Just heard about the new 750GB Seagates, and I have a question

[tdx]

Hey everyone, I have a couple of questions for you:

Here's the deal: I'm about to build a new system from scratch. I'm going with a 975x/Presler, lots of RAM and a case that can hold about 5 Hard Drives. As far as storage, I was pretty much set on a Raptor 150 for booting, and an Areca RAID 5 card with 500GBs Seagates for storage.

And, just when I'm ready to give my banker a heart attack by ordering, here comes Seagate with an announcement for the imminent release of 750GB Barracudas, with 960GB versions coming soon! So, I'm rethinking about my config and I need your advice.

Basically, should I go ahead and buy 500GBs and later update my RAID array to 750Gb ones or even 960GBs? Or is this something not recommended, and then I'd better wait for the 750GBs to be available?

Also, if I mix and match 500GBs with 750GBs, I'm guessing the Areca cards won't allow me to use the extra space, right?

Finally, on a more general note, what do you guys think about dealing with the ever-expanding sizes of hard drives when you have RAID arrays? What do you think is the best way to go: keep adding hard drives, buy new ones and rebuild the array, or maybe other solutions?

I'd love to hear your comments. I have enough media to fill about 7TB, so I'll be upgrading/expanding/rebuilding a lot during the next few years, and I don't want to make the wrong decisions, both short-term and long-term.

Thanks in advance, TDX

[unhappy_mage]

Well, my personal solution is to wait until the 750s come out, wait for the price of 500s to drop, and buy those :p No reason to pay top dollar for technology that's unproven.

What I did was buy not-quite-top-of-the-line drives, in hopes that the price will drop later and I can finish the array on the cheap. Of course, the price of 300s has since gone up $10, but I stand by my theory.

I'd say buy a small array (4-5 drives) now, and when it comes time to expand make a new array with the newer, bigger drives. You can do it on the same controller, even. But I wouldn't bother expanding with anything that's not a decent amount of space for its time, and a decent price/GB. For example, an array of 120s just wouldn't cut it for me - don't bother expanding that, just upgrade to 300s or 400s.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag.php/mem/1392.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=1392)

[tskiller]

holy crap, 960 on one drive? I think i need new pants! :eek:

[unhappy_mage]

I would save the money for pants toward drives, my friend ;)

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag.php/mem/1392.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=1392)

[tdx]

Right, thanks for the quick response. From what you're saying, I gather there is no way to simply expand arrays with bigger drives than the ones you have (for example, starting with two 500GB and then adding 2 750GB to the same array), right? If I buy bigger drives, I need to rebuild the array from scratch. Or is there another way?

[unhappy_mage]

You could add the bigger drives and leave the extra 250GB unused until you've moved all the 500s out of the array. But I wouldn't recommend it.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag.php/mem/1392.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=1392)

[general]

My question on the subject though (aside from get AMD instead) is do you really want to have 5 drives inside of your system? You're putting a lot of electronics in there and it will probably be kinda warm. Why not get a machine for dedicated storage that you can hide in a closet somewhere and hook up gigabit ethernet? In terms of the 750's, do you really need to have that storage now? Is the 1.5TB that you will sufficient or do you really need to have that storage space now?

[tdx]

Hey general,

to answer your questions:
- no AMD cause I use Avid (doesn't play nice with AMD)
- I DO need all the storage I can get. My DVD collection, if ripped, would fill about 7TB by itself.
- I hear what you're saying about moving the storage stuff in a closet, and it's an option I'm considering. But, wether I do that or not, the question of what to with the RAID array anjd the 500/750 hard drives remains.

[TheDoucheMan]

Its kind of a bad time to be building an array.

The 500s are still high because they are top of the line, and the 750s will have a premium when they come out (already out?).

If you build a rig that will stay in the closet, you can have more smaller, and cheaper drives.

If you make the initial investment on a high quality raid card with alot of sata ports, you will have extra expandablility in the future as well.

[tdx]

Thanks for all the repsonses, guys. I think what I'll end up doing is foot the bill for a nice, future-proof RAID card (like the 12port Areca), start with some 500GB drives (they're not that expensive anymore) and then keep upgrading this array in either number of drives or size according to my needs and finances.

