[conspire] Parts is Parts

[Nick Moffitt]

Rick Moen:
> Now, in contrast, it may be that Christian's situation is one of the
> very few where true client/server LAN software architecture just
> cannot work, and he really does need to have 100% of a 16+ terabyte
> dataset reside locally to his console machine.  (At least he isn't
> proposing to frequently copy it back and forth across a busy corporate
> LAN.) However, it _doesn't_ follow that it's either necessary or
> desirable to mount a dozen or so terabyte-plus SATA drives in a single
> workstation machine (like a good little Packard-Bell user).
[...]
> And I'd look hard at a Coraid ATA over ethernet (AoE) system
> (especially now that the drivers have been in the mainline kernel
> since 2.6.11).

Surely if you're going SATA, it's trivial to buy an external drive
enclosure with its own power supply, and connect to your SATA controller
from there.  

It keeps all your data on the other side of an acceptably fast bus
connection, and lets you put your power supply dollars where your
irreplaceable hardware and data are.  Then the workstation itself could
have a sleeve-bearing fan snap off its post and carom about the case,
severing traces right and left or an under-spec transformer could short
the DC rails straight to mains live, and you'd just be out a few days of
work instead of a few years.

-- 
"Man, if everything were object-oriented then rsync         Nick Moffitt
could do this already. Of course, if everything were       nick at zork.net
object-oriented I'd have a bushy moustache and be
wearing flares, which would suck." -- Sean Neakums