Fileserver Basics

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Nimbo

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Sep 9, 2008
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Looking to setup a fileserver to store media files for personal use. Id like to use 10 x 1TB drives in it, probably in a RAID5 setup. To this end im thinking that a simple 2 SATA port card that supports RAID5 and using a pair of SATA port multipliers. Im not really concerned if transfer speeds are affected much, as long as I can play movies and whatnot.

Ive seen some 2 port SATA cards that are fairly inexpensive that support RAID5, the port multipliers are like 80bucks each iirc. Is there another solution that would be more elegant/robust/cheaper/etc?
 
What mobo do you have?
What OS are you going to use?
 
Its gonna be a new system. Probably going to be primarily used for CAD (Solidworks, Solidedge, and maybe some ProE) and maybe start folding. Im thinking a Supermicro or Tyan dual 771 mobo for now. Though some of the upcomming I7 mobos look appealing too. Either way I am probably going to be running some flavor Vista 64 for CAD compatibility.
 
9TB is a shitload of data, sure you need to start with that much?
R6 is more secure, and Id suggest a hot spare ready to go if the data or uptime is really important.
 
9TB is a lot, ive got 3TB now pretty much full, no RAID. As the collection has grown, ive gotten more concerned about backing it up. My non media backup files I have backed up all over the place.

Raid 6 does provide more security, im not sure I need that much though. Im not sure what features RAID controllers have. But since im liable to away from the house for a few days to a week fairly regularly, having that extra security could be useful. Or if the controller could be programmed to suspend HD use after a drive goes down after a certain of time.

I am planning on having a couple drives on a RAID 1 for the OS to be on, so im not looking to boot or run programs off the "big" RAID 5.

I guess im looking for a solution that can support up to 10 drives, be able to have some option on what do when a drive fails, and ideally not horribly expensive. I know getting 10 1TB drives is gonna be a fairly expensive affair by it own, so something that would cost say 200 or less would be nice, but im not gonna bat an eyelash if what I want needs a card twice that. Again, im not worried about speed, reliability I am.

Are there any motherboard controllers that would provide what im after? Pushing the processing load onto the CPU shouldnt be a real concern, id like a dual CPU motherboard with a pair of quad cores on it.
 
Nimbo said:
9TB is a lot, ive got 3TB now pretty much full, no RAID. As the collection has grown, ive gotten more concerned about backing it up. My non media backup files I have backed up all over the place.
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Hopefully your improtant data is backed up as you describe, because RAID is not a backup solution.

You could consider Windows Home Server for inexpensive software-based "redundancy" with that many disks through duplication, though I've never personally used it before, many of us in [H] have used WHS to great effect.


Nimbo said:
Are there any motherboard controllers that would provide what im after? Pushing the processing load onto the CPU shouldnt be a real concern, id like a dual CPU motherboard with a pair of quad cores on it.
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I wouldn't count on any decent performing or "safe" FakeRAID solutions through motherboard SATA controllers; ICH9/10R are pretty decent in RAID 1/0/10 but for RAID 5, I would look towards hardware based controllers, honestly. It's an expensive proposition that you are thinking about assembling a file server this big, and I'd recommend you'd go the extra yard and get a good hardware RAID controller to tie in your possible ten drives.
 
Im pretty new to the RAID storage arena. Ive heard a lot of garbage information about RAID arrays. Read through some of the worklogs on here of people who have built some real nice storage setups. After lurking in the forums for a bit, reading the news site for a few years, I registered, to pick the brains of those who have been where I want to go.

Im willing to drop the coin on a solid controller card, but if something less than top notch will do, saving the coin couldn't hurt.

If sata multipliers only affect the transfer speed, they might be an option. But as I would need 2 of them, the $160 or so for pair could easily be better spent on a single controller card that would provide support for all the hard drives.

I understand (I hope correctly) that a RAID 5 array only really provides security against a drive failing, and you get a bunch of other concerns.

