Raid Controller for 8 x 2TB drives
- Thread starter easyrider
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Raid for Resilience, Performance or both.
If you dont have backup of media, or you want/can afford redundancy in disk subsystem (to avoid have to rerip media in event of hdd failure) then go for a raid level that offers resilience.
Performance is a non issue as a single HDD will probably be a) fast enough for distribution of all media types b) faster than your transmission medium eg wireless c) fast enough for all ripping in the near future (i doubt a cpu can encode bluray at > 50mb per sec.). It would be a specialised user which need to move media around faster than 1 HDD could keep up..ie more than just storage and watch.
Raid for resilience, with least storage loss would therefore be 5 / 5 + hotspare / 5+ADG+hotpare (HP tech - can with stand 2 disk failures) and good monitoring / reporting in the event of failure + spare hdds to replace failed ones quickly.
However resilience in these storage amounts is going to be costly..because if you going to pay to withstand an hdd failure with raid..you going to want an offsite backup to withstand fire/complete disaster.. Best bet would be ensure a friend has a copy of all your media and not botther with raid..unless money is not crucial.
If you dont have backup of media, or you want/can afford redundancy in disk subsystem (to avoid have to rerip media in event of hdd failure) then go for a raid level that offers resilience.
Performance is a non issue as a single HDD will probably be a) fast enough for distribution of all media types b) faster than your transmission medium eg wireless c) fast enough for all ripping in the near future (i doubt a cpu can encode bluray at > 50mb per sec.). It would be a specialised user which need to move media around faster than 1 HDD could keep up..ie more than just storage and watch.
Raid for resilience, with least storage loss would therefore be 5 / 5 + hotspare / 5+ADG+hotpare (HP tech - can with stand 2 disk failures) and good monitoring / reporting in the event of failure + spare hdds to replace failed ones quickly.
However resilience in these storage amounts is going to be costly..because if you going to pay to withstand an hdd failure with raid..you going to want an offsite backup to withstand fire/complete disaster.. Best bet would be ensure a friend has a copy of all your media and not botther with raid..unless money is not crucial.
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I think it's over the top to have RAID5 / Hotspares at home. The setup would also cost a lot of dosh to do properly.
One thing to remember is most people who backup data, even at home, keep that data on a removable drive near there PC, fire / theft makes all that effort redundant so make sure you keep a copy off site as well if the data is irreplaceable.
So +1 for what last poster suggested
One thing to remember is most people who backup data, even at home, keep that data on a removable drive near there PC, fire / theft makes all that effort redundant so make sure you keep a copy off site as well if the data is irreplaceable.
So +1 for what last poster suggested
I had a six 200GB RAID5 array using SuSE to software RAID.
Flukester - most people don't have more than 100GB that they couldn't live without. I have seven years of document scans - that is what I backed up. The rest I could replace easily. My point is to agree with you - prioritise the data to what couldn't live without, what you can replace and what doesn't matter.
RAID5 can and will fail at some point. I know I lost my 1.2TB RAID5 array even with it being sat behind an UPS but only after about three years of service.
Flukester - most people don't have more than 100GB that they couldn't live without. I have seven years of document scans - that is what I backed up. The rest I could replace easily. My point is to agree with you - prioritise the data to what couldn't live without, what you can replace and what doesn't matter.
RAID5 can and will fail at some point. I know I lost my 1.2TB RAID5 array even with it being sat behind an UPS but only after about three years of service.
The problems that can be encountered with RAID5 are many, but the most compelling really has to be the cost of the controller for a large array. Software raid is fine, but very slow for writes, and there is the power consideration. Spinning up 8 drives everytime you want to listen to a 35 mb MP3 file or similar makes little sense.
I would either look at mirroring the drives, which cuts down on the available storage, but still makes finacial sense against a hardware controller, or taking the Windows Home Server route. WHS allows you to continue to add drives as your collection grows, via firewire, usb or internally, and gives you the ability to mirror important data, Star Trek, 24, Battstar Galatica, whilst leave other stuff unprotected, like Desperate Housewives etc. Best of both worlds really, and should you not wish to run a seperate 'server' system, you can always virtual pc it.
I would either look at mirroring the drives, which cuts down on the available storage, but still makes finacial sense against a hardware controller, or taking the Windows Home Server route. WHS allows you to continue to add drives as your collection grows, via firewire, usb or internally, and gives you the ability to mirror important data, Star Trek, 24, Battstar Galatica, whilst leave other stuff unprotected, like Desperate Housewives etc. Best of both worlds really, and should you not wish to run a seperate 'server' system, you can always virtual pc it.
I've ditched my RAID5 setup in favour of 2 pc's mirrored. I just use onboard RAID 0 in both PC's now.
I had a high-end controller, a pair of 4-in-3 sas caddies, a couple of 15krpm disks plus my data disks. The end result is a lot of heat and a lot of noise and for not much gain.
Yes the 15krpm disks were fast, but this was offset by the fact they were equalled by Velociraptors in a desktop environment and the raid controller added a minute to the bootup time.
