Cheap bulk storage...

[sprognak]

I am finally going to take the plunge and reorganise 15 years worth of hard drive storage.

Over time I've replaced my PCs, but my upgrade method has always been to image the hard drive over to a partition on the new PC and keep it in case data is needed.

What I have now is (Most specs dropped except disk space):

Server: Windows 2003 SBS with 250Gb data area and 40Gb boot. (96% total used)
Desktop 1: Windows XP with 40Gb Raptor, 2x80Gb Data areas and 200Gb data area. (93% total used)
Desktop 2: Windows XP with 40Gb 7200RPM (95% used)
Media Centre: Windows XP with 500Gb (RAID-1) (75% used)
Laptop 1: Windows XP/Linux Dual Boot, 100Gb 5200RPM (80% used)
Laptop 2: Windows XP, 80Gb, (76% used)

That's a lot of crap, and a lot of it is duplicated.

What I want to do is add a bunch of HD's to the 2003 Server in a new chassis that can cope with several disks.

It needs to be reasonably quiet and have around 1.5-2.0 Terrabytes of available storage ideally in RAID-5.

Looking for suggestions for:

1. Brand/Model of hard drive. I've heard Samsung/Seagate are currently liked. I dislike Maxtor intensly (reliability issues) and WD aren't that great anymore (Raptors excluded).

2. Brand/Model for a case - ideally midi size and sub £100.

3. Anyone who uses a particular RAID-5 card and wishes to make a suggestion is welcome for a controller card. I've recently used the 3Ware cards and they were excellent...

 

[rpstewart]

1. Brand/Model of hard drive. I've heard Samsung/Seagate are currently liked. I dislike Maxtor intensly (reliability issues) and WD aren't that great anymore (Raptors excluded).

Personally I go with Hitachis but i'm slightly biased in that direction, otherwise Seagates, the 7200.10s are as quick as you're going to get without going to Raptors or SCSI.

2. Brand/Model for a case - ideally midi size and sub £100.

Have a look in the case forum, the guys in there will tell you which Lian-Li PC7+ to get....

3. Anyone who uses a particular RAID-5 card and wishes to make a suggestion is welcome for a controller card. I've recently used the 3Ware cards and they were excellent...

There have been a few discussions on this of late:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17633324
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17633560

The 3Ware cards haven't been discussed though..

 

[sprognak]

Thanks for the links. I guess I could go with an hardware accelerated software RAID-5, I used the 3Ware card recently (12 port version) which has 128Mb of battery backed write-through cache, hardware XOR and is faster than hot sh.. off a shovel. Seriously it flew. I'll have to dig out the benchies but with 8 500Mb drives I was hitting around 290Mb/sec transfer.

If I use it on the SBS server performance isn't going to be that much of an issue, perhaps one of the rocketraids would do the job...

 

[smids]

Look at either the Seagate 320GB's (or any 7200.10 series) or WD RE drives (which are coined 7200rpm Raptors - as that is exactly what they are) according to size and budget.

True hardware RAID is going to set you back a LOT - no questions about that I'm sure. RocketRAID accelerated software RAID cards should be ok and it will certainly keep the cost down (£100 ish for a card). You could fork out for the big guns (going to set you back about £240+) but think of the storage drives you could get for that money... I'm sure more drives in the RAID is better as it should perform faster anyway.

As you've already said, performance isn't going to exactly be demanded so look into a Highpoint - umm, 2410SA or similar (with more ports).

 

[smids]

Ooops - ignore this one.