storage solution, could use some help

Hello everyone,

I am hoping to get some help/guidance as right now after researching a bit my head is spinning.

Currently my setup acts as my all in one machine. I use the machine for gaming, work, watching movies, storing files, etc. When I watch movies I have my PC connected to my samsung lcd and have a separate mouse in my home theater room I use to navigate windows and launch files.

I currently have 2 x 1.5 TB hds that I use to store all my movies/television shows/music.

What I would like to do is build a standalone machine to store all my media. I do not have my media on those 1.5 HDs backed up currently.

What I would like to have is a machine that is redunant in that if a HD fails I do not lose all my media. I plan on purchasing 3/4 4 TB hds to accomplish this.

I would like to be able to have this standalone storage box holding all my media files and have the ability for it to communicate with my current pc. It would be nice to be able to view the media on my current pc and have the ability to display onto my TV. One thing that is necessary though is that I currently copy all my movies to this pc and would like it to be easy to transfer files from my main desktop pc to the storage unit.


1. Storage system that is fail safe in that if a HD fails I do not lose all my files
2. Be able to access it from my desktop pc to have media play from the desktop pc to the television via hdmi
3. Easily be able to transfer files from my desktop pc (When I backup my blurays/dvds) and place it on the storage system.

I hope this makes sense, any questions please ask as I am looking for help. I researched a bit, but there are so many different things and I am unsure what would suit my needs.

Thanks in advance!


Current system specs:
- i5-3570k 3.4 ghz
- Windows 7 Ultimate
- 16 GB Ram
- 120 gig SSD
- 2 x 1.5 TB HD
- 1 x 1 TB HD
- 1 x 250 gig HD
- GTX670
- Benq xl2420t
- Samsung UN60EH6000 60" LED HDTV
- Dennon Reciver (GTX670 outputs to receiver > to TV)

Brando457 said:

1. Storage system that is fail safe in that if a HD fails I do not lose all my files
2. Be able to access it from my desktop pc to have media play from the desktop pc to the television via hdmi
3. Easily be able to transfer files from my desktop pc (When I backup my blurays/dvds) and place it on the storage system.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately this doesn't help narrow down the field as virtually any half-decent storage solution these days can easily accomplish everything you've just described.

All right let's start with this:
1) How comfortable are you with non-Windows OSes like Linux or FreeBSD?
2) What's your max budget for this file server including hard drives?
3) How much storage do you plan on having initially?
4) How much storage do you want to end up with in the future?
5) How willing are you to learn new software/OSes and such?
6) Of the files that you have, how much of it (in terms of gigabytes) are extremely vital/important/significant to you and cannot be easily or even possible to replace? i.e family photos, important financial documents, etc.

The way I see it, you're looking at two purchases at the same time: one file server and another storage solution (online backup, a smalll NAS, external hard drive, etc) for those extremely vital/important/significant files.

Also, no single storage solution is "fail-safe." Even the most robust single storage solutions out there can still fail. That's why it's important to have multiple copies of files spread across different mediums if you really want to lower the chances of losing files.

1) How comfortable are you with non-Windows OSes like Linux or FreeBSD?
- Have not used anything really except Windows OS. If there are step by step guides I could probably make due.


2) What's your max budget for this file serve including hard drives?
- I would say overall $1,400 - $1,500 would be my budget including hard drives.


3) How much storage do you plan on having initially?
- Initially I was thinking of 3 x WD Red 4 TB hard drives, I figure I would lose 1 for redundancy? Possibly could do 4 x WD Red 4 TB hard drives initially.

4) How much storage do you want to end up with in the future?
- I would like expandibility, but realistically if I have a system with 12/16 TB of useable space that will last awhile.


5) How willing are you to learn new software/OSes and such?
- I'm willing to learn new software/OSes and such as long as the learning curve isn't too great. I am pretty good with learning things by following guides.


6) Of the files that you have, how much of it (in terms of gigabytes) are extremely vital/important/significant to you and cannot be easily or even possible to replace? i.e family photos, important financial documents, etc.

- Photos/documents I would say are only about 1 gig maximum. The way I have those files backed up now is via drop box, flash drive, dvd-r, and my HD.


Ultimately I would like a place to store all my movies/television shows and have it backed up so that in the event a HD failed I do not lose all my movies/television shows. I have the original disc to most, but sometimes disc get lost or damaged etc.

Thanks for taking the time to answer!

Brando457 said:

1) How comfortable are you with non-Windows OSes like Linux or FreeBSD?
- Have not used anything really except Windows OS. If there are step by step guides I could probably make due.

Click to expand...

Ok, here are some solutions that I recommend googling:
- Linux RAID with MDADM
- ZFS
- Drive Bender
- SnapRAID
- UnRAID
- FlexRAID
- Drive Pool

Yes that is a lot of googling and research but unfortunately there really isn't one end-all be-all solution for everyone when it comes to storage solutions. Though ZFS is rather close to that IMO but it is a bit more involved than the other solutions I mentioned and does have a particular aspect that I am not a fan of. Anyway, it's going to require you to do a lot of research to find the solution that sounds best to you.

Also, do a search here in the Data Storage subforum for the above solutions to get more user input.

Brando457 said:

3) How much storage do you plan on having initially?
- Initially I was thinking of 3 x WD Red 4 TB hard drives, I figure I would lose 1 for redundancy? Possibly could do 4 x WD Red 4 TB hard drives initially.

Click to expand...

You're going to want to do 4 x 4TB with two drives in redundancy so to speak. The main reason for that if a single drive dies with a such a large RAID array, the stress of doing such a massive RAID rebuild could cause another drive in the RAID array to fail as well. Hence why you should be aiming for a RAID 6 type RAID array which means two drives in redundancy. That is if you're aiming for a RAID array type setup of course.

Why don't you try one of many ZFS NAS operating systems which can be configured with a web-interface. If you've never touched anything outside Windows, setting up Linux with command line stuff may be quite hard especially if the guide you're following doesn't work well for you. So I would recommend you try a less steep learning curve and try one of the ZFS NAS operating systems out there.

You can even try them inside a VirtualBox virtual machine so you don't need any additional hardware. Just keep in mind most ZFS solutions are 64-bit and require an AMD64-compatible processor (modern Intel/AMD).

Brando457 said:

2) What's your max budget for this file serve including hard drives?
- I would say overall $1,400 - $1,500 would be my budget including hard drives.

4) How much storage do you want to end up with in the future?
- I would like expandibility, but realistically if I have a system with 12/16 TB of useable space that will last awhile.


Ultimately I would like a place to store all my movies/television shows and have it backed up so that in the event a HD failed I do not lose all my movies/television shows.

Click to expand...

A modest I3 computer with 6 SATA ports and 4 4TB WD green hard drives ($160 currently) is about all you need. Windows of any form networked to your current computers will work. That fits into your budget.

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I am not a big fan of RAID. But if the rebuild process that is equivalent to a read of the entire dirve causes worries about a second failure, the hard drive industry has big problems.

GeorgeHR said:

A modest I3 computer with 6 SATA ports and 4 4TB WD green hard drives ($160 currently) is about all you need. Windows of any form networked to your current computers will work. That fits into your budget.

---

I am not a big fan of RAID. But if the rebuild process that is equivalent to a read of the entire dirve causes worries about a second failure, the hard drive industry has big problems.

Click to expand...

How would you setup the hds to have a backup/peace of mind in case one fails?

Thanks!