Need some RAID recommendations from you RAID gods

[Joe Fission]

Here's the scoop... I wanna build a sort of NAS server for my home network. It's gonna be nothing too sophisticated... a server case outfitted with a couple SATA backplanes that can support at least 8 SATA drives (to start with)... I'm leaning towards 250GB each, a decent mobo/CPU, and a good RAID controller card. For the OS, I was thinking Linux because it's not only free, but it sounds like Samba will do pretty much exactly what I want.

I guess now I'm curious as to what kind of power would be needed to drive the above setup. It's only going to be used for data storage for my home network. I don't have any planned usage beyond that. That being said, I thought I could get away with a plain old P4 mobo with a regular P4 (or even a fast Celeron... no, really... I was serious... stop laughing!) or comparable AMD setup.

I realize the choice of RAID controller card will also have an effect on the choice for mobo and CPU.... that's why I'm sorta leaning towards the Areca ARC-1230... it's got an onboard I/O processor and it's one of the only controllers that support more than 8 drives that comes in a PCI-E version (which I figured would further reduce the need for an actual server mobo with PCI-X slots).

So I am now looking to you RAID gurus to possibly give me some advice on what kind of processing power I should be looking at. Of course, as always, I'm open to alternatives should you feel my choice of RAID controller, for instance, is overkill.

 

[hokatichenci]

I just booted my Areca 1220 with 4 Western Digital RE 320's in some cage I bought off Newegg (Chieftec or something I think?) on a Asus a8n32. The Areca card comes with everything you would want to hook up/change on it. It has a heatsink only if you don't like the fan solution that comes with it, it comes with a shorter slot for 1U cases (I guess?), and all the SATA cables (with one end being 90 degrees instead of the normal straight). The BIOS seems pretty friendly to use so far, with the only big scare I had being the power buttons were not pressed in on 3/4 of the drives, so only one drive showed up until I turned them all on. I'll be installing Gentoo Amd64 on it this weekend (or whenever I get this next project done), so I can post more impressions/benches later. The one thing with Linux and the Areca cards is that the driver is not in the main kernel (as of yet), it is included in the -mm source, and compiled modules are available some distros from Areca, but its something you should be aware of. FreeBSD has it built in as of 5.4/6.0 (iirc).

 

[Joe Fission]

Another question for anyone who might know... just out of curiosity, is there any reason to choose PCI-X over PCI-E? I realize PCI-E is now available on quite a large number of mobos currently produced and PCI-X is limited to mainly server boards. I remember reading that a single RAID controller would have a hard time filling the bandwidth provided by that of a PCI-X slot much less a PCI-E slot, so as I understand speed is probably not an issue. Is there any reliability bonus to using PCI-X over PCI-E?

 

[hokatichenci]

PCI-X is found on higher end workstation boards/server boards I believe, and you can find a lot more pci-x raid cards than pci-e cards. PCI-X is probably more "reliable" simply because they've been out a lot longer and you can probably find more reviews on the stability of the one you choose, though I'm using the word reliable loosely.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Is there any reliability bonus to using PCI-X over PCI-E?

You're right about the speeds; that's not a problem. However, I'd recommend a board with pci-X simply because it's more likely to be a server-type board than a desktop one, with things like ECC ram (recommended) and dual processors (also recommended). You can get a dual p3 board with all of this and processors on eBay for around $100, which is a deal any way you look at it.

 

[Doctor X]

As for a card recommendation, check out the netcell 5-port version. It has raid3 and smokin fast. There is a version for pcix if needed. There supposively will be a pcie version coming out... still waiting on that. I get with my pci version 90-106 MB/s sustained throughput. I have read the pcix version can get up to 200+ MB/s. Another bonus is no drivers needed. It is a complete hardware implementation. The only downside I have come across is it doesnt like small files... It isnt slow, but it is not very fast if you are dealing with a bunch of them. As for large files, I can copy a 1 GB file from one part of the array to the other in about 5 secs or so. One other benefit, it does have 64MB to 128MB of onboard cache... depending on the model. Lastly, if you lose a drive, the performance stays the same. It will just be unprotected until you change the drive. When you rebuild, you can shutdown the computer, reboot, crash (if you are on windows ) and it will just continue rebuilding when it reboots. I have tested this unfortunataly with a couple bad sata cables. It is natively supported in the current linux distros also.

Have fun and good luck.

Doctor X

 

[Joe Fission]

...with things like ECC ram (recommended) and dual processors (also recommended). You can get a dual p3 board with all of this and processors on eBay for around $100, which is a deal any way you look at it.

