, 2650 and 2550 all require the backplane the contain part of the systems ESM (embedded systems managment)

BrijBhasin

ASKER

hmm, I guess it makes sense to stay with SCSI drives. I have 1 36 GB harddrive on the system which has all the OS and Applications installed. If I were to get another 36 GB drive and do a Hardware Raid 1 would I have to format both drives and re-install the OS or would the data be replicated on the second drive?

jamietoner

yes, going from scsi to scsi raid is destructive, you would need to reinstall the os and put the data back on from your backup