I am planning on a redundant PSU and a properly robust UPS to provide the power security. Going to be gaming on a second box. Basically I want this box to have a lot of processing cores, a lot of RAM, and a lot of HD space.
 
You can always look at WHS as your storage solution, the WHS solution will be cheaper than buying multipliers.

Also, if you need a dual 771 supermicro board, give me a hollar.
 
Nimbo said:
I understand (I hope correctly) that a RAID 5 array only really provides security against a drive failing, and you get a bunch of other concerns.
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Correct.

Anyway, 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 ~$125 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 ~$150 or so. Add a battery backup unit for ~$50 and you're set in case of power outages. Not a bad deal considering that a new true PCI-E hardware RAID controller is around $300 (Areca ARC-1210) for 4 ports. But those Dell Perc 5/i cards are a bit 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:
Finally went to a Hardware Raid5 controller...
Dell Perc 5/i - Mainboard Compatibility List
Solution for Dell Perc 5/i for Intel Chipsets

Granted the above will only net you about 7TB in RAID5 using 8 x1TB drives but it's another option. In fact you should be able to find the Perc 5/i on sale here in the For Sale For Trade part of the forums.

Though WHS (Windows Home Server FYI) is another option. Also, what 2 port RAID5 cards are you looking at? RAID 5 needs a minimum of 3 drives so a 2 port card isn't exactly normal.
 
Coming back to this thread:

Go H/W R6, with a hot spare. dont use software RAID for this much data, and dont bother with multipliers, get an 8 port card, maybe a 16 if you are going to run the same hardware for a LONG time and dont want to bother with teaming. Look for either a rackmount storage server enclosure or >= 9 5.25" drive tower and use some 5 in 3 converters for mounting. Run a GOOD battery backup/surge protector

Drives will cost $140 for 7200.11 drives, proper enterprise class drives like the ES.2 are going for $220 right now. With R6 and a hot spare, youd have 5TB of space for 8 actual drives. At that point Id suggest the standard drives, even if you lose a second during rebuild you'll be ok. Depends on how critical your data is. If you want the best, get the ES.2 drives.

Beyond that, remember that RAID is NOT a backup solution. Run a backup to a different set of TB drives for data thats static and update it at least monthly. If you are good about this I would almost say forgo raid altogether and just rely on the backups for data integrity and JBOD the disks, so they are individual drives. Saves a LOT of online space but it costs a lot for the backup disks. Also would let you build capacity over time, instead of trying to buy disks right now.

Only other thing to mention is if you are planning on running this as a workstation as well...it'll be loud, it'll be hot, and you risk your data with possible virus or malware attacks.
 
The 2 port RAID 5 cards support port multipliers. Something like this http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/ad5sapm-e.asp similiar idea to the SAS to SATA cables you posted. Syba, Rosewill, and Highpoint are the brands of 2 port SATA controllers that support raid 5. Not really even B grade names from what ive seen though.

One of the reasons I want to go with a 10 drive setup is that a pair of 5 in 3 hot swap devices would be nice and clean. I could go with 4 in 3's I suppose though. Most of the motherboards I am looking at have a couple x 16s and a x8 along with some PCIx slots too.

WHS might be an option, but id like to do a lot CAD on this system, and I dont believe those software packages support that OS. I like the idea of using a server board because some of them have as many as 16 RAM slots, and CAD can be a very ram intensive affair. Going with the stability idea it would be a smarter idea to put a RAID array on more stable systems.

The Dell card supports less drives than id like, doesnt have any commercial support. But it does look like it would be the kind of product that enough people are messing around with to get some help with any issues that would come up on forums.
 