RAID 5 performance was great for writes, but I'm more than happy with RAID 0 performance and not loosing a disk to parity. It's unlikely 2 RAID 0 arrays in 2 different PC's will die at the same time.
As an extra bonus, I'm also covered for any other parts failing as I can just carry on as normal on the 2nd pc until the main one is fixed. The only difference being my main one has the better graphics card.
I had a high-end controller, a pair of 4-in-3 sas caddies, a couple of 15krpm disks plus my data disks. The end result is a lot of heat and a lot of noise and for not much gain.
Yes the 15krpm disks were fast, but this was offset by the fact they were equalled by Velociraptors in a desktop environment and the raid controller added a minute to the bootup time.
RAID 5 performance was great for writes, but I'm more than happy with RAID 0 performance and not loosing a disk to parity. It's unlikely 2 RAID 0 arrays in 2 different PC's will die at the same time.
As an extra bonus, I'm also covered for any other parts failing as I can just carry on as normal on the 2nd pc until the main one is fixed. The only difference being my main one has the better graphics card.
8x2TB is going to be very costly and you will need a very good raid card if you are planning to have them all in the same array.
I would consider a WHS setup for your needs. You can buy the hardware for less than £200 (minus hard drives)
WHS is also very good for streaming files and for backups. You could hold all your data + backup in a single WHS without any real problems.
Plus you will not need specialised expensive hardware and performance will be very good
I would consider a WHS setup for your needs. You can buy the hardware for less than £200 (minus hard drives)
WHS is also very good for streaming files and for backups. You could hold all your data + backup in a single WHS without any real problems.
Plus you will not need specialised expensive hardware and performance will be very good
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I got a LSI Megaraid hardware raid controller (8 port) PCI-Ex4 off ebay for £80. Battery backup unit for £30. This is on my home server running Server 2003 though, not my main rig.
Pretty good value i think. I am only using 5 x 500GB Samsung Spinpoints in RAID5 but its very fast and rock solid reliable
the 2TB disks are extremely overpriced compared to the 1.5TB disks though
Ebay for an LSI, you wouldn't be disappointed
Pretty good value i think. I am only using 5 x 500GB Samsung Spinpoints in RAID5 but its very fast and rock solid reliable
the 2TB disks are extremely overpriced compared to the 1.5TB disks though
Ebay for an LSI, you wouldn't be disappointed
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If you decided on a WHS approach you would be able to do a number of things.
What i am personally doing is running a WHS which is running on a wireless 802.11n network. As i got my server box running in the next room where I can keep it cool and don't need to worry about the noise.
Since, it is attached via the network any PC in the house can access the files on it, and music and video files can be streamed directly from it. For HD videos you would want a good strong signal or to use wired Ethernet (you would plug the WHS directly into the router).
WHS, uses a technology called drive extender. Which is similar to RAID 0. You can choose which 'shares' you wish to duplicate and then those files are stored on a second hard drive. So if one hard drive fails you simply take out that hard drive and plug in a new one. No waiting for the drive to be rebuilt or with less performance (and rebuilding 8x2TB array would take a while I would imagine).
Lastly, unlike with raid you do not need the same hard drives or sizes. Say you can only afford 4x2TB and 2x1TB and 1 old 500gb hard drive. This would not be possible with RAID (afaik) but, works without issue in WHS. My only advice here is to install WHS to the biggest hard drive you got (do not worry it only takes up 20GB - not all of this is used)
WHS can also automatically backup any pc in the network and using its drive extender you can save a lot of hard disk space for your backups. For example, you have 2 PC's running windows XP. A normal backup would contain 2 Windows folders that are virtually the same, not to mention program files and other files/folders. WHS compares each and every file and if the file is already stored somewhere on WHS it just creates a 'shadow copy'. Which is basically a pointer file so hard disk space is saved.
The advantage of this is that not everything is duplicated. Only 1 copy of each file is stored and with your own files you can choose what is duplicated.
If the WHS drive itself fails then nps, just put in a new drive, rerun WHS setup and all your files are still there (your whs settings will need to be configured again but - you can always back the WHS database up.)
With respects to media sharing. I am using a free plugin for WHS called My Movies. If you have seen vista media centre you should understand what this does. It automatically scans your movies and puts them into a central database, I have 400 films on my WHS and it automatically identified 356, the others I had to manually add). Then any pc running media center (2005 or vista or the new windows 7) will get the proper library overview, with covers, actors etc.
This is really quick to do and works great. I can stream files easily to my tv downstairs or my laptop upstairs.
You can install an itunes server on it for your music collection too.
If you have not already ripped your music/videos to the hard drive you can do this automatically too, just needing to change over the dvd's/cd's when needed.
I decided on WHS because I have heard of raid arrays failing, raid card dying or raid arrays taking days (literally) to rebuild. You do not have any of these problems with a WHS setup. The only negative thing I can think of is that since you will probably be building a custom WHS hardware (if you do please ask about as there is some great intel atom hardware that is perfect for a WHS setup) is that you will in essence need a second small HTPC. As you will need something to actually stream the files from the WHS and play them on your TV. However, this can be a very small HTPC (unlike one that is needed to house 8+ HDD) as it will only need 1 HDD for the O/S.
