[plug] SATA & Debian

[Tim Bowden]

Hi all,

I am about to set up a new file server and would like to use two SATA
drives with software raid (are there any hardware SATA RAID solutions
that work with linux that would be better?).

Does anyone have any recomendations as to motherboards?  I would
preferably like to have video, lan and SATA built in if possible.  I am
trying to keep the price reasonable as this is for a small business with
only about 6 - 8 users at any one time.

Does anyone have any pointers as to getting debian woody on to SATA
disks?  As the install disk is so old, SATA would not even have been a
twinkle in the eye of its creator when the woody install disk was
already well matured.

I am thinking of using LVM on top of the RAID to manage disk space and
for ease of backups, but I have read a recomendation to use EVMS instead
(Enterprise Volume Management- http://evms.sourceforge.net/).  Does
anyone have any recomendations here?

Restoring a woody system on SATA- What precautions need to be taken into
account for easily restoring a system that no longer boots?  Is a handy
copy of Knoppix likely to be enough given that the woody install disk
won't help?

Thanks,

Tim Bowden