RocketRAID or FastTrak for budget RAID 5 personal movie server

First, some minor details need to be explained. I built a DVD player using a Mini-ITX motherboard and case. Mostly I play my DVDs via the player but I had this great idea: what if I stuck a wireless card in it and streamed video from my desktop? It worked very well, so this spawned the idea of a video server. Since I have a lot of DVDs, I could put them all on hard drives and access them via my wireless DVD player. I have an old computer that I used for botting (don’t ask) which is perfect for the task. I’ve decided to upgrade the power supply since it is important for raid arrays to have a stable psu. Other than the new hard drives and raid controller all the other equipment (in my opinion) is fine to keep.

Now, to introduce the hardware... I imagine some laughing and snickering shall ensue due to the ancient qualities that my super built computer posses. This rig was built many years ago when the hardware was considered quite decent.

Motherboard: Asus A7N8X-E
OS: Windows XP
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1700+
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600 XT
Memory: 2x PC2700 DDR
DVD: Sony DVD DRU-530A
PSU: Silverstone SST-ST56ZF Nightjar Series 560w (new)

Hard Drives:
x1 Maxtor 7Y250PO IDE (OS designated)
x4 Seagate Barracuda ST3500630AS 500GB SATA (RAID designated) (new)


I would like to run Raid 5 with x4 500g hard drives. I will not be using a hot swap or hot spare. It is highly undesirable to upgrade the motherboard because of price; however it does not support PCI-Express. Bottom line, this is a movie server for personal use and no future upgrading will be performed. I’m not too worried about running out of room or overloading the system since I will be the only person accessing it.

(Please keep in mind that I am not looking for a high-end card, this is for a movie server that has no future.)

Desired specs: Raid 5, 4 port, inexpensive (<200), PCI/PCI-X


The high-end (or expensive) companies are: 3Ware, Areca, and LSI Logic. These three are undesirable due to price of product.

So, that leaves Adaptec, Highpoint, and Promise.

The Adaptec card was a little out of my price range.

Part of the problem is I don’t know too much about any of the companies. I tried to search for an updated benchmark but was unable to find any comparing controller cards of these companies.

These are the cards that I picked that seem like they fit my criteria.
(mostly used www.zipzoomfly.com and www.newegg.com)

(please note the prices are approximate to give an “idea” of price. The zipzoomfly items are all free shipping where the newegg items have a $5.64 shipping fee stacked on. Also some items are retail where others are not, I chose the non-retail when I could.)

Highpoint RocketRAID 1640 4-Channels Serial ATA RAID 5 Host Adapter
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=132222 $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816115015 $86.99
(despite newegg’s inability to accurately describe their products this card appears to support raid 5)

Highpoint RocketRAID 1740 4 x Serial ATA(SATA) Raid Host Controller
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=132244 $129.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816115030 $129.99
(ignore the “cant get over 2TB to work.“ post on newegg the guy doesn’t know how to calculate how much space he is suppose to have)

Highpoint RocketRAID 1810A 4-Channel PCI-X Serial ATA RAID Host Adapter
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=132235 $179.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816115023 $179.99



Promise FastTrak TX4310 4-Port SATA RAID Adapter
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=130488 $115.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816102080 $132.99

Promise FastTrak SX4300 4-port Serial ATA 3Gb/s PCI-X RAID Controller
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=130475 $154.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816102077 $214.99


Promise FastTrak SX4100 Serial ATA RAID Controller
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=130480 $189.99



The Promise FastTrak SX series have an interesting hardware solution. They have raid 5 hardware architecture. I am unsure if this is really needed for me but I am thinking that I could probably do without it. The cards that caught my eye are the Highpoint RocketRAID 1740 and the Promise FastTrak SX4300.

With regards to the PCI-X card in the PCI slot, I heard that the cards will still work but I don’t think it will affect my system since my wireless connection will be the main bottleneck. This is the thread that discusses the PCI compatibility. http://www.hardforum.com/showthread....ighlight=pci-x
Also there is information about the 3.3v and 5v PCI slots, which I only have the 5v slots. I was concerned about this because in the thread for the Promise FastTrak SX4300 a guy stated that the card did not work with the 5v 32 bit PCI slot. The RocketRaid 1740 appears to be compatible with both types of PCI.


I suppose at this point I am leaning towards the RocketRaid 1740. If anybody has any useful information to help me decide I would appreciate it very much. If you have any questions that I forgot to address feel free to ask.




Thank you for your time.


zz

The 1740 is a good choice if you're not interested in expanding beyond 4 disks. If you are, I'd go for the 2220 - it supports 8 disks instead of 4, and allows for OCE (Online Capacity Expansion). Many people are using that card and the 2320 (the pci express version) with a pretty good success rate.

Good choice on the power supply. You might want to find a cheaper video card for lower power draw if you move to more disks.

Also, no snickers here - I have 4 dual p3 boxes Average age of my computer parts is pretty darn high.

