• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Help me Design a 'Budget' File Server

N

NotSoSimple

[H]F Junkie
Joined
May 17, 2003
Messages
14,618
I currently have a Windows 7 Pro box serving as my home file server. This is used to stream media to an HTPC and a WDTV Live box. It also houses any paperwork we have (Warranty, house stuff, tax info, etc) and pictures. I am a complete newb at storage so that is why I consult the experts.

Current setup:
Win 7 Desktop
1x80GB (OS Drive)
1x200GB Storage
1x1TB Storage
1x2TB Storage

I do have 12x500GB SATA drives sitting around. The idea was to just mirror them and have a 6TB useable volume, but I am not sure that is the best way to go for power, heat, case utilization, etc. I don't need anything fancy, but I would like some redundancy built in to the design in case a drive fails.

What would you do? Looking for a cheap/easy solution. Should I see if I can trade someone for some larger capacity drives? I do have access to an older HP storage array that those drives came in, but I was not a fan of the heat/power/sound levels that would require running it at my home.
 
I wouldn't use the older drives, a bit too risky. Two things, how much storage do you need, and have you considered cloud storage? I personally use FlexRAID for my media storage because it runs on top of Windows 7 so I can 1) use it for an HTPC with W7MC and the tuner card, 2) run AirVideo to transcode videos to a few iPhones, 3) my wife can use it to browse the internet and watch her downloaded soaps. Once this gets bigger, I'm going to build a ZFS machine specifically for storage though, and seperate the HTPC. My word documents like insurance, taxes, warranty, and baby pictures are stored on my computer, and a copy are on the cloud done through Dropbox which gives me 2Gb free space to use, it auto-syncs from my desktop, and I can still access the data from a web browse. I also keep additional pictures on Photobucket for storage and to share with family.
 
Bummer, I am almost out of space and need more. Just happened to get these drives for free.

Cloud storage for what I need wont work. Already have limited bandwidth (Thanks Comcast) and we use a decent portion due to Netflix. We also have more than 2GB of photos.
 
2gb of cloud storage wouldn't help me either.

FlexRAID would work for you since it would just sit on top of your current setup. You'd lose your 2TB drive to being your parity drive though. Or just pick up another 2TB drive and add that as the parity drive to start with so you don't have to shuffle files around.

I wouldn't rule out the 500gb drives, but I would test them and check for reallocated sectors.

There's a lot of other options available, but for just expanding on what you have, and adding some protection FlexRAID will probably be your easiest move.
 
FlexRAID will protect you against loss, but it's not a backup.

For sure test the 500gb drives. Setup FlexRAID and go. That will be your cheapest solution. Other than a FlexRAID license, you won't have any more hardware costs.
 
I am assuming I want the combo license for FlexRAID? Do they ever have promo codes/sale?
 
FlexRAID has a trail version which I highly suggest you try it. I'd also consider Snapraid too which is free and even shows comparisons http://snapraid.sourceforge.net/compare.html. I'd also check out the other items listed on the comparison. Personally, I went with FlexRAID because I had it already installed when it was free, I made a few very angry posts at the author on these forums, who is actually on these forums and replied, but I already invested time figuring it out and testing and the cost was trivial. Don't get me wrong, it's a good program but I choose it for convience, and you should definately shop around first.
 
Played with FlexRAID a bit and I like it.

I offloaded the 500GB drives, shopping around for some 2TB drives. Unfortunately my older SIL3114 SATA card dosn't like my current 2TB drive. Any recommendations for a low end (Read: Cheap) SATA card? Just needs JBOD.
 
Two options in my opinion for FlexRAID with Windows 7 combo, 1) IBM M1015 (rebranded LSI) flashed into IT mode which turns it into a simple HBA. Server pulls are ~$70, and I think I paid around that from a member on these forums. 2) AOC-SASLP-MV8 which I use now because I couldn't get the M1015 to put my drives to spin down in Windows 7. I paid a bit over $100 from NewEgg. Note that the newer SAS2 does not spindown drives; I emailed Supermicro about this and they replied back confirming.

If you can figure out how to get the IBM M1015 to put drives to sleep in Windows 7 with FlexRAID, that would be the best choice (PM me on how you did it too!). It's a great card, a lot more versitility, better support thanks to it's bigger user base, cheaper, and readily available everywhere. *nix doesn't have this problem though so the M1015 for sure if you go that route.
 
Not looking to spend that much on it. I really just need a card that gives me more SATA ports :p Nothing special.
 
The Sil3114 should support a 2TB drive - though it may depend which version of the card you have and whether it has a flashable bios!
 
That would be awesome if it does. Might have to throw it in another machine and figure out..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top