[NCLUG] IDE RAID For Linux

[dmiles]

As I understand it, the origional thinking behind "smart devices" was because the system proc
was busy doing other things and couldnt' handle the weight of driving dumb devices. It's
pretty much the same reason we have graphic accelerators in addition to our system proc.
It used to be that it was just as much drain on the system to run a modem as it is now
to play high-graphics games.

With the fast proc's out on the market right now, driving simple devices is pretty much
not a problem anymore and so the logical step is that we can make hardware more cheaply
if it's "dumb hardware" and if we have that ultra-fast system proc driving it it could
end up working faster than "smart hardware" anyway. It's a good idea.

People have such a problem with winmodems because M$ has so many anti-competitave
fingers in that area that it can be a royal pain to find drivers for the device in anything
but Windows. If you can find a driver for your winmodem, more power to you but that
find is just not likely. :)

On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:40:28 -0700, Bryan Stillwell <bryan at bokeoa.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 06, 2001 at 12:48:41PM -0700, Michael Dwyer wrote:
> >I've always been under the impression that, with Linux, smarter is
> >always better.  Smart printers are easier to handle (PostScript) than
> >the dumb inkjet hardware that's been coming out recently.  Smart modems
> >are easier to handle than the brainless Winmodems.  You pay more for
> >PS printers and real modems, but it is often cheaper than sanity...
> 
> Why do people have such a problem with the Winmodems?
> 
> After doing tech support for a local ISP for about a year I found the LT
> Winmodems to be the most reliable with the fastest connection speeds
> than any other modem.  Being displeased with the speeds of my aging
> USRobotics 33.6k modem I decided to buy one for $30 (which was a hell of
> a lot cheaper than a newer external USR which was about $200 at the time
> and kind of sucky if you ask me).
> 
> I started using it under Linux in March of 2000, and since DSL and Cable
> still aren't available in my area (northern Loveland) I'm still using
> it today.  I get a download speed of about 5KB/s on average and in the
> low 100s for ping times to my ISP.  With an external USR modem it would
> be more like 4.3KB/s and 150ms for ping times.  A ZOOM modem would
> probably be faster than the USR, but won't help the ping times much.
> 
> Here's a page that has the source code for the Linux driver:
> 
> http://www.physcip.uni-stuttgart.de/heby/ltmodem/index.html
> 
> 
> Also here's a /. comment from John Carmack about how a winmodem can be
> better than a hard modem:
> 
> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3317&cid=1391297
> 
> 
> Pretty much I just wanted to write this letter to say that you don't
> have to spend $100 on something that you can get delivered to your door
> for about $20 right now and it works just the same, if not better.  I
> guess the only problem with it would be the extra setup.
> 
> Bryan
> 
> --
>   http://www.bokeoa.com/    | bryan at bokeoa.com
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