Intel Cutting Corners
Something else I learned recently is that Intel is starting to cut corners on the manufacturing of its motherboards. Previously, I had always configured floppy drives into the computers that I build for free so as to make it easier to diagnose and maintain them for my clients. Well, those days seem to be numbered since I recently got a BOXDQ35JOE motherboard in for a client for whom I built a computer for her business up in eastern Iowa. When I ordered the motherboard and other parts I needed, I didn't bother to look at the specs of the motherboard but upon installing it, I found that there was no floppy disk included in the box. I figured that it was just forgotten, so I was going to pull one out of my store stock, download the necessary software, and hook up the floppy drive. I looked at the motherboard more closely and found that there was no cable connector on the motherboard for the floppy drive. This is somewhat understandable since most people do not use floppy drives very much anymore. The capacity is quite small when compared to the sizes of today's documents and graphics, so it is infrequent for most users to use anything smaller than a CD-R to store data (if they bother to copy data off their computers at all). However, this is inconvenient and somewhat short-sighted of Intel in regard to one aspect of this motherboard: RAID.
RAID, for those of you who don't know about it, is a fault tolerance design for data storage (specifically, the hard drive). RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. What this means is that a computer that has a RAID array has more than just one hard drive inside it so that there is still the capability to use the computer even if a hard drive fails. The simplest RAID design that is commonly used is RAID 1, also known as mirroring. This means that there are two hard drives that have the same data written to them at the same time. Thus, if one of the hard drives fails, an error message is displayed on the screen but the computer keeps on working with the other hard drive. There is no down time or loss of data (unless the other hard drive also fails before the first one is replaced).
Now, why does not having a floppy drive mean that one would have a problem with RAID? Because, when one is installing Windows XP and wishes to use a RAID configuration, one has to tell the Windows XP Setup program that he has a RAID driver that is needed for the computer to be able to address the hard drives. This driver is delivered on a floppy (as it was supposed to be with the Intel motherboard that had no floppy connector). So, the question becomes, "How does one install a RAID driver on a computer that has no floppy drive?" The answer may appear to be simple: use a USB-connected floppy drive. However, there is yet another big can of worms opened when one ventures there. Upon researching this issue, I discovered that there are only three brands of USB floppy drives that have models recognized by the XP Setup program, so not just any USB floppy drive will work. The three brands are Mitsumi, Teac, and Y-E Data. The first two brands are good quality and commonly available while the third (Y-E Data) is a company about which I know nothing. Fortunately, one of my suppliers had a Teac USB drive in stock and was able to get it shipped out overnight so that I could get the client's new machine built and sent out to her right away.
Be forewarned: Intel, once a great and top-rated manufacturer of motherboards, now appears to be slipping and sliding by letting the little things such as logic fall by the wayside. While Best Deal Computers will still stand behind Intel's processors, they shall no longer be the top brand of motherboard that we recommend. That honor now goes to Gigabyte, a very reliable brand that we have sold as a close second to Intel for many years.