Question on adding an IDE drive to my Linux server

I think I can do this but I thought I'd better ask folks who know a
lot more than I do to make sure.

I have an older server P-III 550 MHz running Red Hat Linux 6.2. It has
an 18 GB SCSI drive and an IDE CD-ROM drive.

I need to be able to do backups of my desktop systems. So what I'm
thinking of doing is getting a Western Digital Caviar 120GB ATA/100 72
WD1200JB drive and putting it in to use as a storage device. I would
just let Linux format the whole thing as one big drive and store
enormous (multi GB) files on it.

I know I have physical slots for drives in the server, I know I have
at least one IDE channel in the server and I'm familiar with this type
of IDE drive because I've installed one on my Win98se box.

Does this project sound do-able to folks? Is there anything I should
watch out for? I have not messed with my server for a couple of years
because it's running all right. I just need more storage space on it.
But I'm a bit rusty on the Linux stuff. I'm hoping to just plug this
thing in, turn on the server, let Linux see that there's new hardware
and let it format the 120 GB drive. Am I being overly optimistic?
--
Obscurity in the face of adversity is no dice.

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 10:01:12 -0500, Jude the Obscure wrote:
[snip]
> But I'm a bit rusty on the Linux stuff. I'm hoping to just plug this
> thing in, turn on the server, let Linux see that there's new hardware
> and let it format the 120 GB drive. Am I being overly optimistic?

As long as there's room on one of the IDE interfaces you should have no
problems. I prefer to physically jumper drives as appropriate. Put a
filesystem on it, and perhaps an entry in fstab, and away you go.

--
I had to hit him, he was beginning to make sense.

Chiefy <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

>On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 10:01:12 -0500, Jude the Obscure wrote:
>[snip]
>> But I'm a bit rusty on the Linux stuff. I'm hoping to just plug this
>> thing in, turn on the server, let Linux see that there's new hardware
>> and let it format the 120 GB drive. Am I being overly optimistic?

No, you would not want it to automatically format a drive. Imagine that you
have 20 years of data on the drive and linux does not recognize the
filesystem. Bye Bye data.
It will recognize the drive but then you have to partition it and format it
as you want. diskdrake in Mandrake.
You will tell it which partitions youwant, and where you want to mount
them. Also which filesystem you want on the partition (vfat, ext2, ext3,
reiserfs,....)

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Jude the Obscure
wrote:

>I think I can do this but I thought I'd better ask folks who know a
>lot more than I do to make sure.

Would have helped to post this to comp.os.linux.hardware, as it really
doesn't have anything to do with networking.

>I have an older server P-III 550 MHz running Red Hat Linux 6.2. It has
>an 18 GB SCSI drive and an IDE CD-ROM drive.
>
>I need to be able to do backups of my desktop systems. So what I'm
>thinking of doing is getting a Western Digital Caviar 120GB ATA/100 72
>WD1200JB drive and putting it in to use as a storage device.

23639 Aug 21 2000 Hard-Disk-Upgrade
652047 Jan 30 2004 Hardware-HOWTO
79391 Nov 8 08:33 Large-Disk-HOWTO

The last one is only ten weeks old, so you'll need to get it from an LDP
mirror, such as http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html. However
RH6.2 was a 2.2.x kernel ((2.2.14-5.0 out of box, 2.2.24-6.2.3 as the last
errata update on Mar 19 2003), and I suspect your ancient kernel is going
to have a huge problem trying to recognize the new drive.

>I would just let Linux format the whole thing as one big drive and store
>enormous (multi GB) files on it.

Without the large memory kernel, you may run into problems there - 4 GB is
a bad magic number.

>Does this project sound do-able to folks? Is there anything I should
>watch out for? I have not messed with my server for a couple of years
>because it's running all right.

Understand that, but 6.2 has been unsupported since March 31, 2003. The
old 2.2.24 kernel is rather long in the tooth - 2.2.26 is nearly a year old,
and 2.2.27 is at rc2 (four days ago).

>But I'm a bit rusty on the Linux stuff. I'm hoping to just plug this
>thing in, turn on the server, let Linux see that there's new hardware
>and let it format the 120 GB drive. Am I being overly optimistic?

Very much so. Just the simple things, like how do you want the drive
partitioned - what kind of file system do you want on this drive - where
do you want it mounted, and so on. But the HOWTOs cover this.

Old guy

On 16 Jan 2005 16:50:13 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) (Bill Unruh)
wrote:

>Chiefy <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
>>On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 10:01:12 -0500, Jude the Obscure wrote:
>>[snip]
>>> But I'm a bit rusty on the Linux stuff. I'm hoping to just plug this
>>> thing in, turn on the server, let Linux see that there's new hardware
>>> and let it format the 120 GB drive. Am I being overly optimistic?
>
>No, you would not want it to automatically format a drive. Imagine that you
>have 20 years of data on the drive and linux does not recognize the
>filesystem. Bye Bye data.

