planing a new storage. one question.

A

_Andy_

n00b
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Jul 7, 2011
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Hello

I'm planing a new 24 drives storage. I want 2 x 12@Raid 6.
As controler i prefer Areca because i read much in this forum and it seems the controlers are pretty good.

What is the cheapest controler or controler and expander solution to drive
24 drives@Raid 6?

Thx for your help.
 
i appreciate you are asking about a hardware raid card solution, but as this is a storage server, have you considered zfs ( on say Solaris 11 express)?
 
Actually no. I read about zfs but never used it. I prefer a well known hardware raid controler. It is in my opinion a better solution for me. OK it costs more than software zfs.

I'm using linux since kernel 2.2. I compiled my own kernel with sound card support so linux or solaris is not a big deal.

Thank you for the suggestion but ich prefer hardware.

So any suggestions about hardware raid solutions? Maybe a "cheap" Areca Raid card with expander or how can i use 24 drives with raid 6?
 
I would suggest an Areca ARC-1880i and an HP SAS Expander. You may have some availability issues with the SAS expander if you're outside the US though. The HP SAS Expander is confirmed working well with the arc-1880i and supports dual linking to it. The downside of the HP is that it only negotiates 3gbps instead of 6gbps per channel. If you are in the US there is an HP rep on this forum that sells HP SAS expanders that are flashed with the current firmware.

I also hear that Chenbro makes a 36 port SAS expander that negotiates 6gbps, but I am not aware of it's compatibility with the ARC-1880 series.

In a general sense though a low-port RAID controller + SAS expander is significantly less expensive than a RAID controller with a built in expander. The tradeoff is that the big RAID cards usually have a lot more cache (and it is often expandable).
 
Ok. I'm from germany but at ebay i could get some HP expander cards. As i read the tricky part is the firmware update. Is this true that i can update with a HP raid controler only or can i update over serial or something like that?
 
That is correct, you can only flash the HP SAS expanders with HP hardware afaik. So I would make sure you know what firmware the card has before ordering it.
 
I have built and maintained linux systems using Areca RAID cards as well as mdadm software RAID. I prefer mdadm software RAID to the Areca hardware RAID systems -- mdadm is more flexible, and perhaps surprisingly, more reliable. If you add a SAS expander into the mix, there is no doubt in my mind that mdadm software RAID would be less troublesome than a hardware RAID / SAS expander system.

Anyway, since it sounds like you are wanting to use linux, your options would be:

1) Areca 1880-ix-24 (or 1680-) $1200 - $1500

2) Areca 1880i + SAS Expander = $600 + SAS Expander

3) LSI SAS2008 HBAs, such as LSI 9211-8i, LSI 9201-16i, IBM ServeRAID M1015 : $200 - $750
with mdadm software RAID
 
How about 2 12port controllers?

The TS stated he wants 2x 12D raid 6 correct? It's not going to be cheap, but its less of a gamble than with the SAS expander.

2 controllers also removed having 1 shiny Single Point of Failure due to having 1 big controller.
 
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