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Need advice - home storage system

T

Teecee

Gawd
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May 31, 2005
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I am thinking of upgrading my home storage to something more reliable. I have several PCs at home with random size hard drives in them. I have one box I consider my server/second pc. It has the bulk of all my drives. It is in an antec 160 case and has a 2.8ghz intel CPU.

My goal is to have reliable storage and a good amount of it. I am looking for around 500-1500GB of raid storage. Price is not a big concern. I do not want to drop 5k into this or anything. I would like the solution to work for windows, mac, and linux. I do have some linux knowledge if needed. My plans are to store mp3s, videos, ISOs, pictures, etc. It will only be accessed by me.

What I was thinking of doing was one of the following:

1. Buy some sort of external setup with hard drives such as Buffalo Terastation or Synology Cube Station.

2. Buy a Synology DS106 and plug in some external hdds

3. Buy a Dell PE SC430 and add internal HDDs to it. I am not sure how many HDDs it can handle.

4. Replace the MB and CPU of my current server pc and use it as my storage system. Would get a dual core chip to help with some of the stuff I use it for daily.

5. Buy a new case like this and build a new PC and fill it up with HDDs.
 
Your options all sound interesting and mostly viable. I think that in the end the cost of the system will be the determining factor. Cost is defined as: Price of hardware that you buy + cost of time that you spend on setup.
The more you spend on a preconfigured setup like that Cube Station the less time it should take to set up.

You say "it only needs to be accessible by me" does that mean:
  • One user, running a single WinXP workstation?
  • One user running in a windows domain on multiple workstations?
  • One person, who may have multiple non-domain integrated accounts on multiple workstations running different operating systems?
  • something else?
 
drizzt81 said:
Your options all sound interesting and mostly viable. I think that in the end the cost of the system will be the determining factor. Cost is defined as: Price of hardware that you buy + cost of time that you spend on setup.
The more you spend on a preconfigured setup like that Cube Station the less time it should take to set up.

You say "it only needs to be accessible by me" does that mean:
  • One user, running a single WinXP workstation?
  • One user running in a windows domain on multiple workstations?
  • One person, who may have multiple non-domain integrated accounts on multiple workstations running different operating systems?
  • something else?
Click to expand...


I mean one user, several PCs will be connected but I am the only user. The most I ever see happening is coping some files while streaming video to my HTPC or Xbox 360, which are all hardwired.
 
I love what I read about the QNAP TS101 but it is only a single drive.
 
I suggest extending the project to (1) building a new storage server and (2) revitalizing your old storage server to keep up in capacity with your new server, in order to serve as a backup of that server.

Other than that, it seems to me that you have several potential solutions, and need a problem -- what problem would you be interested in solving in addition to just getting a new storage server?

E.g. learning something more about Linux? Hardware RAID? Software RAID? Optimizing performance? How to build the absolutely cheapest box that beats X? Build a box that least looks like a server? Build an energy-efficient server? Build a quiet server? Etc.
 
I hope we can expand this thread further. I got myself a TS-101 and to be honest, I'm not too happy with it as it's throughput is pretty dire. In terms of write I get about 7 megs a second absolute tops, which goes straight down the toilet when you're not doing sustained writes of long contiguous files. Read? Better, but nowhere near what I was expecting on a gigabit LAN.

It is truly fanless though which is what I wanted, and so far it's been reliable. RAID1 works, although once again it's dead slow.

The biggest problem as I see it apart from the write issue (I copied 120Gb's of small documents and PDF files to the TS-101 using Synctoy. Took three days, I'm not kidding) is getting data rapidly out of the system in times of trouble. The disk format is linux specific and if you were to for example unhitch the RAIDed drive because the onboard drive broke, there's no simple way to read it on a Windows or Mac machine that I know of.

The Terastation in comparison is a bit flaky and bejesus is it noisy.

I'm in the same boat as you, and at the moment the most viable method I can see is a silenced PC running Windows Server 2003 on any decent chipsetted gigabit LAN mobo/adapter. The throughput difference is quite dramatic. At the momen t I've partially transitioned to the fanless enclosure hung off the back of the Mac Mini, which I'll be RAID1ing when I get around to it. The TS-101 husk will probably find a new owner shortly.
 
If this thing is only going to act like a home server then getting a bunch of 320GB Seagate drives and going with a RAID5, possibly RAID10 would likely be one of the more cost effective approaches. With that CPU some form of software RAID wouldn't hurt. Save all the money of a dedicated hardware processor when you have that nice intel chip to begin with. Specs below would run around $1k for a RAID5 setup with 1.5TB of storage.

HighPoint RocketRAID 1820A 64bit PCI-X SATA Controller Card - ~$200+
320GB Seagate 7200.10 - ~$100 x 6 = $600
New case with lots of drive space - ~$200

Another idea might be to get one of those SLI/Crossfire boards(which usually have SATA controllers on both bridges) in the place of the RAID controller card. The boards can usually be had for well under the $200 or more I listed. Then just throw in a cheap sempron and some old ram. Those boards usually have 5+ SATA ports onboard so might work well as a replacement. I'm not positive this would even work but it might and could be a fairly cost effective solution. Going for >320GB drives definately increases the $/GB ratio.
 
