Thinking of building a RAID array

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DarkT

Limp Gawd
2FA
Joined
Oct 24, 2006
Messages
375
I'm stuck in a little dilemma trying to think of the best solution. Right now I have the following hardware in an HTPC/file server:

Full size LianLi tower
Intel E6300
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 (No PCI-X or PCI Express x4)
2GB of RAM
3x 750gb Seagate
2x 500gb Seagate
ATi 4350 HDMI video card

Now, I'm running out of space on those hard drives and I'm thinking of upgrading to a RAID 5 with 5x 1.5TB WD Green drives with this controller. 2TB drives are currently too much of a premium at the moment and I need to update pretty soon.

So, with the areca I can have my 5x 1.5TB RAID 5 and then I can put my 3x 750GB in RAID 5 as well and use the 2x 500GB with my onboard controller or get rid of them all together. I'm sure I could sell the 500s to my brother or keep them around.

The dilemma is that since my motherboard only has PCI and PCI Express x1 ports (The x16 port is in use by the video card), I'm looking for the best/cheapest solution since this is for my home. From what I've read PCI-X should be backwards compatible to PCI as long as there is nothing touching the bottom of the extended part of of the PCI-X card and I think I should be in the clear, but I don't want to drop $400+ on a RAID controller and it fries/won't work and I have to return it.

I'm wondering if anyone has any other suggestions on what I should do. I did play around with WHS a while back with a friend's machine and it was pretty nice, but since I'm using this for an HTPC as well, I'm not sure how its going to work. Any suggestions/feedback would be great.

Thanks
 
that card will work, but will be seriously bottle necked on a standard PCI slot
if you must use the same motherboard, stick with a cheaper card like a HighPoint 2220, you're wasting your money on a fast one
 
If this is going to be an HTPC with a lot of storage then you need a good HTPC mobo.

I would recommend this board
It has onboard HDMI on the GeForce 9300 chipset. So it will play anything you throw at, and it supports DXVA, and 7.1 audio over HDMI.
This also eliminates the need for a Graphics Card.
 
Hmm, good idea. I'll prob go that route instead. Drop the video card and use onboard HDMI and put the PCI-E x8 raid controller in the x16 port.
 
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