This will be a brand new drive. Shouldn't be a thing on it. There
certainly won't be anything of mine on it.

>It will recognize the drive but then you have to partition it and format it
>as you want. diskdrake in Mandrake.
>You will tell it which partitions youwant, and where you want to mount
>them. Also which filesystem you want on the partition (vfat, ext2, ext3,
>reiserfs,....)

Well, i'll be using RedHat 6.2. All I really want to do is make it so
that the system will see the drive and be able to write to it. I only
want the one large partition, for a lot of pretty large files, none of
4 GB though.
--
Obscurity in the face of adversity is no dice.

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 17:55:27 -0600, (E-Mail Removed)
(Moe Trin) wrote:

>In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Jude the Obscure
>wrote:
>
>>I think I can do this but I thought I'd better ask folks who know a
>>lot more than I do to make sure.
>
>Would have helped to post this to comp.os.linux.hardware, as it really
>doesn't have anything to do with networking.
>
>>I have an older server P-III 550 MHz running Red Hat Linux 6.2. It has
>>an 18 GB SCSI drive and an IDE CD-ROM drive.
>>
>>I need to be able to do backups of my desktop systems. So what I'm
>>thinking of doing is getting a Western Digital Caviar 120GB ATA/100 72
>>WD1200JB drive and putting it in to use as a storage device.
>
> 23639 Aug 21 2000 Hard-Disk-Upgrade
> 652047 Jan 30 2004 Hardware-HOWTO
> 79391 Nov 8 08:33 Large-Disk-HOWTO
>
>The last one is only ten weeks old, so you'll need to get it from an LDP
>mirror, such as http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html. However
>RH6.2 was a 2.2.x kernel ((2.2.14-5.0 out of box, 2.2.24-6.2.3 as the last
>errata update on Mar 19 2003), and I suspect your ancient kernel is going
>to have a huge problem trying to recognize the new drive.

Oh, it looks like it's getting complicated. I don't think that putting
a new RH server package onto the machine is an option right now. I
know that RH 6.2 completely clobbered everything when I re-installed
it a couple of times.I've got files all over the place on that server.
I wouldn't want to have to start from scratch.

>>I would just let Linux format the whole thing as one big drive and store
>>enormous (multi GB) files on it.
>
>Without the large memory kernel, you may run into problems there - 4 GB is
>a bad magic number.

The system already has an 18 GB SCSI drive in it. Some of the
partitions are larger than 4 GB.

>>Does this project sound do-able to folks? Is there anything I should
>>watch out for? I have not messed with my server for a couple of years
>>because it's running all right.
>
>Understand that, but 6.2 has been unsupported since March 31, 2003. The
>old 2.2.24 kernel is rather long in the tooth - 2.2.26 is nearly a year old,
>and 2.2.27 is at rc2 (four days ago).
>
>>But I'm a bit rusty on the Linux stuff. I'm hoping to just plug this
>>thing in, turn on the server, let Linux see that there's new hardware
>>and let it format the 120 GB drive. Am I being overly optimistic?
>
>Very much so. Just the simple things, like how do you want the drive
>partitioned - what kind of file system do you want on this drive - where
>do you want it mounted, and so on. But the HOWTOs cover this.

Uh, oh. Sounds like you're telling me that I'm not going to be able to
do this.
--
Obscurity in the face of adversity is no dice.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Jude the Obscure
wrote:

>Oh, it looks like it's getting complicated. I don't think that putting
>a new RH server package onto the machine is an option right now. I
>know that RH 6.2 completely clobbered everything when I re-installed
>it a couple of times.I've got files all over the place on that server.
>I wouldn't want to have to start from scratch.

IN THEORY, using the 'upgrade' mechanism (rather than a 'wipe and
install from scratch') should handle this type of file structure, but
we've always gone the route of putting the O/S on one (or two or three)
partition(s), and keeping the data, home, and our own applications on
separate partitions (or even network file mounts) makes life easier. That
way, we can just unmount the sensitive stuff, and pour a new install over
the existing. This also simplifies backups.

>The system already has an 18 GB SCSI drive in it. Some of the
>partitions are larger than 4 GB.

No doubt - but how about files larger than 2 Gigabyes. The four Gig value
is 'unsigned'.

>Uh, oh. Sounds like you're telling me that I'm not going to be able to
>do this.

You'll be able to do so - it's just a bit more complicated than some ASCII
art I've seen on the net:

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Old guy