Spec Me: A Network Storage Solution

[Freakish_05]

Hi Everyone,

I need a network storage solution which has redundancy. In my mind that means Raid 5.
At the moment I'm currently running a Vostro 200 as a file server (amongst other things) with the following drives:

• 1x 320gb
• 1x 500gb
• 1x 1tb

As you can see, there's no redundancy there and I've always had this niggle in the back of my mind going 'If one of those drives fails, you're screwed'. Hence the reason for this post.
The requirements for whatever solution I end up with are:

• Must be relatively quiet - I live in a house and don't want to be kept awake
• Must be expandable i.e. I don't want to reach capacity in 6 months and think 'damn where do I put my next drive?'
• Energy use is a factor, but not a necessarily big one

I've looked at NAS drives, specifically the Qnap TS-509 which I could cram 5x 1tb drives in and have 4tb of redundant storage. My two concerns with this are: 1 - What happens when I need a 6th drive? (I have to fork out for a new nas) and 2 - For £600 I could put a pretty nice raid card in a system inside a lian li PC-343 which could hold up to 18 removable hard drive caddy's although that case is probably a bit overkill, just for a glorified nas!
The other option which I'm considering is getting hold of an enterprise storage solution, I'm talking Dell PowerVault now.

All replies greatly appreciated,
Freakish_05

 

[Skidilliplop]

Well those drives are all different sizes so you can't RAID those for redundancy, you will need to buy matching ones.
Personally i'd use any old PC case with a fair few drive slots and a cheap motherboard with an ICH8 or higher chipset. RAID5 isn't included in the ICH8R i don't think but if you ran something like FreeNAS on the box then that'd do the RAID for you. You can get some cheap P35/p43 boards now. Freenas also can present as iSCSI so you can use your existing Vostro as a front and add the NAS box to it as an iSCSI drive then share it. Expandable as you can put more sata hosts in or make another FreeNAS box and add another iSCSI drive.

 

[Freakish_05]

Thanks for the reply Skidilliplop

FreeNAS looks decent, my only concern is that its software raid. Is that different from 'standard' NAS drives? Also, if the FreeNAS O/S gets corrupted, I lose the array for good! Unless, of course, FreeNAS has proven to be a rock solid product.

Freakish_05

 

[Bry]

Take a look at the Tranquil Barebones2 server. I have just ordered one myself and although you need to install WHS on it it beats Qnap 509 hands down

 

[Zarf]

Grab a dell Perc 5/i from a popular online auction site for between £20-£80 you'll need a SAS to 4xSATA expander cable, which is another £15 or so.

Enterprise class hardware RAID on the cheap.