This is preferable to me as you do not have a big ugly box, with big loud fans (to cool 8 HDD) in your cinema room.
In short I could not be happier with my setup. I have all my files stored securely on one central server that is very easy to administrate and the data is backed up securely.
What i am personally doing is running a WHS which is running on a wireless 802.11n network. As i got my server box running in the next room where I can keep it cool and don't need to worry about the noise.
Since, it is attached via the network any PC in the house can access the files on it, and music and video files can be streamed directly from it. For HD videos you would want a good strong signal or to use wired Ethernet (you would plug the WHS directly into the router).
WHS, uses a technology called drive extender. Which is similar to RAID 0. You can choose which 'shares' you wish to duplicate and then those files are stored on a second hard drive. So if one hard drive fails you simply take out that hard drive and plug in a new one. No waiting for the drive to be rebuilt or with less performance (and rebuilding 8x2TB array would take a while I would imagine).
Lastly, unlike with raid you do not need the same hard drives or sizes. Say you can only afford 4x2TB and 2x1TB and 1 old 500gb hard drive. This would not be possible with RAID (afaik) but, works without issue in WHS. My only advice here is to install WHS to the biggest hard drive you got (do not worry it only takes up 20GB - not all of this is used)
WHS can also automatically backup any pc in the network and using its drive extender you can save a lot of hard disk space for your backups. For example, you have 2 PC's running windows XP. A normal backup would contain 2 Windows folders that are virtually the same, not to mention program files and other files/folders. WHS compares each and every file and if the file is already stored somewhere on WHS it just creates a 'shadow copy'. Which is basically a pointer file so hard disk space is saved.
The advantage of this is that not everything is duplicated. Only 1 copy of each file is stored and with your own files you can choose what is duplicated.
If the WHS drive itself fails then nps, just put in a new drive, rerun WHS setup and all your files are still there (your whs settings will need to be configured again but - you can always back the WHS database up.)
With respects to media sharing. I am using a free plugin for WHS called My Movies. If you have seen vista media centre you should understand what this does. It automatically scans your movies and puts them into a central database, I have 400 films on my WHS and it automatically identified 356, the others I had to manually add). Then any pc running media center (2005 or vista or the new windows 7) will get the proper library overview, with covers, actors etc.
This is really quick to do and works great. I can stream files easily to my tv downstairs or my laptop upstairs.
You can install an itunes server on it for your music collection too.
If you have not already ripped your music/videos to the hard drive you can do this automatically too, just needing to change over the dvd's/cd's when needed.
I decided on WHS because I have heard of raid arrays failing, raid card dying or raid arrays taking days (literally) to rebuild. You do not have any of these problems with a WHS setup. The only negative thing I can think of is that since you will probably be building a custom WHS hardware (if you do please ask about as there is some great intel atom hardware that is perfect for a WHS setup) is that you will in essence need a second small HTPC. As you will need something to actually stream the files from the WHS and play them on your TV. However, this can be a very small HTPC (unlike one that is needed to house 8+ HDD) as it will only need 1 HDD for the O/S.
This is preferable to me as you do not have a big ugly box, with big loud fans (to cool 8 HDD) in your cinema room.
In short I could not be happier with my setup. I have all my files stored securely on one central server that is very easy to administrate and the data is backed up securely.
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Soldato
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What happens if the OS becomes corrupt ? is all data still held ?
I know nothing of WHS
Bry said:
Basically if WHS drive becomes corrupted or fails. You simply remove that drive. Put in a new working HDD and rerun WHS setup. Once installed it will automatically find your old shares. No data is lost bar the WHS install itself. You will ofcourse lose files on the non O/S partition if you have no told it to be duplicated (as you would have no backup).
The only thing you would lose is the non default WHS settings. But, these can ofcourse be backed up to one of the other drives
But, there is no risk of losing any of the data on the other drives.
Even tho I have raid5 running if you're going to be using as a "home server" keeping all you movies music on one pc so other pc's on your network can access them, single drivers in a non-raid is fine as someone posted above, no point spinning up 3-5 drives when you need a 5mb file.
Maybe have a raid1 of important stuff 2x 500gb more than enough and if you spread your media over let's say 10 drivers even if you have a fail you not going to lose much. I've had I would say easily over 250 hdds in the last 10 years and have had only 5 fail over that time, so sometimes all the raid stuff can be overkill for home use. Yeah yeah don't look at my sig I'm crazy.
Maybe have a raid1 of important stuff 2x 500gb more than enough and if you spread your media over let's say 10 drivers even if you have a fail you not going to lose much. I've had I would say easily over 250 hdds in the last 10 years and have had only 5 fail over that time, so sometimes all the raid stuff can be overkill for home use. Yeah yeah don't look at my sig I'm crazy.
Both WHS and Raid will cover you in that eventually. raid 5 will cover you if one drive fails. But, if more than one drive fails you lose everything on all HDD
WHS will cover you if one drive fails. If more than 2 Drives fail, you lose 1 hard drives worth
WHS will cover you if one drive fails. If more than 2 Drives fail, you lose 1 hard drives worth