Anarchist4000 said:
If this thing is only going to act like a home server then getting a bunch of 320GB Seagate drives and going with a RAID5, possibly RAID10 would likely be one of the more cost effective approaches. With that CPU some form of software RAID wouldn't hurt. Save all the money of a dedicated hardware processor when you have that nice intel chip to begin with. Specs below would run around $1k for a RAID5 setup with 1.5TB of storage.

HighPoint RocketRAID 1820A 64bit PCI-X SATA Controller Card - ~$200+
320GB Seagate 7200.10 - ~$100 x 6 = $600
New case with lots of drive space - ~$200
Click to expand...

I am thinking about doing the exact thing and loading ubuntu and running samba. I did end up buying a falcon 300gb external drive but havent had the chance to play with it due to moving to a new house. Those 320gb drives for $100 is a great price. I was trying to avoid another computer in the house, I know my wife would love that, but I think a dedicated PC running samba is best way to go. You can expand it and you can do whatever you want. Samba, FTP, HTTP, etc.
 
Teecee said:
I was trying to avoid another computer in the house, I know my wife would love that, but I think a dedicated PC running samba is best way to go. You can expand it and you can do whatever you want. Samba, FTP, HTTP, etc.
Click to expand...
Set it up in the basement (attics are no good - they get too hot) and leave it there. Quiet fans are a plus. She need never know it's there :p

 
unhappy_mage said:
Set it up in the basement (attics are no good - they get too hot) and leave it there. Quiet fans are a plus. She need never know it's there :p

Click to expand...


No basement, our lot didnt allow it but I do have a very nice storage unit off of my bonus room. I think I am going to finish that room and run all my stuff to there.
 
you could build a shed with all the nice amenities and run a cable out there...but then again, this might be a bit over-the-top...i say, go [H]ard or go home :D
 
protias said:
you could build a shed with all the nice amenities and run a cable out there...but then again, this might be a bit over-the-top...i say, go [H]ard or go home :D
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was thinking of doing. The cable company I spend a lot of money each year with at work is going to come out to my house and wire my data drops for me. I have been looking at some small cable racks to keep things nice and neat. Any suggestions? I would like to run all my cables back to one spot. Could be 5-15 cables.
 
Teecee said:
Exactly what I was thinking of doing. The cable company I spend a lot of money each year with at work is going to come out to my house and wire my data drops for me. I have been looking at some small cable racks to keep things nice and neat. Any suggestions? I would like to run all my cables back to one spot. Could be 5-15 cables.
Click to expand...

i know i would have all the network stuff inside my house, just because if it is cold or rainy out, i would much prefer to stay inside than have to make adjustments to my stuff during these times. i know there are a few people on this forum who actually do contract work from their home for companies and they have lots of [H]ardware. i dont remember who these people are, but im sure if you look in the networking section, probably network setups, you should find a few.
 
500 to 1500 GB is really nothing. Get a reasonable case, buy a used motherboard, cpu and ram. Load in 4 * 500Gb drives onto a RAID card that FreeNAS supports and you're done. You won't need anything other than a regular PC case. Something like an Antec Sonata can handle 4 drives with no problem. Your system drive you might want to put in a 5" bay. The drives will be by far the most expensive thing. A basic 4 port RAID card won't be more than $70 and the rest of the stuff you can get used.
 
Teecee ,
I am in the same situation. I NEED more storage, the 400gbs i do have is not enough.

I planned on using a mATX case, a "5 in 3 hot swap enclosure", 8port SATAII Raid card (running raid 5 or 10) and 5x500gb hdd's. If i ever run out, my solution would be another 8port Raid card that has the 8x external connector to a 8bay hot swappable external enclosure running 8 more 500gb drives. Or if need be, i could add 3x500 on the original raid card. (or well even 750's) All hopefully running freenas. (speaking of which, is there a size limit?)

Let me know what you decide on as i'd be interested on hearing.
 
Here is what I did:
- RR2320 controller card(For Raid5). - $260
- 8x WD 320GB SATA (Go with the seagates, they're better, they weren't out when I built mine) - ~$950 (Seagates would cost you $850)
- Nforce4 MB (Nvidia Gbit LAN, PCI express) - $70
- A64 3000+ - $70 (an X2 3800+ is only $155)
- 1GB PC2700 - $90
- FedoraCore5


That gives you ~$1100 for the parts, then its up to whatever case, PSU, or enclosure you want.

Complete setup is easily under $1500 for 2TB of storage.

FYI, my read speeds from my file server over the LAN are between 40 and 50MB/sec. Write speeds average around 20MB/sec.

I used the XFS filesystem on my rig, and I highly recommend it. File access is through Samba (Windows File Sharing).
But, I don't think you'll be streaming video to the X360 unless you buy MCE2005. In which case you'll run NTFS. Media Center is only $110 from newegg.
 
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