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Help with data storage server build

C

chizzle

n00b
Joined
Mar 12, 2009
Messages
18
Looking for some help building a data storage server at home. I have about 1.5TB of data and I'm looking to double/triple that. Data redundancy is very important...my wife has a billion goddamn photos and she'd probably go postal if anything happened to them.

Anyway!

I have a server now with a couple mirrored drives that we use for data storage and some VMWare applications I use occasionally for work. It has:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
MB: Gigabyte EP45-UD3R
RAM: 8G
Drives: nothing special

I'm using the built in RAID controller on the motherboard but want to purchase a good, solid card so I can increase the number of drives I'm using. I would also like to upgrade to 3 or 4TB drives - I was thinking about 6 of them. I'm torn between using RAID5, 6 or 10, but that's something I'll figure out at some point down the road. Main concerns now are the raid card and any additional cables needed.

Budget along with all the drives - I'd say about $2k. At some point down the road I'd like to use my server for streaming movies, but that's not a high priority.

Any help would be appreciated!
 
If her photos are the highest priority in terms of not getting your schwanz slashed in the middle of the night Lorraina Bobbitt style (you talk about a missed marketing opportunity - Lorraina Bobbitt signature steak knives), then start with making sure you've got triple backups. At least one backup at home stored on an external drive (the key there is the fact its got its own power supply and not just a drive sharing the same PSU as the main storage for the important data), and then also an off site backup - either another external kept elsewhere, or a hosted service like Crashplan. In fact I'd start with getting crashplan or similar on her PC and you're already 99% safer.

As for the rest its kinda vague what exactly you want to do with it but I'd suggest scrapping then cpu/mobo from 2006 and getting something more current, there are many build threads here for you to get ideas - this question of storage server build comes up regularly.
 
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What I would do:

Something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118112

Plus four of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236350

You'll need this cable, too:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200884

Set it up as RAID 5, and keep one drive as a spare. That will give you an 8TB volume, with one for parity, plus a spare (you could configure it as a hotspare if you wanted, I prefer not to). The RAID controller sounds a ghastly alarm if it detects a failure.

If you're really serious about the importance of this data, you should at least make a backup of whatever is really important, and ideally also some sort of off-site backup, although that's obviously easier said than done with 8+TB.

Edit: If you really only need 3-5TB of usable space, you could obviously use smaller, less expensive drives.
 
For your Goal, and Budget you can build a very nice array for approximately $1800 +tax + shipping from a etailer I frequently use. This is New pricing of course.

This would be with LSI's 9266-8i (8 port) Sata3 (6gb/s) Raid controller and 8 x 3TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm SATA3 drives.

This card is PCIe 2.0 and is a PICe x8 interface.

You can also expand up to 128 drives through SAS expanders.

However, you have a problem with your motherboard to use this.

This motherboard only has 1 PCIe x16 slot which would likely be used for a video card.

Most higher end RAID Cards these days use minimum PCIe x8.

However, since this is going to be your "Server" you could use a PCIe x1 Video card, problem solved.

Stay away from 4TB drives at the moment, they are too expensive compared to the 3TB ones.

I am currently using a LSI 9260-4i with 3 of these Seagates in Raid 5. It works very well.

Keep in mind that RAID is not a backup. It only provides some fault tolerance in the event of a hardware failure.

You will probably want to check out a backup solution such as CrashPlan to augment your setup.
 
The LSI 9211 Card RazorWind mentions is not a Raid card, it is a Host Bus Adapter. It does provide 8 SATA3 ports though, no RAID capabilities.

The RED Western Digital drives are expensive. 3 to 1 compared to the Seagates 3TB drives.

For the cost of 4 WD Red's you could get 12 x 3TB Seagate drives...

The RED Drives are intriguing though.
 
Thanks for the fast responses guys. I forgot to mention that I already have a plan for doing backups to another system for the important data. I'll take a look at some of the options provided. My biggest problem so far was finding a good raid card so that's why I turned to the forums for help.

Sawk and odditory are probably right though...I might need to dump the existing mboard/cpu and get something newer.

Never heard of crashplan before but that's awesome. Pricing doesn't look too crazy either.
 
sawk said:
The LSI 9211 Card RazorWind mentions is not a Raid card, it is a Host Bus Adapter. It does provide 8 SATA3 ports though, no RAID capabilities.

The RED Western Digital drives are expensive. 3 to 1 compared to the Seagates 3TB drives.

For the cost of 4 WD Red's you could get 12 x 3TB Seagate drives...

The RED Drives are intriguing though.
Click to expand...

Shoot, you're right. How about this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118107

Edit: The solution I suggested assumes you'll just keep the existing computer. That ought to be more than adequate for just moving files around.
 
The LSI 9260-4i is a good entry level Raid Card, in fact it is the one I am using now!

It does limit you to 4 Drives out of the box. You need to get a SAS Expander to grow beyond that.

The cost of a 9260-4i and a SAS Expander will most likely run you more $ than buying a 9266-8i

Chizzle, if this pc is indeed going to be a "server" and hiding in the corner like a kid in time out then you shouldn't need to replace the motherboard.

