SATA, RAID or ?

[sylus]

Thinking about building a media server, haven't really had much experience with HDD's always built a system with new parts and around two high storage drives that weren't connected in any special way.

If I were to get say 2-6 1TB drives, would RAID be the best option or is there a new technique with more benefits?

Or say for my main system a SSD for OS and 2 1TB in RAID etc..

HW Raid Vs SW Raid too

 

[Dangman]

Look at Windows Home Server. Here's an FAQ:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1390750

Also some questions:
- What would be your budget for a new server with hard drives?
- How much storage are you looking for?
- What exactly will this server be doing?
- Is your network fully gigabit?

 

[sylus]

1) $300 - 1200
2) 4-6 TB, probably 4.
3) Media Storage for other computers on the network to access.
4) No.

Cheers

 

[dugn]

Look at Windows Home Server. Here's an FAQ:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1390750

Also some questions:
- What would be your budget for a new server with hard drives?
- How much storage are you looking for?
- What exactly will this server be doing?
- Is your network fully gigabit?

+1

With WHS, you get a media server, remote desktop and remote access to any machine, automatic backups and tons of free add-ins to do cool stuff as well. The best $499 I ever spent on computer hardware.

I bought the HP model since it was a small, nearly silent form-factor, later added additional drives and now have a 6TB system (4x 1.5TB). Good stuff.

 

[Dangman]

1) $300 - 1200
2) 4-6 TB, probably 4.
3) Media Storage for other computers on the network to access.
4) No.

Cheers

Yeah, for your needs, it doesn't sound like you need RAID. Just stick to WHS. I recommend this:
[URLhttp://www.provantage.com/acer-pg-t170w-007~7ACEN0M1.htm]$350[/URL] - Acer Aspire Easystore H340 Windows Home Server

Easy to use and setup. For additional hard drives and the like, you can go with either 1.5TB or 2TB hard drives to get your 4-6GB of storage

 

[sylus]

Hey,
Thanks for the advice, thing is I have a ton of old parts laying around from dual core's to P4's.. and even some older unopened motherboards, not to mention a ton of everything else. So I was thinking throw some together all I need is a case and HDD's.

 

[Dangman]

Hey,
Thanks for the advice, thing is I have a ton of old parts laying around from dual core's to P4's.. and even some older unopened motherboards, not to mention a ton of everything else. So I was thinking throw some together all I need is a case and HDD's.

Ahh ok. Well the popular WHS case has been this awesome best bang for the buck case:
$290 - NORCO RPC-4020 4U Rackmount Server Case

Throw in a Corsair 750TX or PC P&C 750 PSU and you'll have enough power for 21 hard drives.

Though if you want a smaller case, the Coolermaster Elite 335, 332, 331, and 330 series of cases can hold up to 7 drives without adding additional bays/adapters.

CPU wise, for WHS, you don't really need that much CPU horsepower unless you're planning on having it do a whole bunch of other tasks besides file serving. So a P4 would be enough. But if you want to use a dual-core, go for it.

Since I'm already here, gonna answer your HW VS SW RAID question:
If file serving is all that you're going to do (well maybe a little backup service or lite web serving possibly), then software RAID 5 with a decent dual-core CPU will be enough. But you will get some what low write speeds depending on the OS (Linux software RAID is significantly faster than Windows software RAID but still slower than most hardward RAID cards). One of the main advantages of

However if you want to use your file server for heavy duty services such as a virtualization, file serving, transcoding, encoding, and other duties at the same time, then go hardware RAID 5. However, do note that a decent new hardware RAID 5 card is roughly $300 minimum for four ports. If you're willing to go used and have a mobo with a PCI-E slot + onboard video or two PCI-E slots, then you can get a PCI-E hardware RAID 5 card for $200 give or take.

Now just want you to think about this: Many of the storage gurus/nuts have switched from $1500+ hardware RAID controllers to WHS for their file serving duties. So if $1500 hardware RAID controllers are no longer worth it for those gurus/nuts, that should tell you that WHS is a very good alternative to all of that.

 

[sylus]

One of the main advantages of

You almost got to the main advantages of SW Raid

Thanks for the case advice, I'll probably just end up throwing whatever looks good in, taking power consumption into concideration.

With SW Raid do you just install software in WHS or is SW Raid an OS in itself? I know unRAID is Linux based.. is that it?

I would prefer to have the ability to do encoding and file serving as I would probably utilize, so HW Raid would possibly be the better future proof idea, even though it will cost a little more.

People don't seem to be using RAID 0 much these days...

 

[Dangman]

You almost got to the main advantages of SW Raid

Thanks for the case advice, I'll probably just end up throwing whatever looks good in, taking power consumption into concideration.

With SW Raid do you just install software in WHS or is SW Raid an OS in itself? I know unRAID is Linux based.. is that it?

I would prefer to have the ability to do encoding and file serving as I would probably utilize, so HW Raid would possibly be the better future proof idea, even though it will cost a little more.

People don't seem to be using RAID 0 much these days...

LOL!. Half alseep there so didn't elaborate on it. LOL! well one of the main advantages of linux software RAID is that you can transfer it from system to system without much trouble. With hardware RAID, you have to move the RAID array to a card that officially supports your previous RAID set.

It's generally recommended not to mix RAID (of any sorts) with WHS. Yes RAID and WHS can work together but it's generally not recommended due to added complexity, higher costs, etc. There are two main types of software RAID: OS based software RAID and hardware assisted software RAID. Both uses the CPU to handle the parity calculations neccessary for a RAID 5 setup. However, OS based software RAID is where the OS is used to setup the RAID array like with Linux's MDADM app. Hardware assisted software RAID are generally those motherboard onboard RAID controllers that you see on a lot of motherboards these days. In addition, hardware assisted software RAID can also refer to those add on RAID controller cards that do not have the onbaord XOR engine neccessary for a true hardware RAID card. Either way, you're gonna see some heavy CPU usage depending on your CPU and how big the RAID array is.

unRAID is Linux based IIRC. However, last time I checked, unRAID had pretty horrible write speeds (20MB/s max)

Yeah, no intelligent person would use a RAID 0 array for long term storage for long.

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!

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)

However for simplicity's sake, I'd go for WHS.

The above was hastily written while half asleep so there may be some errors

 

[stehle]

I'd recommend building a NAS. Depending on your level of expertise, you could either use FreeNAS (more intuitive to a newbie, fantastic GUI but slower transfer speeds) or Ubuntu Server (less intuitive, webadmin is an "ok" GUI but the transfer speeds are greater).

When I get asked this question, I usually refer people to the following two articles.

Cheap NAS w/ Atom procs + FreeNAS
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30571/77/

Cheap NAS w/ Atom procs + Ubuntu Server
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30573/77/

I've tried both of them. I'm currently using the FreeNAS right now and trying to tweak my read / write speeds (caps around 21 MB/S). Which generally isn't a problem since that is more that enough to watch a VOB without stuttering or to transfer a few random files. It gets annoying if you backup a lot of files though...

Considering the number of drives / size of the drives you are interested in making up-- I would recommend Ubuntu Server. It is more cryptic if you are not familiar with it, but you get a lot more functionality.