Need Storage Solution Suggestions/Criticisms

[HaMMerHeD]

I am revamping the storage configuration on my fileserver, and I need some help. I am not a storage expert by any stretch of even the most robust imagination. Yeah, I know about software RAID and hardware RAID and the basic crap like that, but not knowing what kind of hardware is "good" for what I want, I am looking to you peeps for guidance.

Here is my problem:

The existing storage solution on my fileserver is inadequate. It is too small, old, and does not offer protection for all of my data. I first put it together about 3 years ago, and it had 3 hard drives in it. There is a 160GB EIDE system disk, and two 500GB EIDE data disks which are set up as a single mirrored volume using Windows Server 2003's built-in software RAID functionality. So between the two 500GB drives, I had 465GB of protected storage. A few months after that, I added a 400GB SATA-II drive, but it is not redundant.

Fast forward to now, I am running out of space, and the storage I have is slow.

Here are my goals for a replacement storage system, in order of priority:

1) more storage (at least 2x)
2) 100% protected data storage (but not OS)
3) $500 budget
4) better performance
5) lower power consumption


My proposed solution looks like this:

Hard Drives: Samsung EcoGreen HD103SI 1TB SATA-II
Drive Bay Module: American Media Systems DS-3141SSBK 4-in-3 SATA module
RAID Controller: Syba SY-PEX40008 PCIe SATA-II Controller

The hard-drives are 5400rpm drives. I chose these drives for a number of reasons: First, they are cheap at $75 each. Second, they do not go into unresponsive recovery modes when idling like some cheaper WDC drives, so they are actually usable in a RAID configuration. Third, they use less power than the drives I have now. I am hoping that the possible performance increase from running them in a stripe will make up for the lower spindle speed. I don't need it to be blistering fast, but I also don't want to be waiting on it.

The controller card uses the Silicon Image SiI3124 chipset, which I have come to believe through my research is well-supported and stable. I am not married to this choice, so if someone has a suggestion for another PCIe card for a similar price, I'd love to hear it.

The drive module is pretty generic, and is basically just a set of condensed hard drive racks. It places four 3.5" SATA-II drives inside three 5.25" external drive bays, which is precisely what my server's tower has available. (It has 4 bays, but one is taken by the optical drive.)

As for a configuration, my plan was to make it pretty simple. All four 1TB drives would be configured in a single volume RAID-5 array. Based on my research, this should give me ~2.8TB of usable space with single-drive fault tolerance. I currently have a total of 965GB of storage, and only 465GB of that is protected in any way. So this will give me about 3x the storage I currently have, and improve my fault tolerance.

Any comments or suggestions? I'm not married to any of these choices.

EDIT:

Looking more at reviews of basically all inexpensive SATA RAID controllers, it looks like OS/software RAID is going to be my best option, unless I want to spend another couple of hundred dollars on a proper disk controller. Does that seem correct?

 

[Dangman]

Looking more at reviews of basically all inexpensive SATA RAID controllers, it looks like OS/software RAID is going to be my best option, unless I want to spend another couple of hundred dollars on a proper disk controller. Does that seem correct?

OS/software RAID is your best option if you're using Linux or FreeBSD. IIRC, when it comes to Windows software RAID, performance is fairly slow compared to the speeds offered by Linux MDADM software RAID or FreeBSD's ZFS system.

Now, If you don't mind buying used hardware with little or no warranty, you could buy a Dell Perc 5/i card off eBay for ~$100 or so plus two of these SFF-8484 to 4 x SATA Cables for ~$25. Thus, you get 8 ports and a true hardware RAID controller for around ~$125 or so. Add a battery backup unit for ~$40 and you're set in case of power outages as well up the performance. Not a bad deal considering that a new true PCI-E hardware RAID controller is around $300 (Areca ARC-1210) for 4 ports.

EDIT: As of May 2009, it seems that you can find many Perc 5/i cards with the BBU and PCI bracket for $120 and under. Excellent price!
EDIT: As of May 2010, it seems that prices for Perc 5/i cards have jumped up to $150 without BBU and PCI bracket.

But those Dell Perc 5/i cards are finicky about motherboards. It will take up PCI-E x16 slot if you don't have a PCI-E x8 slot.

Read these threads for more info:
Dell Perc 5/i RAID Card: Tips and Benchmarks
Finally went to a Hardware Raid5 controller...
Dell Perc 5/i - Mainboard Compatibility List
Solution for Dell Perc 5/i for Intel Chipsets
Add 8 device SAS/SATA 256MB BBU Enterprise class RAID card to your rig for about $100 w/ PERC 5i (LSI 8480E OEMed to Dell)

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Thanks Danny.

I do have a PCIe x16 slot. The motherboard is an i965 Gigabyte motherboard, but the exact model escapes me. The CPU is just a single-core Conroe-L Celeron 420 1.6GHz, so software RAID performance could be a problem.

It looks like I can grab a Perc 5/i and a SAS->SATA cable for $~150 after it's all said and done. Not a bad option. Thanks for suggesting that.

As for the BBU, the server lives on an APC UPS. Is that not sufficient?

Here is a Perc 5/i with BBU for ~$180 shipped, and a PCI bracket for ~$13 shipped.

 

[sub.mesa]

ZFS is not really recommended with 32-bit CPU; so if you want to go this route it likely means a new system with 64-bit CPU, at least 4GB RAM a motherboard with 6 onboard SATA.

By choosing energy efficient and cheap hardware, you can get a full working system for little over $100. If you will be re-using an existing case, consider buying a new power supply too.

If you still have a choice about the HDDs, then you could go two routes:

Low power consumption route: PicoPSU + 2,5" Notebook 500GB HDDs
High power consumption route: normal PSU with 3,5" desktop class 1-2TB HDDs

The PicoPSU would be really energy efficient; 28W idle is certainly possible. The high power consumption route would consume twice of triple the idle power of the low power consumption route.

A clear advantage is that you can expand 2,5" disks easily due to relaxed power and space requirements. You also get a much more quiet and cooler system.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Well, looking at it all, I don't think I am going to get what I want for anything approaching my stated budget. So, I think I am going to shelve this project for now.

Thanks for your help anyway.