DB Server: IDE vs. SCSI - What are the advantages?

Hi,

We are going to be setting up an e-commerce web site that runs on SQL Server 2000 standard and we need to purchase a database server and are not sure whether we will have a use for SCSI hard drives or can stick with IDE RAID.

The server will just run SQL SERVER 2000, nothing else. There are no images, or anything like that being stored in the database or on the server, but credit card transactions, and orders will be taking place so we want that to be efficient.

Can someone give a good explanation of which (IDE or RAID) would server us better and why?

Thank you,

MarkMark, you haven't given nearly enogh info to make an analysis of any kind but I can offer some clarification...

First you definatly want some kind of RAID technology. This can give you drive redundency and depending on he kind of card purchased, some flexability in how you partition your drives.

IDE vs SCSI. It is true you can save some money by going IDE but the technology hasn't been around long enough. If you absolutly had to cut costs to the bone and purchased IDE then I would watch the error logs like a hawk for any problems that might arrise.
SCSI technology has been around for ever and provided you go with a name brand, you shouldn't have any surprises. SCSI has been and continues to be the backbone for data storage. I have 15 year old SCSI drives that continue to spin and serve up data without ANY problems, wish I could say the same for my IDE drives.

Other Comments anyone?|||Paul, what information would be required for an analysis? I have no clue how MSSQL stores information or uses a hard drive when performing queries and inserts, etc. I just want to understand how MSSQL interacts with the hard drive... does it require more memory and not rely as heavily on the hard drive? Those types of questions.

Thanks,

Mark|||Since you are going to have high level of concurent writes to db, the logical choice is to inplement RAID10. Only few IDE hardware can support RAID10. SCSI disks are much faster and have high throughput.
I think SCSI if the only choise for production at this moment.

HTH,
OBRP

DB schema...

Hi all,

I want to set up a db for an e-commerce site. I need to know how to set up the db correctly with out getting anything mixed up ... 'cos I never done an e-commerce db b4:

I need to know where and how to store the passwords, the product pictures and the customers delivery address which is different from the billing address.

The tables are as follows...

--Customer--
CustID
Email (email & pwd is for login)
password (will this be secure here)
Name
Address (should it all be in one column or firstline,secondline,zipcode columns)
DeliveryAddress

--Product--
ProductID
ItemName
Catogary
Price
SellingPrice
Quantity
ItemsPicture...(not sure where to link the pics to)
DistributorsID (the warehouse who dispatches the item)

--Distributors--
DistributorsID
Name
Company
Address

It would be much appreciated if you could share some info and tips for how to set it up all correctly.

Tools I'll be using are, ASP.NET(C#), ADO.NET, MSSQL (Stored procedures)

Thanks In AdvanceStore the password in the customer table, unless you intend to keep a history of passwords for aging and expiration. In that case, store it in a child table off of customer.

If you are only storing a maximum of two addresses per customer, then store both in the customer record. It is not worth the hassle to normalize in case like this.

If there are multiple pictures per product, store them in a related table. If there is only one, then store it in the product table.

Be aware that many knowledgeable people on this forum recommend NOT storing the actual image in the database, but instead storing the file path of the image.|||Thanks for those tips...

I've looked into storing images via links to folders...also is there any other way to put the links in other than coding it (i.e. using the GUI interface)

As for the passward, how do I encrypt it... 'cos I do not want ppl who have access to the db to view them.|||1. Images...normally you just have one links table that defines the directory for each type of file. You can the store the directory_id and the name of the image in the table that houses image information.

2. You really need to encrypt the password in your application. Look at asp.net for an example including code. The aspalliance.com website also has an example.|||Here is a one-way encryption algorithm you may use. When you user creates a password, pass it to this function and store the result in your password table.

When they log in again and enter their password, pass it to this function again and compare the result to what is stored in their password record.