[conspire] Advice on Building a Computer

[Mark Weisler]

 Hello,
 This is a request for help in reviewing specifications for a computer I am
 building. It is based on a Tyan 2468 motherboard, also called the K7X.

 The intended use of the computer is as a server and a learning
 environment for me and a couple of other people. The MB is equipped with
 two SCSI channels and I want to put five to seven drives in the
 system to continue learning and experimenting with RAID
 and LVM. I want to use quality components as this computer will be kept for 
quite a while.

 The MB is...

 http://www.tyan.com/archive/products/html/thunderk7x.html


 Some general information:
 * this is an extended ATX motherboard. It's big and
  intended to be a server. I have the two AMD Athlon processors and
  memory for the system.
 * I have a large case for the system, a Lian Li V1200B Plus II
  that can hold eight or so drives.

 There are two particular areas in which I would appreciate
 your review: drives and power supply.

 Drives
 The motherboard is a model number S2468UGN
 with a UPC of 635872-006449. This has two SCSI interfaces,
 SCSI A and SCSI B and is specified as Ultra 160 SCSI. I
 believe these are 68-pin interfaces rather than 80-pin because
 the 80-pin interface is, as I understand it, more often used
 for hot swappable drives and I don't think I have that in this case. I need   
 to verify that what is on the board is 68-pin.

 I think I want to put two or three drives on each interface. Thus I would
 need two ribbon SCSI interfaces like, I believe, this:

 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200077

 and some number of SCSI drives like this 68-pin one:
 http://www.compuvest.com/Description.jsp?iid=355204

 Does that sound reasonable?

 Power Supply
 This extended ATX motherboard requires an ATXGES power supply.
 There seem to be two ways to do this:
 a) buy an ATXGES power supply with the proper connectors
 b) buy an ATX power supply and obtain (probably via eBay) an adapter cable


 An example an ATXGES PS is http://www.power-on.com/atxges.html at about $80.
 An example of an adapter cable is
 http://search.ebay.com/ATX-GES-cable_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQcatrefZC6QQdfspZ1QQfr
omZR10QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQsabfmtsZ1QQsacatZQ2d1QQsaobfmtsZinsifQQsaprchiZQQsap
rcloZQQssPageNameZRC0021?_trksid=p1638.m120 and these are about $20 plus the 
cost of the power supply.


 So, any thoughts or recommendations would be appreciated.
 To recap: I think I need:
 * power supply and possibly adapter cable
 * drives
 * SCSI ribbon connector for the drives
 ...as I already have:
 * motherboard
 * CPU's and memory
 * case
 I have someone who can help me with the assembly of the computer.
 Thanks for your consideration.

-- 
Mark Weisler 
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our 
people need it sorely on these accounts." ---Mark Twain---
PGP: 0x68E462B6  http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/
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