1 Terabyte Storage RAID Server - How?

[rory1984]

Hi,

I'm currently full of data, with almost no room left. I've gone down the external hard drive route, which seems to have been a mistake. I should have, long ago, just invested in a separate computer to fill with mirrored (RAID1?) drives...

So, now I've had it. I want to build myself a machine that just sits whirring away with the vast bulk of my data on. The question is: how do I do it on the cheap?

Basic requirements:
- Processor: fast enough to make sure the data flows when I want it;
- Storage: expandable to up to 1TB of mirroed space (i.e. 2 tb).
- Cheapo video (but capable of driving a 1600x1200 flat panel)
- no monitor needed (Got one already)
- no keyboard, no mouse.
- no cd/dvd drive.

So, does anyone have any pointers for a case, motherboard and processor combination that would give me a nice cheap barebones RAID-capable machine with LOTS of room for hard drives?

Hope you guys can help

thanks,

Rory

[nvening]

can i suggest the cooler master stacker for the case as you will need LOTS of HDD room

[nvening]

Cooler master stacker for the case as it has alot of room for hdds, u could prob run this as a media server as well and use all ur LEAGLE music and video sored on it aroung you house. But im no expert.

[directhex]

a coolermaster stacker is a reasonable case.

what you ACTUALLY need:

* sensible -HARDWARE- RAID5 SATAcontroller, e.g. 3Ware 9000-series
* Low-end CPU (e.g. 1.3ghz athlon)
* Decent ethernet card (3com, intel)
* Some reasonable disks. For RAID5, you need N disks to use N-1 disks' worth of data, so get whatever size is appropriate for your needs, given the capacity of your controller

[Dougal]

In addition to directhex

A good motherboard is one of those mini atx all in one, with the cpu, graphics lan etc... built in.

Thats what the Wayback machine (AKA internet archive) use to get 1 petabyte of storage, all very low power.

[TooNice]

Last I checked, 250GB is probably the most efficient size in terms of GB/££. Although the same cannot be said about the number of disks you would need to store 2TB worth of data.

[SHISH]

Raid5 needs a minimum of 3 drives.
Highpoint do a good 8 channel SATA which does almost all the raid levels including 0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10, and jbod (spanning).
I still use their ATA 454 cards (4 channels raid5) and it`s paid for itself twice with a dead drive in 2 arrays of 4 disks each and no loss of data.
For a fileserver, mostly any cheap or old MB and cpu above a Ghz will do along with (preferably) gigabit network card (quite cheap ones around now) and favourites in the low power section are the Via Epia which can be run virtually fanless.
I stream video etc from mine as well as tv and dvd from a central server to all the house.

[directhex]

Raid5 needs a minimum of 3 drives.
Highpoint do a good 8 channel SATA which does almost all the raid levels including 0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10, and jbod (spanning).
I still use their ATA 454 cards (4 channels raid5) and it`s paid for itself twice with a dead drive in 2 arrays of 4 disks each and no loss of data.
For a fileserver, mostly any cheap or old MB and cpu above a Ghz will do along with (preferably) gigabit network card (quite cheap ones around now) and favourites in the low power section are the Via Epia which can be run virtually fanless.
I stream video etc from mine as well as tv and dvd from a central server to all the house.

you're NOT gonna get performance with a software raid card like a highpoint

[StoneNewt]

So, now I've had it. I want to build myself a machine that just sits whirring away with the vast bulk of my data on. The question is: how do I do it on the cheap?

This is a solution based on what we do at work but with lower spec components, the only downside is no hot-swap and <40MB/s writes, the important bit being reads for me are network (gigabit) limited
Intel SE7210TP1-E (or ES, which adds SCSI to the equation)
Celeron 2.6GHz or any Celeron D
1GB PC2700 or more/faster
HPT1820
1x system drive
8x 250GB HDD (1.6TB in RAID5)
>500w EPS*
Coolermaster Stacker with 3HDD bays

The TP1-E isn't overly cheap but these days it's not overly expensive either and being honest after the money you're throwing at the drives the extra 30~70£ isn't going to be noticed that much. Also the TP1-E is based on a dual Xeon system (hence the EPS requirement) so is tough as old boots.