Nimbo said:
The 2 port RAID 5 cards support port multipliers. Something like this http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/ad5sapm-e.asp similiar idea to the SAS to SATA cables you posted. Syba, Rosewill, and Highpoint are the brands of 2 port SATA controllers that support raid 5. Not really even B grade names from what ive seen though.
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No need to limit yourself to the horrendous perfromance decreases and increased complexity of using port multipliers tied in with second-rate products, in all honesty. Any "RAID 5" functionality these cards proclaim to have will most certainly be hardware-assisted software RAID, but the performance would be bad, not to mention the cost of those port multipliers as well; better off spending money on a good hardware RAID controller card at that point. As Danny Bui pointed out, those Dell Perc 5/i cards are pretty good for the price, and I've also seen good Adaptec HW RAID cards (4 port and 8 port) go for around $200-250 on eBay as well.
 
Ockie - definately keep that in mind.

GLSauron - Why are multipliers a bad idea? Case wise im looking at a norco rackmount, or going with a Lian Li 343b. Looking at some of Ockies systems got my with hungry eyes. UPS wise, my old company used Cyberpower UPSs with the LCD displays on em. I assume those are pretty good. We never had any issues, even with pretty crappy power in the clients building.

For backups of important data I got three computers that I backup files too, one of them is turned on pretty much just only to update the backup. Ive been debating between backing up the media files to bulk pack DVDs or pony up the money for Bluray discs.
 
Syntax - Im not to concerned about the performance loss on using multipliers, but like you said, id be dealing with second rate products, which is what I am more concerned about.

Seems like sticking to 4/8/16 drives mates up with quality hardware better.
 
complexity, and cost. Easier to buy a better product to begin with than to deal with the headaches and hassle of trying to bandaid a lesser product.

Also: $/GB HDDs are well beyond optical. Spindle of DVDs costs what? $20? Thats only ~100GB. So ~400GB/$80 or get a WD640AAKS for $80 and get 640GB. BR is great for capacity but absolute CRAP for $/GB.

And going with 10 drives is one of things thatd be a hassle. Youd need a 16 port card, as 2x4 (port multis) or a 8 slot wont fill the bays.

And Im still not sure why you are wanting one machine for the CAD work AND the file duties. Easy enough to run Gbit between them, but the server doesnt need much in the way of CPU and seperating them gets you a lot of benefits.
 
My desire for a unified CAD/file server duties is mostly based in that motherboards that have a good portion of their real estate taken up by RAM slots tend to be server motherboards. Any this sort of motherboard tends to be stable. No need to rebuy hardware.

Though there are lower priced/performance server boards/processors out there. I could put a small server board with raid controller on it in a case for file server needs. Some of those new Core I7 boards support 6 RAM slots, which would be good for CAD.

I could run WHS or a linux of whatever flavor on the fileserver, and Vista 64 for the CAD/Gaming.

Going to an optical disc for backup is very economical, try a 100 disc spindle for 20 bucks. But the time spent putting all that data back onto HDs would be absolutely silly.
 
Nimbo said:
My desire for a unified CAD/file server duties is mostly based in that motherboards that have a good portion of their real estate taken up by RAM slots tend to be server motherboards. Any this sort of motherboard tends to be stable. No need to rebuy hardware.
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Theres different kinds of stable though. Having seperate hardware allows for the transfer of duties if one computer fails for some reason. And current G4x boards arent exactly BSODing hourly, yaknow?

Nimbo said:
Going to an optical disc for backup is very economical, try a 100 disc spindle for 20 bucks. But the time spent putting all that data back onto HDs would be absolutely silly.
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Note to self: multiply capacity by # of disks, not by price of spindle... :confused: :cool:
 
if you want to spend under $200 for a controller, a Dell Perc5/i seems to be your only choice, I mean you could go with a the port multiplier thing but that is just asking for problems and your performance will absolutely blow.


Let me know if you want a Dell Perc5/i I have a few laying around with all the accessories.
 
I went with the perc5 a while back and got a dud the first time around. There are headaches that go along with it and its performance is sub-par considering raid cards using the same IOP. i have 6 750 GB drives on mine in raid 5 and i am already looking at a new card and 1TB drives. Really, you should go big because you probably will end up upgrading more often if you don't.
 
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