Fault tolerant video storage.

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TeknoMage

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I currently have a little over 1 TB of video files stored without any fault tolerance or backup.
The files are not important so a true backup is not required. It would however be a royal pain to recreate them in the event of hardware failure.

I plan on buying the Corsair 800D and using the 4 hot-swap bays in the front for my storage.

Mirroring is too inefficient as I expect to increase the size by about 2 GB a week. That leaves me with RAID 5. I'm hoping that with 4 drives storage technology will stay ahead of my video file hording.

My main concern is what to do if my RAID controller fails. It's my understanding that without the same model to replace it with then the array is toast. I thought software RAID might be a good way to avoid that problem but Windows 7 (This will also be my main computer.) doesn't support software RAID 5 and the only other software I could find was FlexRAID and to be honest I just don't really understand how it works even after reading everything I could on it.

So now after my wall of text, the questions.
Is my best option to buy 2 RAID controllers in case one fails?
What RAID controller would be best suited for this? (Should I buy "real" hardware controllers or are inexpensive ones fine?)
Should I go about this another/better way?
Am I delusional in thinking that 4 drives will contain my anime addiction? (Plenty of room in the 800D though. lol)
 
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Generally future models in a similar series from the same manufacturer will be able to read older arrays, but there's never really any guarantee. Best practice is to have a spare, but for personal use you're probably okay buying a newer model or finding your old one on eBay or something if you have an (unlikely) failure.

Personally I would build a cheap PC to act as a NAS (cost less than a decent RAID card) and install some open-source NAS software on it. OpenFiler is probably a good choice as you can do online expansion, though if you have some *nix experience I'd prefer to set it up manually in Debian.

At 2TB a week? You'll run out of space in 3 weeks...
 
keenan said:
At 2TB a week? You'll run out of space in 3 weeks...
Click to expand...

Typo, GB
I guessing that this typo is why the above was said. This is personal use. If it was business it would be a lot easier to decide on a real solution.

I was hoping to be able to stay away from a separate box and Linux. I've only used Linux a hand full of times.
 
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In that case you're probably okay sticking at 4 disks. I'd still recommend the dedicated NAS option - you can put it away from where you work (noise), get more for less money and can expand it more easily. However lots of people disagree with me here, and you might as well :)

I don't know much about hardware RAID cards though, I'd suggest you take a look through the AVSforum media server guide thread if you don't get much advice from [H], it's long but there's a ton of good information there.
 
Just get a Dell Perc5

Its about hundred bucks, and will work well for that.
 
TeknoMage said:
I was hoping to be able to stay away from a separate box and Linux. I've only used Linux a hand full of times.
Click to expand...

Separate box, but its better this way because it compartmentalizes your physical storage and you get raid 5 to boot, no linux, no nas, no hassles. Add a second box later to cya, or add more space.
 
thesmokingman said:
Separate box, but its better this way because it compartmentalizes your physical storage and you get raid 5 to boot, no linux, no nas, no hassles. Add a second box later to cya, or add more space.
Click to expand...

But I don't know that I would be able to get a replacement should it fail to save the array.
At $205 I guess I could buy 2, but I feal a little weird with that on top of my 800D and the bays empty in the 800D. 2 $100 RAID cards would be cheeper as well.

Thanks for the suggestion.
 
TeknoMage said:
But I don't know that I would be able to get a replacement should it fail to save the array.
At $205 I guess I could buy 2, but I feal a little weird with that on top of my 800D and the bays empty in the 800D. 2 $100 RAID cards would be cheeper as well.

Thanks for the suggestion.
Click to expand...

Replacement cards are 35 bucks, its just a generic sil3132 raid/multiplier chip. Buy a couple. Remember this is just a simple and cheap solution. If you want real speed, you'll be looking for raid cards with hardware acceleration and in that game, cost starts to go up ten fold.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215155&Tpk=sil 3132
 
thesmokingman said:
Replacement cards are 35 bucks, its just a generic sil3132 raid/multiplier chip. Buy a couple.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215155&Tpk=sil 3132
Click to expand...

NO

That accomplishes nothing.
They dont do HW raid, and just about any motherboard made after 2004 is gonna have at least 4 SATA ports do FakeRaid5.

Seriously theres really only two decent options that wont cost you a ton.

Onboard RAID5 - Free
Dell Perc5 - $100
Other HW Raid Cards - $300+

Prebuilt NASs for the most part suck, and cost too much money for what you get.
Dedicated boxes are awesome, but they are not for the d00d who has 2tb of data. Until your have a significant amount of data there is no need to spend the time and money managing an additional box....you gain nothing.

Depending on the mobo you have you may not want to use the onboard Raid function.

