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Hi folks. I'd appreciate some pointers for speccing up a file server. Any and all assistance would be appreciated.
For whatever reason I already have four 600 GB 10k RPM SAS drives kicking around. I'd like to build a reasonably cheap (I know, comedy considering the drives) file server to put them into. I'd like to have the drives in RAID 5. I know you can buy expensive RAID controller cards and cheap RAID controller cards, but I have no idea which I would need in this case.
I guess I would also appreciate any advice you could offer on the rest of the spec, though the RAID controller is where I'm in the dark the most...
- I'd like to at least have the option of adding more drives in future though I'm not too interesting in paying much extra for it. I don't care about having the ability to easily hot-swap the drives.
- I'd like to see how much extra an additional, redundant, power supply would make everything cost (since this might affect the choice of case etc.).
- As for the motherboard, Supermicro seem to be an obvious choice of manufacturer, though I'm open to other suggestions, and I wouldn't need anything particularly high-end - it's purely a file server and all I am concerned about is having at least a couple of decent PCI Express slots (one for the RAID controller, one for anything daft I want to add later).
By the way, before anyone suggests it, I'd prefer not to buy a pre-built server. I'd like to build it myself.
Sorry if it looks like I'm asking the forum to do everything for me - I have every intention of doing my own homework on this but I decided that writing this forum post would help put my own thoughts in order before I start, regardless of how much advice people end up giving.
For whatever reason I already have four 600 GB 10k RPM SAS drives kicking around. I'd like to build a reasonably cheap (I know, comedy considering the drives) file server to put them into. I'd like to have the drives in RAID 5. I know you can buy expensive RAID controller cards and cheap RAID controller cards, but I have no idea which I would need in this case.
I guess I would also appreciate any advice you could offer on the rest of the spec, though the RAID controller is where I'm in the dark the most...
- I'd like to at least have the option of adding more drives in future though I'm not too interesting in paying much extra for it. I don't care about having the ability to easily hot-swap the drives.
- I'd like to see how much extra an additional, redundant, power supply would make everything cost (since this might affect the choice of case etc.).
- As for the motherboard, Supermicro seem to be an obvious choice of manufacturer, though I'm open to other suggestions, and I wouldn't need anything particularly high-end - it's purely a file server and all I am concerned about is having at least a couple of decent PCI Express slots (one for the RAID controller, one for anything daft I want to add later).
By the way, before anyone suggests it, I'd prefer not to buy a pre-built server. I'd like to build it myself.
Sorry if it looks like I'm asking the forum to do everything for me - I have every intention of doing my own homework on this but I decided that writing this forum post would help put my own thoughts in order before I start, regardless of how much advice people end up giving.