Seagate Vs. Samsung + RAID Questions

Valo · 11 Jun 2007 at 19:55

I thought I had settled on the components I was going to buy to build my new W2K3 R2 Fileserver, but I need some final questions answered.

My original spec I was to go with 4x 500GB Samsung SpinPoint hard disks as they're fast and quiet, I'm using one in my media centre and I'm impressed. However I'm now tempted by the Seagate 500GB 7200.10 almost the same cost but they come with the 5yr warranty (could come in handy and save some cash in the future

) However the motor situation on those drives has me slightly worried as I want this build to be as quiet as possible.

Your thoughts?

I'm planning on using an Nforce 4 based motherboard, Asus A8N VM-CSM which I've got spare which has a RAID Controller on board to run the 4x 500GB disks in RAID5 now my question is am I wasting my time with the onboard controller, should I buy a proper PCI-E card Raid card like the Highpoint Rocket Raid 2310?

Any pointers would be great!

Valo · 12 Jun 2007 at 11:27

Yikes!

That could put a spanner in the works. I'm only planning to use RAID5 for redundant storage of music, video and photos to stream to my Desktop PC and Media Centre over GB ethernet. Will the performance be that dreadful using the onboard controller or even the highpoint card? The boot disk will be totally seperate.

What your views on the hard drive situation?

Cheers

Valo · 12 Jun 2007 at 12:24

rpstewart said:
If you're only using the RAID5 for storage then certainly the RR card will be fine (use an 8 pot one myself) and the onboard might be tolerable. In either case the reads will be good, RAID5 only needs XOR support for reads if one drive has failed. If you're not using the machine for any real work then I'd be tempted to go with the onboard solution to start with, you can always chuck a card in if it's too slow although this will mean reloading all the data onto the array.

Cheers for that rpstewart! You just saved me from having a heart attack at the prices of the raid cards above

What's your take on my hard drive situation?

Valo · 12 Jun 2007 at 14:14

rpstewart said:
I wouldn't say the choice of disk is that vital if you're planning on accessing the content over a LAN, a four disk RAID5 array of any half decent HDD will easily outpace gigabit ethernet. If you've had a good experience so far with Samsung then there's no real reason to look elsewhere.

You sir are a gent!

Cheers