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SATA vs ATA?
An anonymous reader asks: "I have a client that needs a server with quite a bit of storage, reasonable level of reliability and redundancy and all for as cheap as possible. In other words they need a server with a RAID array using a number or large hard drives. Since SCSI is still more expensive than ATA (or SATA), I'm looking to using either an ATA or a SATA RAID controller from Promise Technologies. While I had initially was planning on using SATA drives, I have read some material recently to make me rethink that decision and stick with ATA drives.
What kind of experiences (good and bad) have people had with SATA drives as compared to ATA drives, especially in a server type environment?"
Their IDE RAID card, the SuperTrak SX6000 does REALLY poorly at some tasks. It eats CPU and from mailing lists has a lot of problems recovering from drive failures. For a good comparison to other ATA RAID cards see this storage review writeup on it.
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You may be right about building a system as reliable, and it'd certainly be hard to compete with it from a size standpoint, you are totally wrong about it being inexpensive.
Apple's 3.5TB system costs $10,999 US. If you were to build a system that comprised 9 Hitachi 7200RPM 400GB drives, you would acheive 100GB more storage space for 3,600$ plus the cost of the server it was hosted in. Throw in 750$ for a high-end RAID card and 1000$ for a server to enclose and handle it, and you're still priced at under HALF the price of Apple's solution.
So, in conclusion, Apple's solution is many things, and is certainly VERY sexy and attractive. But inexpensive compared to a self-built solution it is NOT.