Suggestions for internal 2TB+ HD setup

[Pajeh]

I have just bought a new server to use as a file server. Looking for ideas as to what would be the best HD's and setup to use. There are 4 SATA ports available to use.

I was thinking 4-5 750GB drives in RAID5.

May need a new raid card too.

 

[lopkinfop]

i'd go for 1Tb drives

 

[Vertigo]

750GB have the best price/capacity ratio right now plus you'd only lose 750GB in a RAID5 configuration. 1TB drives have the advantage of being a bit faster.

On balance I'd go for 750s as the slight speed advantage of the 1TB drives wouldn't make much difference in a decent RAID array.

You are going to hang these of a decent RAID card with hardware RAID5 support?

 

[Pajeh]

750GB have the best price/capacity ratio right now plus you'd only lose 750GB in a RAID5 configuration. 1TB drives have the advantage of being a bit faster.

On balance I'd go for 750s as the slight speed advantage of the 1TB drives wouldn't make much difference in a decent RAID array.

You are going to hang these of a decent RAID card with hardware RAID5 support?

I was planning to get a RAID card, how decent it will be I am not sure as I don't want to go much over £30 for it.

750s are £0.074/GB and 1TBs are £0.087/GB so a fairly big difference. Wonder what the energy consumption would be like for 4x1TB vs 5x750s.

 

[Vertigo]

Without hardware assistance a RAID5 array will be diabolically slow for writes which won't be much cop for a server I'm afraid.

Either get a decent hardware card (couple of hundred) or restrict yourself to RAID0 or 1 or a combination of both.