Besides, no matter which way I do it, it's still gonna be at least a few years before I can get the 7TB of storage I need, so I might as well be patient ;)

[unhappy_mage]

Sounds like a plan, except for one thing. Power supply and cooling. What PSU is going to be powering this machine? PCP&C makes a really good line if you can deal with a little noise; Enermax also makes supplies that I'd consider for this type of build. Start a thread in the PSU forums about this. List all the hardware you'll eventually be using.

Cooling is the other concern. Where are you going to put 12 drives (and in what case?) such that they'll stay cool? Fans are good.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag.php/mem/1392.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=1392)

[tdx]

I am indeed planning on buying the PC Power & Cooling 1KW. I will be building a 4-drive array, not 12. As for the case, it will be the Silverstone LC18, because I need the touchscreen for my job (monitoring video). It has 2 x 80mm fans directly under the hard drive cage, and an additional 2 x80mm fans on the back of the case, so the heat of these 5 hard drives (one of them is the raptor 150 for booting) shouldn't be a problem.

[dualblade]

am i misunderstanding something about drives and power consumption? i see you guys getting 1kw power supplies for servers that have drives that consume between 500-750mA each. isn't that remarkable overkill? also, are you going to mod the ps so that you can use the amperage devoted to the pci-e video card connectors?

[Whitebread]

The platter density of those new drives is going to be so high. Frankly, I'd be worried about failure since failure rates seems to increae with platter density.

[DeeFrag]

The platter density of those new drives is going to be so high. Frankly, I'd be worried about failure since failure rates seems to increae with platter density.

But the new drives are perpendicular. And please don't make me post that animation. :P

[RocketFast321]

It seems like yesterday when I got my 20gig maxtor for $100. (yes it still works) I was the big man till my friend a got a 40gig <_<

[Tman]

what i am going to do is get 4x 320g hds = 1.24TB
and you are talking really cheap. If i where you I would get a few more 320g hds
and see what you can do. You will save alot of money...

[I(illa Bee]

just a thought but what exactly do one do with 500+GB of HDD space????

I mean really, I filled my 250gb drive up quick, so I got a 400gb 16mb cache drive.. I found that is a good size and it dosnt look liek ill even be breakin 300gb used anytime soon... and I have been packrating my storage drives... I dont reaally need all that data...

[serbiaNem]

just a thought but what exactly do one do with 500+GB of HDD space????

I mean really, I filled my 250gb drive up quick, so I got a 400gb 16mb cache drive.. I found that is a good size and it dosnt look liek ill even be breakin 300gb used anytime soon... and I have been packrating my storage drives... I dont reaally need all that data...

I put my DVD and cd collection on my 1.3TBs.

[Whitebread]

But the new drives are perpendicular. And please don't make me post that animation. :P
Post the animation.

[shadowwyvern]

Yes, post the animation. On subject, I would not buy an arry right now at all unless you really need one. Buy a 300-500 gig drive for storage right now and hold off unill the newer drives drop in price. By then your RAID card will be cheaper too. I would also second the idea of getting a dedicated server, with a server board that has PCI-X. It does not have to be amazingly powerful, but it would be overall better to offload the bulk of storage to an external server. It also, as I discovered, makes recovering from a virus a lot easier; I was able to look at the time stamps on my linux box and trust that the files were in fact intact. That would not be the case if those files were hosted locally.

[tdx]

Hey everyone,

thanks for all this info. Looks like this thread is garnering interest from a lot of people.

To answer the question about why I need so much hard drive space: I currently have about 700GB of data (including 350GB of mp3s), and on top of that I can't wait to rip my DVD collection, which would total about... 7TB.

Obviously, this kind of storage capacity is not feasible in any way or for any budget for now, so I've been putting a lot of thought about how to best manage my media until the day where 7TB hard drives become available.

Since i don't mind spending money on storage, what I'm thinking of doing is to always buy a few of the biggest hard drives available (750GB-960GB soon), instead of buying a lot of smaller drives. I know it costs more, but less drives= less trouble. I'll start with a siimple 3-disc RAID 5 adrray and upgrade the size of the hard drives as bigger ones become available. When I'll reach a nice, 2-3 disk, redundant array that totals 7-8 TB, then I'll call it quits. And, seeing how quickly the storage capacities increase, that day shouldn't be too far off.

So, that's what I've come up with as a temporary solution.

Of course, if you guys have other ideas/objections, I'll be glad to hear them.

TDX