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Rate / Help with my server

N

no_control

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Messages
1,429
I have 4 PCs including the server. My business PC, Family PC, Server & my laptop. My PC and server would be wired to the router. The family and Laptop are WiFi.

Server has 1 10 gb system drive and 9 180gb storage drives.

I have 2 of these 3ware 7506-4LP RAID cards not sure if I'll need both. Can I run the paired drives as master/slave or do they need to be singles?

For an OS; XP pro ok?

Do I need to have another KB/mouse/monitor? Or can I use VNC to access the server?

Is RAID 10 a good way to go?

What do I need for FTP?

I've done some research but I answer a question only to have 2 more pop up. I figure it's time to ask some people who have done this, or at least have the knowledge, before I get too deep.

sorry if these seem n00bish. Just trying to get it all straight. Maybe a point to a web site with some answers or walk throughs I caould read would help.

TIA
 
Im sure that XP will be fine for file sharing, and you can use RDC so no need for mouse/keyboard unless you have to reinstall the os or something.

FTP would prolly be best asked in the Network subforum, there are a couple freebies out there such as cerebus. I recently tried that but had problems accessing via a browser but no problem with a ftp client. Unsuccessful via internet as well, but I havent had too much time for it.

As for the cards I honestly dont know.

The raid level would depend on how protective you are of your data and such.
 
RDC - is referring to Remote Desktop client correct?

I'll hit up the network guys for the FTP info.
 
Why the 9 180Gb drives? I'd consider selling them and just getting bigger drives. You'll have a smaller chance of failure, it will use less power, cause less heat, still be under warranty and take up less space on your case. You could RAID-5 four 400 Gb drives with one of those cards. You could get probably $35 net for each of those drives and that would give you $315 towards the 400's. You could find them used for about $150 each.
 
Why windows XP? look into FreeNAS, its a free webgui driven freebsd based distrobution that turns your computer into all sorts of servers, and its extremely easy to use. It is a little rough around the edges, but seems like its on the right road to getting really really nice. http://www.freenas.org/
It has built in SSH, FTP, CIFS(SMB), rsyncd, and other things. It also supports software raid which I am in the process of putting through the paces, but it seems like it works well. It only takes up 17mb on a drive, and I've got mine booting from a CF card thats on a CF to IDE converter. Works great.

I would look into using RAID5, you get the most storage/speed/redundancy out of that setup compared to other methods. If youre terrified of drive failures, you can go RAID6.
If you do plan on running RAID, then you should only have one drive per channel. No master/slave when doing raid, the drive will step all over eachother if you have two per channel.
 
Woohoo provoked other people to give ya answers, happy hunting. :)
 
2 of those controllers in one board (unless it was a fancy one) would be sharing the same PCI bus. Better to split them IMO, perhaps into two separate servers -- one for general storage, and another for a full backup of that server. Also get rid of the 10 GB drive -- such an old drive (presumably) probably shouldn't be used in a storage server.

Not an ideal setup by any means, but one suggestion for using all this HW.:

Backup Server:

Large case with active cooling for 8 drives (e.g. Antec SLK3000B + 1 Thermaltake iCage + 1 120mm fan).

OS on 1 PATA drive
Temporary optical on PATA
Install Linux on PATA drive
Configure networking
Remove optical drive
Attach 3 IDE drives on internal PATA
Attach 3ware controller with 4 other PATA drives
Linux software spanning of all drives into single array ~ 7 * 180 GB = 1.26 TB backup storage.
Linux software RAID 5 ~ 6 * 180 GB = 1.08 TB backup storage.

8 drives used; keep the other one as a reserve.
Needs a good PSU to start all the drives + system.

Big waste of performance capability of this HW RAID card, but lets you use all these drives usefully. A reasonable alternative would be to get some other means for connecting 8 PATA drives in one box and selling the 3ware card.

Primary Server:

New MB with on-board SATA and GbE LAN
OS on SATA drive
3ware controller with 4x 320 GB PATA drives in RAID 5 ~ 960 GB of storage.

Alternative:

Sell 7 PATA drives, keep 2 for OS's. Buy 8 x 320 GB PATA drives, and build 2 new semi-identical RAID 5 primary and backup servers. Probably the better idea in the long run, but with greater cost.

2nd Alternative:

Also sell the 2nd 3ware controller and get SATA drives in an on-board JBOD or Linux RAID 5 configuration for the backup. Recoups a bit more money, might be nicer for the long run to buy SATA drives instead of more PATA drives.

320 GB drives are mentioned here because they're around the "sweet spot" in terms of pricing at this time for $/GB.
 
I would also look into (and am looking into) 320GB seagate drives because they are using the perp recording technology now, so they are a bit faster, a bit cooler, and a bit quieter.
 
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