[K12OSN] Swapping out a PATA for a SATA

[Carl Keil]

>
>
>     * /From/: "Terrell Prude' Jr." <microman cmosnetworks com>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Carl Keil wrote:
>  
>
>Hi Folks,
>
>    
>
>     I'm running my k12ltsp server off a single PATA drive. I just
>     bought a SATA II drive which my mobo also supports. I know how to
>     install the PATA II and move the /home directory to it, but I'm
>     wondering if I should just use the SATA alone, or run SATA for the
>     boot drive and put /home on the PATA. What would you do given the
>     choice between these drives? Also, I don't have the time/energy
>     right now to reinstall/reconfigure. I'm leaning heavily towards
>     just putting /home on the new SATA and seeing what kindof
>     performance gain I get. BUT I've got to wondering. Is it even
>     possible to install the SATA and copy the PATA to it and then
>     reboot and be in business off the SATA drive? If so, what's the
>     procedure? 
>
> If you don't want to reinstall, then go ahead and use the SATA II 
> drive for /home. The reason is as follows. Yes, you can indeed copy 
> the entire contents of that existing PATA drive to the SATA drive (cat 
> or dd are both good for this), thus entirely replacing the PATA drive. 
> However, you also will then have to tweak /etc/fstab to point 
> everything from /dev/hdaX to /dev/sdaX. If you don't do it right, you 
> get a kernel panic (can't find the root partition). Also, generally 
> speaking, you've got to verify that all the drivers for SATA (this 
> includes the generic SCSI driver, BTW, since SATA is seen as SCSI) are 
> present in either the kernel itself or in the initrd; modprobe's not 
> good enough at boot-time. I believe that this is already the case for 
> K12LTSP, so you *should* be OK in that way. Now, if it were me, I 
> would simply put /home on the new SATA II drive and go on with life. 
> It's just way easier. Also, your performance will increase somewhat 
> overall, since now you're spreading the workload across two physical 
> spindles and sets of read/write heads.
>
>--TP
>
>  
>

Thanks Terrell,

 From what you're saying I'm pretty sure that swapping them is beyond my 
capabilities.  Your recommendation jives with what I was thinking.

Thanks,  I appreciate your response.

ck