Server/General PC Hybrid???

[mitrepooc]

Seeing as my PC is on almost 24/7 & me needing a some seriously large disc space, would it not be feasible to build a general pc coupled with say a hardware RAID card, a bunch-o-discs, & Windows (whatever flavour) all chucked into a full tower to serve files & general computer duties including some light gaming etc.

Has anyone done/got this & has any advice as to the pitfalls etc i'm especially interested in the noise of such a beast as it's housed in my office/cinema.

Or would i just be better off with a NAS?

Any help chappies greatly app'd

[Will404]

I would go NAS, as the other way will use alot more power, and be more money

[chilled]

24/7? Get a NAS / dedicated server.

Your plan could make sense if you were to turn off this machine for significant periods of the day. I do this, but its a fair amount of hassle integrating the two (setup + running) as RAID requires some maintenance every so often and things sometimes go wrong.

[alsenior]

you can combine the 2 but you have to consider that to put in amy seriious amounts of disks you would need at least a 8 port decent controller. this would probably mean you go for a hardware controller in which case your looking at £200 just for the controller. than the disc on top of that plus you would need a case with good airflow as modern raid controller put out a fair amount of heat then there is disc consideration. again modern drives are capable of putting out a fair amount of heat also most sata drives are not made for raid usage and can have compatability problems with some controllers. the best bet is to use drives like the Western digital RE2 series drives or Seagate ES series drives these usually carry a £30 premium on the counterparts of the same speed and size

if you want to do it the performance though would be good though i would recommend getting a decent nas like a Thecus and they are lower power and basically made for the job.

[mitrepooc]

Thanks for the relies chaps :0)

I've just filled yet another 750gig external HDD this makes it 2 with a third needed i also have a 2 320gig HDD's again full plus the the two 120gig (Raid 0) & the 200gig backup drive in my main machine i'd say my power requirements are out of the window.
Buying a ready made NAS makes sense however you still have to factor in the hard drives, & my calculations indicate i could buy a hardware raid card & the HDD's for almost the cost of a Thecus NAS box (N5200B PRO).
With regards to maintaining the array: I thought that by buying a hardware raid solution it would make the array more reliable??? am i missing something??? i also thought that most of the SOHO NAS boxes had software raid (i stand to be corrected here).
If i were to get the Thecus which model should i buy, i quite like the N5200BR PRO
But £776.49 + the discs........
Thanks again for the input.

[shbris]

how important is your data?

[mitrepooc]

how important is your data?

Hi Matey,
Important....why? what's your thinking??

[shbris]

just thinking whether you should do a JBOD setup or raid 1 with a load of new disks. JBOD would be cheaper but if ur data is important better leave JBOD alone. how much you looking to spend?