Absolutely cracking replies! Please don't apologise for posting so much, it's exactly what I need to know, I need to research as much as possible before investing, your posts are fantastic and much appreciated!
There has been quite a lot said since my last post so I'll take em one post at a time starting with post 14 from JonJ678.
From what you've said I think the hardware will be fairly simplistic so I will return to that in later posts (think I've said that once), I still need to be absolutely clear on the setting up of it I think. Once I've got that sorted the rest should be easy enough hopefully.
Multiple HDDs and failure rates
Really interesting point about running 9 HDDs from the same make! Say I buy 5 Samsung F1s and 4 Western Digitals...would they all work in exactly the same way without any problems if they perform at slightly different rates?
I'm still a little unsure how it would be setup exactly and that relates to HDDs.
Raid Arrangement
OK, it's a RAID 5 system I'm sorted on...either 4 + 1 disks, or 8 + 1 disks.
Would it be seen by the OS (whichever I pick) as one big disk that I could partition into separate 2TB drives? Or can I pick which drives I make into drives? Just thinking about using HDDs from different manufacturers, if I could select WD as one drive, and Samsung F1s as another drive it might negate any possible issues.
Distinguishing hardware and software
I'm still a little hazy on what's hardware and what's software...I was under the impression (no doubt wrongly!) that adding in a controller card was hardware, and using the motherboard was a software RAID...unless it's a dedicated chip on the motherboard that handles the RAID, obviously it would be hardware then. Either way I would be knackered if it conked out so I think software RAID would probably be the way to go. Speed isn't an issue, getting my data back after a catastrophic failure is! I have absolutely no knowledge of software RAID though...from what you are saying JonJ is a software RAID handled by the OS? So Ubuntu or Freenas would create and manage the RAID, then nothing can fail because except for HDDs failing there is nothing to go wrong that can't be fixed with a reinstall of the software that would recognise the RAID straight away?
(Sorry, you've probably answered that already but I'm being a bit slow with it...a simple yes confirmation will do lol).
OS
Windows/Home Server is out then...from what you have written I think I'm leaning towards Ubuntu.
Is it harder to setup than Freenas then?
Would Ubuntu allow NTFS formatting and show 4TB disks as well?
Look no hands!...or monitor keyboard or mouse
Controlling it remotely sounds absolutely brilliant...having this virtually silent box running in the corner, without a spaghetti junction of wires behind it and no extra space taken up sounds fantastic!!! Is that something that is just done with Freenas or can Ubuntu manage that as well?
Budget
I haven't set one yet (always a bad sign), but of course, spending as little as possible is always preferable...the system itself sounds like it will be cheap but I think I'll be forking out for a case at least and a decent PSU...I was thinking of the Antec 1200 case, I use x5 Antec 900s at the office and they are whisper quiet and keep things chilly...any reason for using the P182 over the Antec 1200?
Reply to Evil-I
A hot spare sounds like a good idea, is that easy to implement?
sldsmkd mentions a cold spare...is that literally an unplugged HDD ready to swap out for minimum downtime?
I really like the idea of a UPS, considering it will be housing all the critical info, doesn't sound cheap but I'll look into it!
Just to confirm I am reading what you and JonJ are saying correctly...you use a 160GB, and JonJ uses a pendrive as your OS yes? And that's a different drive to the RAID...the RAID is separate so you can screw up the OS and it won't affect the RAID?
Ch3m1c4L, thanks for confirming that XP can see greater than 2TB as long as it's not booting off it, that's good to know!
Thank you again one and all for your posts, your information is absolutely invaluable and I'm very grateful that you take the time to post it!
I'll have to get some longer SATA cables as well!