combining 2 servers...

[IDversusEGO]

I currently have one file server and one SageTV server for recording TV and distributing music/movies. My main concern is the hard drive config. I currently have 17 drives between the 2 for a total of 2250gb of advertised space. as long as I get close to that I am good.

Here are my limitations. Only 2 PCI slots and only 8 drive bays. Mobo has 4 SATA controllers and 3 IDE controllers for 6 drive capacity on my p4p800e deluxe.

I am only keeping 3 drives from my current config. One is a 250gb SATA that will have a 10gb OS partition and two 300gb IDE storage drives. All 3 can be controlled by the Mobo controllers. That leaves me about 1400gb to make up. I can knock it all out with three 500gb SATA for a total drive count of 6 while still leaving expansion space in the case. Any holes in my logic?

[DougLite]

How is it getting backed up?
Have you considered the Seagate 750GB drives?
Any provision for fault tolerance (RAID-5, etc)?
Budget?

[IDversusEGO]

the pictures and files are backed up by an auto file synch to 2 different destination. I have a mirror ont he server and a mirro on 2 other workstations. All of the other data is movies and movies that I own hard copies of. If I lose it I just re-rip.

Seagate 750gb present 2 problems. Overly high $/gb ratio and an overly high amount of data loss per drive. I would rather spread my exposure a little. While it is true I can just rerip my stuff, 500gb presents a little less time spent ripping.

I want to institute a hot swap spare eventually, that's why I am trying to go SATA and leave a PCI slot and drive bay open. I will need a dedicated RAID card for that, so it is probably stage 2 of this upgrade.

these servers were built on a shoestring budget, but I am looking to put some money intot hem now. As for a hard number, I want to do it for as little as possible, but I am not going to buy inferior parts to save money. For instance, I am gettng a new case as well and i am going with a Masstige even though I really want a stacker. Masstige does what I need and save me $50-80. I have about $600-700 to spend right now, but will do this in stages if it goes over that.

[[LYL]Homer]

Seems like you are in a place to go to RAID 5 now with the addition of an add-in SATA RAID card. I've been in a similar situation with a bunch of random drives and just rebuilt my media system with a MSI 6150 motherboard that supports RAID 5 and just got 4x 320gb Seagate 7200.10 drives. I'll be putting the RAID 5 array together in a day or two and transferring all my media data back to this PVR machine over the weekend. I have mine set up like this:

Primary IDE:
80gb PATA = OS
35gb REV drive (Iomega) = backup photos, etc.

Secondary IDE:
250gb PATA = SageTV recordings
DVD burner

4xSATA in RAID 5

I'm really looking forward to having one big partition too - my movies, music, photos, apps, tv shows all vary dynamically month to month and I'm getting tired of constantly 'temporarily' putting movies on my music drive, etc.