good PCI sata raid controller for file server

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AMD_Gamer

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whats a good PCI raid controller card i could get for building a file server on an old nforce2 motherboard right now i plan to get 2 of these 500gb sata drives http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144016 and setup raid 0 for a nice little 1tb raid array

for the software im thinking about using freeNAS or maybe windows server 2003 im not sure yet.

also im looking for something where could keep the drives connected to the controller card and move the drives and the card to another computer and still have the same raid array and data can this be done?

also i want a solution where i can add more drives in the future to make the array bigger.
 
What's your price range? Describe your power setup, cooling plans, and backup strategy.

Generally migration from one machine to another (while keeping the disks on the same controller!) works fine. Online capacity expansion is a little less common.

 
unhappy_mage said:
What's your price range? Describe your power setup, cooling plans, and backup strategy.

Generally migration from one machine to another (while keeping the disks on the same controller!) works fine. Online capacity expansion is a little less common.

Click to expand...


hmm i think im using a 500W PSU and various old hardware, i know its going to be an nforce2 motherboard, the price range for my raid controller i would like to be below $100 and im going to pick up on one of the hot deals on the drives that have been out lately, for the software im not sure yet im thinking about playing around with a bunch of stuff before i decide what is the best, freeNAS or windows server 2003 as a file server.
 
What brand power supply? The manufacturer makes a big difference, and if the power supply goes everything can go. And out-of-spec power will kill drives in under a year. And what about cooling and power supply?

NForce2 will be a good choice. It's well-supported under Windows and Linux.

For under a hundred bucks, there's not much around in the hardware or software raid arena. You could do software raid on a sil3114 for $20, though. I don't like FreeNAS much; there's nothing wrong with it but you could almost as easily use a full-fledged distro, and run more services off it. Also, software raid5 support is experimental in FreeNAS while it's quite stable and functional in Linux.

Raid 0 is attractive for the space utilization - put in 2*500, get 2*500 out. But if one disk in your array fails (hardware failure, controller problems, almost anything!) you lose all the data on the array. That's why I'm stressing backup, cooling, and power so much. Controller is a secondary concern to those items.
 
unhappy_mage said:
What brand power supply? The manufacturer makes a big difference, and if the power supply goes everything can go. And out-of-spec power will kill drives in under a year. And what about cooling and power supply?

NForce2 will be a good choice. It's well-supported under Windows and Linux.

For under a hundred bucks, there's not much around in the hardware or software raid arena. You could do software raid on a sil3114 for $20, though. I don't like FreeNAS much; there's nothing wrong with it but you could almost as easily use a full-fledged distro, and run more services off it. Also, software raid5 support is experimental in FreeNAS while it's quite stable and functional in Linux.

Raid 0 is attractive for the space utilization - put in 2*500, get 2*500 out. But if one disk in your array fails (hardware failure, controller problems, almost anything!) you lose all the data on the array. That's why I'm stressing backup, cooling, and power so much. Controller is a secondary concern to those items.
Click to expand...

i think its an antec 500w or something like that, i plan to try a bunch of different things to run it from, windows server 2003 and i have SBS 2003 also a linux distro with samba would be good to learn all that stuff is easy, i got everything i need, i know what drives im going to get but i dont know what raid card to get thats all i need
 
I'm also interested in a PCI expansion card to add some SATA ports to an old mobo (BD7II-RAID) that I'm building a media server with.

The mobo has plenty of PATA (up to 8 devices) connections but I'd like to go with a SATA card so my drives are forward compatible for future upgrades. This doesn't have to be a super high performance setup, its just going to be a storage server for my HTPC and at most there would be 2 or 3 users streaming video or audio off of it. I'm also not really that concerned with going RAID, and if I did use it I'd only be using RAID 1 for the data redundancy. Therefore I'm looking for an inexpensive solution that adds around 4-6 SATA ports, any RAID functionality is a bonus.

I was thinking about this Rosewill RC-209 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816132006
which uses the Sil 3114 chipset. Any pros/cons/tips/tricks I should know about with this chipset?

other info..
PSU: Antec TruePower 300w (might upgrade once I start adding drives)
CPU: Pentium 4
RAM: 1 GB DDR 200
drives would be mounted in a HDD cage with front mounted 80mm intake fan, or in a 2x5.25 -> 3x3.5 hot swap bay converter like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817119403
 
my file server is going to be similar to ShockwaveVT's just a nice little server so my friends can get my porn or whatever else i put on it, and nice central place where my friends can upload and share whatever
 
ShockwaveVT said:
I was thinking about this Rosewill RC-209 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816132006
which uses the Sil 3114 chipset. Any pros/cons/tips/tricks I should know about with this chipset?

other info..
PSU: Antec TruePower 300w (might upgrade once I start adding drives)
CPU: Pentium 4
RAM: 1 GB DDR 200
drives would be mounted in a HDD cage with front mounted 80mm intake fan, or in a 2x5.25 -> 3x3.5 hot swap bay converter like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817119403
Click to expand...


you know i may just get something cheap like that to start out with then upgrade to a better solution when i get more money
 
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