Highpoint Rocketraid 2320 FTW!!!!!!!

im getting one for my server

I gotta tell you, I'm building a similar server, and at first I was deadset on hardware raid. But, after reviewing the cards that I could afford, and reading more on the subject, I decided on software raid. Many of the cheaper cards are merely on par, if not slower than soft raid. Also, you now have a single point of failure. If your card dies in 5 or 10 years, you'll need to find one using the exact same chipset if you want to recover your array. Linux and even Windows soft raid-5 is very robust, and hell, if you can figure it out, zfs's raid-z is like raid 5 but better. They also make it much easier to mix different drives and different interfaces. Plus, if nothing else, think about what else you could be spending that $200 on.

Just something to think about..

I had thought I had my answer before my post, but like usual I make my post and realize there are things that I didn’t seem to consider.

Thank you very much for your excellent responses. I have much more to think about now.

Here is a link how to set up Raid 5 in Windows XP.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/...pen/index.html




zz

You mentioned not using a hot swap/ hot spare, well Raid 5 HAS a hot spare. (hence why its raid 5)

Ive used the 1640 highpoint, and Id assume the 1740 isn't bad either. Either or is fine, both support raid 5.

Since I am looking for a budget solution Windows RAID 5 seems like it might be a viable solution.

There are several questions I have about the set-up though. If I make a Raid 5 array with x4 500gig hard drives without a hot swap and I decide to add another hard drive (same type) later do I need to rebuild the entire array? Will I loose all the data in the current array? I’ve never played with arrays before so finding a solution in ignorance is difficult.

A great point is if I decide to get a budget card without the RAID 5 hardware architecture then why not just use the windows solution.

Nacho:

It was my understanding that the hot swap/hot spare(used for rebuilding only) was optional for RAID 5 but was required for RAID 6. But, I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by zpellzlinger

Nacho:

It was my understanding that the hot swap/hot spare(used for rebuilding only) was optional for RAID 5 but was required for RAID 6. But, I could be wrong.

Neither RAID5 nor RAID6 require running a hotspare. If you lose 1 drive with a RAID5, it will sit there in a degraded state till you manually add a replacement drive. Same with RAID6, except it can survive 2 failures. A hot/cold spare is a optional choice you'll have to make.

Originally Posted by zpellzlinger

There are several questions I have about the set-up though. If I make a Raid 5 array with x4 500gig hard drives without a hot swap and I decide to add another hard drive (same type) later do I need to rebuild the entire array? Will I loose all the data in the current array? I’ve never played with arrays before so finding a solution in ignorance is difficult.

That all depends on the software/hardware that is used to create the array. Some controllers support OCE (Online Capacity Expansion) that will allow you to increase the size of a RAID array. Likewise you can do the same thing with certain software solutions (none in Windows that I'm aware of, primarily Linux). Otherwise, you'll have to copy everything off the array, destroy it, and rebuild it with the additional drive.

Originally Posted by zpellzlinger

Since I am looking for a budget solution Windows RAID 5 seems like it might be a viable solution.

There are several questions I have about the set-up though. If I make a Raid 5 array with x4 500gig hard drives without a hot swap and I decide to add another hard drive (same type) later do I need to rebuild the entire array? Will I loose all the data in the current array? I’ve never played with arrays before so finding a solution in ignorance is difficult.

A great point is if I decide to get a budget card without the RAID 5 hardware architecture then why not just use the windows solution.

I'm not really positive if you can expand the array without rebuilding in Windows, but I know you can in Linux. From my understanding however, even with hardware raid cards, expanding a raid 5 array can be iffy.

A Windows raid array is super easy to set up, so you can really setup the machine and see how it works for you without risking much.

I purchased a 2220 for my Dual P3 server in my sig, and I am more than satisfied with it.

The feature set is something I'm used to seeing on LSI and Adaptec controllers on servers at work. Now, all those fancy bells and whistles are dependent on the management utility, and it is a software controller, but it sure does it well. One of the drives I received was somewhat DOA. I was able to initialize it, build the array, but when I started coping amounts of data to it, the drive failed. Western Digital's advance RMA service was spectacular as it always is, I put the new drive in, hit add disk, and voila! It began rebuilding.

It works perfectly fine in a single 32-bit/33MHz PCI slot for few-user RAID5, as from reviews and benchmarks it doesn't seem like the card can get extremely high transfer rates in RAID5 anyway.

This card is a wise purchase to anyone who knows they will be expanding their RAID5 array, or starting out with a RAID1 and moving up to a RAID5 or 10. The main reason I chose to purchase a card instead of go Windows software RAID is that it makes me feel more secure in system portability. I know that people have successfully moved software RAID arrays from one system to another, but I don't trust it quite as much as some do.

I was thinking of getting an extra hard drive and going with windows RAID 5. I need to keep in mind that I will not be upgrading this once I construct the array.

Windows does perform slower than a card would. Benchtest link follows:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/...pen/page7.html

For a movie server that will only be accessed by me I believe this is acceptable.

I keep finding I want more and more gigs… At first 4x 500 is nice but now 6x 500 is sounding a lot better.

Does anybody know if there is a size requirement on raid 5 array sizes in Windows?

As to system portability I was a bit concerned with this, but it seems that as far as Windows is concerned it gets handled quite well. (The above link has a test for portability on page 5 using windows raid 5)

I was quickly mistaken, sorry about that.

But regardless, anything highpoint will be fine.

Windows (xp) can see 2TB drives at max, single drive, I believe.

awesome benchmark testing different sata cards

http://www17.graphics.tomshardware.c...for_scsi_raid/