New Media Server Help

jdogg707

jdogg707

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 5, 2004
Messages
1,043
So I currently have a HP Media Smart Home Server w/WHS and 4TB (4x1TB WD Green Power HD) and need to upgrade. I have started backing up my entire Blu-ray collection (225 Discs) to .m2ts (Main Movie + HD Audio) at around 25GB/disc on average. My music, pictures, and other files constitutes another 500GB or so making my current storage requirements at around 6.2TB. I want my new storage solutions to be expandable, fast, and redundant. I honestly couldn't stand losing the data on one of my drives to a failure, so some kind of fault tolerance is ideal. Right now I am torn between utilizing a Windows 2008 Server (Tech Net Plus Subscriber) and RAID 6 solution or another Windows Home Server solution. I would like to start within a minimum of 10-15TB and expand from there. Whatever I use I think the Norco 4020 Case is probably the direction I will go. I appreciate any feedback and advice as I am really torn right now and running out of space!
 
+1 for the Norco. I'm using WHS and just duplicating everything. As cheap as hard drives are right now, this is the easiest solution for me.
 
I'm also in the process of maybe building a storage server. The 4020 is already at the top of my list, I just need to find a good SATA controller, Mobo, Proc and PSU.
 
but with 2tb drive.... most people wont use 20bays....

i love that case and will be building one soon also, but with 320gb drives in a RAID 5, i have seen with large drives that when 1 fails and you are rebuilding the array another fails since the rebuild takes soooo long with 750gb + drives....

dont know.... a 4 bay device with 2TB drive from WSD would give 4TB of duplicated storrage (more than i have now non duplicated)

seems fairly resonable,

dont get me wrong, i will be building a rack with a norco case, switch and such for my new house this summer.....
 
Norco 4020 + WHS

I'd stick with WHS I have/am doing the same thing with my BluRays and its definately the way to do it.
 
I would actually recommend against WHS for this application. I have WHS myself and it serves my needs quite well, no complaints. But one of the downsides to WHS is once you hit around eight drives performance goes down the toilet. Even using the new 2TB drives you are going to soar right past that in a hurry. For the size of storage you are looking at you will be better off with a more traditional approach of RAID 5 and a traditional server OS. A massive raid card(might as well go with the 24 port arcera at this point, cheaper in the long run. A bundle of 2TB drives. This is going to be a nice little project.
 
what kind of configuration are you running? Ockie has stated he has no problem with performance with his 20 drive WHS setup.
 
Why not buy something like this and expand your current server? With the new 2TB drives you could get another 8TB out of your rig.
 
boomhower said:
I would actually recommend against WHS for this application. I have WHS myself and it serves my needs quite well, no complaints. But one of the downsides to WHS is once you hit around eight drives performance goes down the toilet. Even using the new 2TB drives you are going to soar right past that in a hurry. For the size of storage you are looking at you will be better off with a more traditional approach of RAID 5 and a traditional server OS. A massive raid card(might as well go with the 24 port arcera at this point, cheaper in the long run. A bundle of 2TB drives. This is going to be a nice little project.
Click to expand...

I find this hard to believe, there are plenty of us, myself included who have way more then 8 drives, and have no performance issues at all.
I max out my network connection before the drives are gonna start slowing me down.
Unless you are doing a write and its being written to last part(innermost) on the drive you shouldn't be seeing any slowdowns.
 
boomhower said:
I would actually recommend against WHS for this application. I have WHS myself and it serves my needs quite well, no complaints. But one of the downsides to WHS is once you hit around eight drives performance goes down the toilet. Even using the new 2TB drives you are going to soar right past that in a hurry. For the size of storage you are looking at you will be better off with a more traditional approach of RAID 5 and a traditional server OS. A massive raid card(might as well go with the 24 port arcera at this point, cheaper in the long run. A bundle of 2TB drives. This is going to be a nice little project.
Click to expand...

I dont know where you come up with that. If you have a performance drop that leads me to believe that you have a bad configuration or a bad resource controller.
 
boomhower said:
I would actually recommend against WHS for this application. I have WHS myself and it serves my needs quite well, no complaints. But one of the downsides to WHS is once you hit around eight drives performance goes down the toilet. Even using the new 2TB drives you are going to soar right past that in a hurry. For the size of storage you are looking at you will be better off with a more traditional approach of RAID 5 and a traditional server OS. A massive raid card(might as well go with the 24 port arcera at this point, cheaper in the long run. A bundle of 2TB drives. This is going to be a nice little project.
Click to expand...

I have no idea where you're getting this from. My WHS has 12 drives in it and it works like a champ. I get very consistent throughput via my GigE network too.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I think I'll continue with the WHS route as it seems to be highly recommended. As soon as the 2TB drives become available to purchase I'll probably purchase 8 of them and start working my way towards 48TB with the Norco :)
 
So I started doing a little more research and actually looking at what you get with WHS, and for my scenario am unsure as to whether it is the right solution. Essentially WHS gives you a RAID 1 scenario, without any of the hassle, which is fine until you start adding up the amount of space lost for redundancy. I would want to duplicate everything, because again if a drive died I wouldn't want to have to rip a drive full of Blu-rays again. The cost of this type of solution is for every two identical drives I buy, I lose the capacity of one. It might not be all upfront, but if the intent is to duplicate everything, then it is essentially the end result.

This being said, what would be the pitfalls of going to a RAID 6 scenario? The cost of the controller and the long rebuild time for expanding the array are the only ones I can think of. Am I missing anything? Is there another solution I am missing?
 
When I started thinking about building a server I was initailly looking at RAID 5 or 6. Once I saw the cost of the controllers, the rebuild time, and the inherent cost of sticking to a particular drive, I went the WHS root. I understand that "losing" half your storage in the quasi RAID 1 that WHS uses is hard to stomach, but lets face it: hard drives are freakin cheap. And there only going to get cheaper. For me WHS was (is) a no brainer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top