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Help with Media Server

G

GrugNorman

n00b
Joined
Sep 22, 2011
Messages
3
Hi

Only just recently discovered this forum and there seems to be a bit more info on here then whirlpool. I'm looking at building a storage server for home and need ~ 12TB or more for the time being.
I am currently juggling 3 external 2TB drives with movies and TV shows and as you probably already know its hard to know whats where and these are all FULL. and there is a lot more data to come since i have started to download 1080p movies and TV shows to make the most of my media player and TV.

I have done a little bit of research and this is what i have come up with but i know i can do a lot better with a little bit of help.

CPU: i3 2100 $125
RAM: Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666 1333mhz $35
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-H67MA-USB3-B3 $119
HDD: Samsung EcoGreen F4 2TB HD204UI x8 $680
CASE: Fractal Design R3 $145
CONTROLLER CARD: SATA III PCIe Card x2 $58
PSU: Corsair CX-430 V2 $59
CABLES: Molex to SATA POWER x4 $19
CABLES 2: 8 SATA $20

As i am in Australia i am a little bit restricted when it comes to the variety of products but i do have a local store that might be able to get me anything. I have decided i will use Ubuntu Desktop with mdadm to do software raid because a expensive RAID card is well out of the budget or freeNAS. It will be in RAID6 or RAIDZ2 depending on which way i go. Its main use will be to store and stream data to ~ 5 computers but i am thinking Ubuntu will be the better option as i can expand later and RAIDZ2 i heard requires 1GB of RAM for every TB of data to get the most out of it.

I have looked a little bit through this forum and i like those NORCO cases and if i can find one cheap in Australia i think the extra money will be worth it, i also need to find another SATA card that is cheap and can connect up to 4-8 SATA devices as the ones in my list only have 2 :(
Everything else i am open to suggestions, as you can tell budget is about $1000-$1400

Any help will be appreciated
Thanks
 
pick up an ibm m1015 and flash fw to a lsi 9240-8i. that'll give u 8 SATA ports for cheap and give you the option to add an sas expander if you ever want to add more drives.
 
saranya said:
pick up an ibm m1015 and flash fw to a lsi 9240-8i. that'll give u 8 SATA ports for cheap and give you the option to add an sas expander if you ever want to add more drives.
Click to expand...

This. Otherwise it looks pretty good to me.
 
Google shopping shows a m1015 for $49 atm...
I picked one up for $30, and got a cheap hp sas expander....
 
can anybody help me understand how these SAS/SATA cards work, how come a SAS connection can go to 4 SATA? How come you don't see 8 port SATA card?

I'm not 100% in using these SAS card as i don't understand exactly how they work with original SATA drives!

Thanks
 
I understand your desire to use the right things, but don't even allow yourself to remotely think that SAS is some sort of "black magic" technology. It is so dominant in the IT world, you would be suprised. For the most part, at least at the signal level...SAS and SATA are the same. This pdf from seagate helps explain it a little.

http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/SASSATA_TP581-1-0709US.pdf

In short, there is almost no issue with using SATA drives in a SAS system....it is actually designed for that.
 
GrugNorman said:
can anybody help me understand how these SAS/SATA cards work, how come a SAS connection can go to 4 SATA? How come you don't see 8 port SATA card?

I'm not 100% in using these SAS card as i don't understand exactly how they work with original SATA drives!

Thanks
Click to expand...
You basically use a cable that allows converts a SAS port to 4 SATA cables/ports. You don't see 8 Port SATA cards anymore since it's a bit more cost-effective to release a SAS card that can do SATA as well rather than two separate cards that either does just SATA or just SAS. Not to mention a lot less cable clutter should you use a server case with a storage backplane with SAS ports.

This is the cable I'm talking about:
$15 - 3ware SFF-8087 to Multi-lane SATA Forward Break-out Cable

However, if you're planning on getting either the Norco 4220 or 4224 cases, you don't use the above cables at all. You use these cables:
$20 - Norco C-SFF8087-D SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 Multilane SAS Cable

Each SFF-8087 port in the Norco 4220 or 4224 cases's storage backplane provides a data connection for 4 hard drives each. The Norco 4220 and 4224 have 5 and 6 SFF-807 ports respectively which means 20 and 24 drives respectively. So you would need 5 or 6 of those SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cables to connect all 24 drives.
 
GrugNorman said:
They cost over $300 that's breaking the budget by a lot
Click to expand...

yeah, sorry about that. as the other poster mentioned, I was referring to picking one off ebay, not retail. usually anything under $75 usd is a good price.

and danny laid it out pretty well. SAS is the way to go for storage.
 
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