Find a cheap PCIe x1 video card or a PCI video card to get it running.

This free's up the PCIe x16 slot for your raid card.

However, if you want to go with a higher end LIS RAID card that supports PCIe 3.0 then yes you would need to consider upgrading your motherboard/cpu/ram... your Budget suddenly seems small :)
 
I've never used CrashPlan my self but yes it seems quite affordable.

I've seen it recommended in other threads here in the HardForum's.
 
chizzle said:
I have about 1.5TB of data and I'm looking to double/triple that.

I would also like to upgrade to 3 or 4TB drives - I was thinking about 6 of them.

Budget along with all the drives - I'd say about $2k.
Click to expand...

You don't have a need for RAID.

If my math is correct, you need 3-4.5TB of storage and you want to buy 18-24TB of storage.

Buy 3 2TB drives - 6TB of storage, $350.

If necessary, buy a 4 port Highpoint controller card, $70.

Take your wife on a vacation with the $1600 you have left.
 
Be wary of those cheap high point cards, I have personal experience with them being very problematic and poor performing.

Will they work? probably, are they reliable? That is questionable. Do they perform well? Not in my opinion.

Now, this is my opinion and is based on experience from about 6 years ago, maybe they have cleaned up their act and improved their products since then.

I'd trust LSI over Highpoint any day of the week, and spend the extra money to do so.

The LSI card I recommended and just 3 x 3TB drives would be a great start and give you ample room. Plus it gives you the internal connections to expand without having to add a second Raid card or a Expander. Plus adding a 4th, 5th, or more drives couldn't be easier with LSI's Management software.

Also by only starting with 3 of those drives instead of 8 you can still do as GeorgeHR recommended and go on a vacation :)
 
+1 for avoiding Highpoint (I've been burned too many times before)

Another option for consideration is staying away from hardware-based RAID and instead using something like FlexRAID. For example, you could get 3x3TB drives, use one for parity, and two for data. Then, you could expand later if your data needs require it (especially if you set up empty DRUs). Or, for the RAID6 analog, you could get 4x3TB drives and use two for parity. Since your motherboard has 8 SATA ports anyway, you could save the cost of the add-in card for now.
 
I agree w/ sawk - I'm not a huge fan of those high point cards as I've also had some issues with them in the past. Our data is important enough that I'm willing to spend money on a solution that'll be reliable.

I've been pricing out a couple options with an LSI card using my existing mboard and another with a new cpu/mboard combo. With the 9270-8i card, mboard, cpu, ram, case, and 6 drives, it came out a little over my budget ($2150).
 
Chizzle, I'd be curious what components you've chosen.

That seems like quite a nice price for all that gear.
 
Sure - here's what I priced out:

Case: NZXT 210
Motherboard: MSI Z77MA-G45
CPU: 2500K
RAM: 16G G.Skill
RAID Card: LSI 9270-8i
Drives: 6x Seagate 3TB
Cables: SFF-8087

I didn't quote a power supply since I have a few spares laying around. I also looked at the WD Red drives but the reviews weren't all that great. Seems like a lot were DOA.

It actually priced out a bit cheaper on Amazon - around $1800.
 
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A few thoughts:
1. If you're buying new, I don't think it makes much sense to buy an older generation of processor. If you're not going to overclock at all, then I'd go for the i5 3570 (trade overclocking and better CPU graphics for Vt-d) which I think is the around the same price. For $10 more on Amazon, I'd swap out the i5 3570K (Ivy Bridge) if you plan on overclocking or having the server do a lot of transcoding work.
2. Drives coming in DOA is I think more a function of vendor than manufacturer. Whenever I've had a drive arrive DOA, it was because the seller packed them like crap (for example, loose drives in box with one small air pillow makes for a nice rattle). In fact, last time I bought that very drive, I had that issue. The replacement that shipped was packed properly and works like a charm. Hopefully, buying multiples will help.
3. Only concern I'd have with the motherboard is the Realtek LAN (not a big fan of theirs)...
 
If you buy new hardware then go for ECC memory, either with a Xeon, i3, or AMD.
 
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sawk said:
The RED Western Digital drives are expensive. 3 to 1 compared to the Seagates 3TB drives.

For the cost of 4 WD Red's you could get 12 x 3TB Seagate drives...

The RED Drives are intriguing though.
Click to expand...
Where are you seeing the Seagates that cheap or the WD Reds that expensive?

For the OP, don't go for the k model CPU, you're paying extra to enable overclocking and disable VT-d, which isn't what you want for hosting VMs. It looks like you're making a gaming rig TBH.

I'd recommend going for a SuperMicro motherboard and a Xeon CPU to get Intel NICs, ECC and proper (working) VT-d support. Then I'd look at going for a much cheaper HBA and using ZFS instead of the RAID controller - unless you need Windows to be the host OS. The power supply is also overkill unless you're planning on adding video cards or a lot of hard drives.
 
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