On 10 Jun 98 at 8:57, Paul Bender wrote:

> What would be required to set up a computer to have two drives
> that are the same, and duplex them?

  I think the more common term for what you have in mind is "mirror"
rather than "duplex".

  This is exactly what RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks)
is, at level 0 ("RAID-0").

> Could IDE drives be used?

  There are some products which have appeared in the last year or so
that claim to be able to do this with IDE drives.  There are two key
reasons why SCSI is probably a better choice for this:

1.  Number of drives in system:  Each IDE controller can handle 2
drives, each SCSI controller can handle at least 7.

2.  CPU load:  Working with an unmirrored IDE drive can keep the
system CPU very busy.  The SCSI controller can shoulder a lot of the
load, and alternate efficiently between the drives.

> Is additional hardware or software needed beyond the traditional
> W95?

  Win95 doesn't handle this directly (NT does).  For W95, you need a
RAID controller with a W95 driver.  Last time I looked, such
controllers ranged from $250 to $1500, depending on specific
features -- and I don't know which ones included a 95 driver, since
I was building NT at the time.

David G