Honestly the best Budget way to a great R5 are the Dell Perc5 or Perc6 cards. They are based on $400 LSI cards(rebadged for dell).
These can be had on ebay for $100 with BBU.

Port mutilpliers suck....stay away.
 
nitrobass24 said:
NO

That accomplishes nothing.
They dont do HW raid, and just about any motherboard made after 2004 is gonna have at least 4 SATA ports do FakeRaid5.

Seriously theres really only two decent options that wont cost you a ton.

Onboard RAID5 - Free
Dell Perc5 - $100
Other HW Raid Cards - $300+

Prebuilt NASs for the most part suck, and cost too much money for what you get.
Dedicated boxes are awesome, but they are not for the d00d who has 2tb of data. Until your have a significant amount of data there is no need to spend the time and money managing an additional box....you gain nothing.

Depending on the mobo you have you may not want to use the onboard Raid function.

Honestly the best Budget way to a great R5 are the Dell Perc5 or Perc6 cards. They are based on $400 LSI cards(rebadged for dell).
These can be had on ebay for $100 with BBU.

Port mutilpliers suck....stay away.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's some great info.
 
i agree, i have a rocketraid card 2300 and and a 2220 and they are both software raid cards... better than motherboard since it has hotspare and such but I would get a Dell Perc5 if i were doing it again.

btw, a simple solution would be a small WHS like the HP or Acer ($350) and get some 2TB drives and put dup on them and be done... not the most efficient in use of HDDs but the cost of the acer is sooo cheap you could buy more HDDs down the line
 
I couldn't find either Perc/i on ebay for about $100. Also, is there any difference between the 5 and 6 other than RAID levels supported?
 
Since the Perc 5/i was mentioned, here's my speel on it:
If you don't mind buying used hardware with little or no warranty, you could buy a Dell Perc 5/i card off eBay for ~$100 or so plus two of these SFF-8484 to 4 x SATA Cables for ~$25. Thus, you get 8 ports and a true hardware RAID controller for around ~$125 or so. Add a battery backup unit for ~$40 and you're set in case of power outages as well up the performance. Not a bad deal considering that a new true PCI-E hardware RAID controller is around $300 (Areca ARC-1210) for 4 ports.

EDIT: As of May 2009, it seems that you can find many Perc 5/i cards with the BBU and PCI bracket for $120 and under. Excellent price!

But those Dell Perc 5/i cards are finicky about motherboards. It will take up PCI-E x16 slot if you don't have a PCI-E x8 slot.

Read these threads for more info:
Dell Perc 5/i RAID Card: Tips and Benchmarks
Finally went to a Hardware Raid5 controller...
Dell Perc 5/i - Mainboard Compatibility List
Solution for Dell Perc 5/i for Intel Chipsets
Add 8 device SAS/SATA 256MB BBU Enterprise class RAID card to your rig for about $100 w/ PERC 5i (LSI 8480E OEMed to Dell)
 
Quick question. How often do you plan to read from the drives? Are you like me and just basically horde everything that catches your eye , only to probably never look at it again?
 
Danny Bui said:
Since the Perc 5/i was mentioned, here's my speel on it:
If you don't mind buying used hardware with little or no warranty, you could buy a Dell Perc 5/i card off eBay for ~$100 or so plus two of these SFF-8484 to 4 x SATA Cables for ~$25. Thus, you get 8 ports and a true hardware RAID controller for around ~$125 or so. Add a battery backup unit for ~$40 and you're set in case of power outages as well up the performance. Not a bad deal considering that a new true PCI-E hardware RAID controller is around $300 (Areca ARC-1210) for 4 ports.

EDIT: As of May 2009, it seems that you can find many Perc 5/i cards with the BBU and PCI bracket for $120 and under. Excellent price!

But those Dell Perc 5/i cards are finicky about motherboards. It will take up PCI-E x16 slot if you don't have a PCI-E x8 slot.

Read these threads for more info:
Dell Perc 5/i RAID Card: Tips and Benchmarks
Finally went to a Hardware Raid5 controller...
Dell Perc 5/i - Mainboard Compatibility List
Solution for Dell Perc 5/i for Intel Chipsets
Add 8 device SAS/SATA 256MB BBU Enterprise class RAID card to your rig for about $100 w/ PERC 5i (LSI 8480E OEMed to Dell)
Click to expand...

Thanks a ton.
 
jay2472000 said:
Quick question. How often do you plan to read from the drives? Are you like me and just basically horde everything that catches your eye , only to probably never look at it again?
Click to expand...

Not vary often. I would move the files to the array when I was done with them. Some times I go back and re-watch them, but not often. Oh, and the occasional copies I make for my friend's Japanese fiance. Always feels a little weird giving subbed anime to a native Japanese girl. lol
 
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