Quick Questions Before Purchasing New Setup

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practal

Gawd
Joined
Jun 2, 2006
Messages
652
My System(so far):
E8500
Intel G35
4GB DDR2

I started building a file server a few months back and am finaly getting around to finishing it. Ive used raid 0 in a few gaming systems but dont know much else about it besides that. I just want to get a couple of things confirmed prior to purchasing.

My file server's main usage will be to host media files for 6 computers and a Xbox 360. I also plan on doing some home automation, so nothing teribly demanding. Do I need to purchase a dedicated raid card with my low requirements? What advantages would I see? Any recomendations in the sub $400 range?

Does a 32MB make a difference in larger raid arrays? Is it worth the premium? Ive read it doesnt do much for single drives but wasnt certain with raid arrays.

For drives Im looking at going with either 6 640GB or 6 750GBs. Is it worth going for the 640GB for the performance boost in a larger raid array? Losing the exta 100GB per doesnt bother me, I just want to make sure Im making the right decision.

What kind of RAID array should I run with my setup(5,10,ect.)? Should I purchase a different number of drives (instead of 6) for optimal performance with that type of RAID?
 
You should look into Windows Home Server, then you don't need a fancy raid controller and you can add drives as you see needed and any sized drives.

Also, in your case, your limiting factor isn't going to be drive performance, it's going to be your network performance. WHS will max out a gigabit link without any problems.
 
The concept of WHS sounds great, but I'm a little wary of it. The last major issue concerning file corruption looks like took at least 6 months to fix. Now that PP1 has fixed that issue, an entirely new problem comes up: the file conflict errors. Who knows how long it will take to fix that issue?
 
In your case I think raid 10 would be a bit overkill and cost prohibitive. Raid 6 is something you'll only see in a high dollar raid controller. Raid 5 will give you decent read performance, and a slight sense of data protection.

Keep in mind that cache is geared towards small file access like excel documents. On a large file transfer like a ISO or batch transfer you can easily saturate the write cache.
 
tgxiii said:
The concept of WHS sounds great, but I'm a little wary of it. The last major issue concerning file corruption looks like took at least 6 months to fix. Now that PP1 has fixed that issue, an entirely new problem comes up: the file conflict errors. Who knows how long it will take to fix that issue?
Click to expand...

What file conflict errors? I have 3 WHS boxes and are adding two more, I have not seen such errors.
 
Id looked into WHS and read about the file corruption issues. Data integrity was the main reason for me wanting to go RAID, performance boost doesnt hurt either. Ive been buying rare albums,ripping them, and reselling them for almost a decade. A lot of these cost hundreds of dollars, when and if they pop up again. Ive used an external back up source for some years but the collection has far surpassed that recently. The money and effort it would take to recover these would be tremendous. Ive also recently purchased a 1080p camcorder and the video files take alot of room and are not replaceable.

Im not to horribly concerned about money, within reason. This project is something I hope will last me for a few years without any changes. Id like to get it right so i can get it set-up and forget about it. I see the 1.5TB are coming soon so I may wait on the hard drive decision but could still use help on RAID type, number of drives, and controller suggestions. Thanks
 
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