So, is this to say that running something like Samba coupled with the activity of the RAID array would warrant dual processors?

I did start looking at server boards over regular desktop boards however... mainly because there seems to be a lot more selection in the PCI-X RAID controller market (and they're even slightly cheaper.... tho not by much) and also because server boards aren't really that much more expensive than a comparable desktop board. I also started thinking about the ECC thing too and am swayed by that as well.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Samba and software raid will take almost no hit on CPU, but I'd still go for a duallie just because then you're getting a server chipset. And if you later decide to do something cpu-intensive with it (databases, web hosting, MythTV) you've got the capability.

This is a really good deal. If it was BIN for that, I'd own it by now Notice that shipping is ~$45 for the East Coast locations I tried, but that's still only $80 for a *really* nice machine. I'd be surprised if it stays at that price, but even at $200 it'd be worth buying. The first board I bought was Tyan, and I had some problems with that one, but the second was Supermicro, and I had no problems at all there. You'll need memory to go with it; 512 mb is plenty, and 256 is enough.

I am using a $110, 8-port sata2 card, the AOC-SAT2-MV8. It's based on the marvell chipset, which is only supported in Linux as a PIO device so far, but DMA support is in the works, at which point it will become a *solid* contender with the $220 Highpoint cards. With experimental drivers which support DMA, I get ~50 MB/s writes and reads to the array, which is plenty to saturate 100mbit ethernet, and make a good dent in gigabit. Recommended highly, especially with a Supermicro board.

Any other questions, please ask away.

 

[Joe Fission]

I had considered MythTV as a possible application in the past, but after thinking about it awhile, I don't record much off of TV to begin with... and a simple TV tuner card on my desktop PC would probably do me fine. As for other uses, such as a database server or web server or such, it seems extremely unlikely. Even then, if the need arises in the future, I will upgrade the server then to fulfill whatever tasks it may need to. But for now, its only purpose is to provide storage to the many PCs in my home.

So, that being said, while having the ability to show of a dually would be cool and all, if Samba and RAID (especially hardware RAID at that) use little CPU power, then it's my guess I should really only need a single CPU system, huh?

 

[unhappy_mage]

Well, theoretically, sure, but I think you're going to have problems finding a suitable single-processor board for less than a dual processor machine. If you want to do this as cheap as possible, you could get a duallie board and only one processor, but the savings won't be much. A single 1ghz p3 is $55 (the first one I found), or a pair of them for $21 shipped (but it'll probably climb a bit). You'd still need RAM; search for "512 ecc sdram 133" and you'll get some relevant results.

And hey, you can always put the extra processor power toward Folding@Home to help find a cure for cancer! Check out the Distributed Computing forum and find out more!

 

[Joe Fission]

I was actually looking at some Supermicro boards on Newegg's site... they support P4 (either single or dual core), ECC DDR2 (up to 8 gig), and there's a few I've taken a liking to... one in particular that I've singled out has all the bells and whistles... a couple of 64bit/133MHz slots (which is what any of the PCI-X RAID controller cards I like seem to ask for), dual Gb LAN, onboard video, etc. It also appears to be reasonably priced and I've found an outlet here in Canada that I could order it from.

Not that I didn't consider ordering something from eBay... it would sure save a few bucks, but in this case since I'd probably have to order many of the more important parts (case, mobo, and RAID controller at least), I think the ability to send a defective part back for replacement is a good option to have.

 

[unhappy_mage]

This one? Looks like a good board.

Yeah, eBay is the option for the terminally cheap. So of course I recommend that one Buying stuff from normal retailers will probably give you better parts, and it can't hurt. FrontierPC has the sata controller I recommended in stock, that was the first Canadian retailer I could find with it. Price is a little higher than US, or a lot if those aren't CAD.

 

[Joe Fission]

That's one of the boards I was looking at yes... however, the one I singled out was similar to this one with the only difference is that this one has an added U320 SCSI controller onboard and the one I'm looking at does not (which, it appears, newegg does not carry). The board you pointed out is near perfect except for the lack of onboard video. I suppose it would not be a problem as such... I think I have an old PCI video card lying around I could use so that board is still in the running.

As for RAID controller, I'm still pretty hooked on the Areca cards... probably the 1130 since even if I start with 6 or 8 drives, I have the ability to expand later... the card will accomodate my growing storage needs (though the jury's still out on that issue... a 1120 would probably do me just fine).