*note: a normal 24pin PSU ISN'T good enough, this mobo REQUIRES 24pin ATX connector & 8pin 12v connector. Also with a 460w PSU I was having problems at startup even with staggered drives so migrated to a 550w FSP

[arthurleung]

What you need is:
Coolermaster Stacker
Any Cheapo A64/P4 motherboard with SLI
Any Athlon 64/Celeron CPU
512MB Ram
Areca ARC-1220 or ARC-1230
12x300G HDD in RAID6 (3TB) or less, You can start with 5x300G RAID5, then expand as you go along.
Some hotswap cages if you need
500W+ enermax/Antec/PCP&C power supply

Use the 16X slot for RAID adapter
Use the PCI slot for Video (Something like Rage XL or Rage Pro is good enough, or if you want better display, G550 PCI or PCIe 1x)
If the motherboard doesn't have onboard Gigabit Ethernet, or you want more, buy a GigE card using PCIe 1x.

When fully loaded to 12x300G, you can max out your GbE / Dual GbE easily.

[dgr]

a coolermaster stacker is a reasonable case.

what you ACTUALLY need:

* sensible -HARDWARE- RAID5 SATAcontroller, e.g. 3Ware 9000-series
* Low-end CPU (e.g. 1.3ghz athlon)
* Decent ethernet card (3com, intel)
* Some reasonable disks. For RAID5, you need N disks to use N-1 disks' worth of data, so get whatever size is appropriate for your needs, given the capacity of your controller

you're NOT gonna get performance with a software raid card like a highpoint

i agree with most of this...

but don't go down the raid5 route. it'll be an arse. and if you have more than a few drives, it'll kill your performance. disks are so cheap you might as well just go for raid1. much easier if stuff breaks.

though my personal oppinion is that you're much more likely to lose data through accident than hard disk failure. that and don't forget that raid isn't a backup measure - you'll still lose all your data is your controller goes, or your psu blows, etc.

IMO you'd be better to build two 1TB systems. this'll save you from actually having to buy controller cards; most motherboards now support at least 4 drives on independent controllers (the p4c800 i'm getting has support for 3 IDE and 4 SATA).

then setup a syncing mechanism. wouldn't be a bad idea to actually put a bit more space in one; then only add to that (no overwrite, no delete). so you won't lose anything if you accidently delete stuff.

let's face it, no one has the patience to backup to dvd and tape is both hellishly expensive and slow.

[arthurleung]

i agree with most of this...

but don't go down the raid5 route. it'll be an arse. and if you have more than a few drives, it'll kill your performance. disks are so cheap you might as well just go for raid1. much easier if stuff breaks.

though my personal oppinion is that you're much more likely to lose data through accident than hard disk failure. that and don't forget that raid isn't a backup measure - you'll still lose all your data is your controller goes, or your psu blows, etc.

IMO you'd be better to build two 1TB systems. this'll save you from actually having to buy controller cards; most motherboards now support at least 4 drives on independent controllers (the p4c800 i'm getting has support for 3 IDE and 4 SATA).

then setup a syncing mechanism. wouldn't be a bad idea to actually put a bit more space in one; then only add to that (no overwrite, no delete). so you won't lose anything if you accidently delete stuff.

let's face it, no one has the patience to backup to dvd and tape is both hellishly expensive and slow.

Using two system is actually a pretty good idea. May be the system turn on once in midnight just to backup data, then shut down to save electricity and reduce risk of failure.

[rory1984]

Hey guys,

thanks so much for your thoughts so far on all of this.

I'm particularly intrigued at the idea of having 2 systems... will have a further think about that!

As for RAID, I am inclined to go down the RAID1 route (if I do RAID), as I have used it in the past, and therefore feel comfortable with it...

Will keep you posted on what I finally settle on - and please *do* keep posting further thoughts/ideas/suggestions!!

Rory

[directhex]

RAID1 isn't the best idea for any proper system - RAID5 wastes less space, gives better performance, and is more secure.

[dgr]

RAID1 isn't the best idea for any proper system - RAID5 wastes less space, gives better performance, and is more secure.

hex, you're bull****ting. The fact that RAID1 wastes more space is irrelevant; RAID5 will give poorer performance (google it) and what the hell "secure" means in this context I'm not too sure.

Besides which, RAID is irrelevant for this application, as I explained previously.

[Shorty]

hex, you're bull****ting. The fact that RAID1 wastes more space is irrelevant; RAID5 will give poorer performance (google it) and what the hell "secure" means in this context I'm not too sure.

Besides which, RAID is irrelevant for this application, as I explained previously.

Rubbish.

Take a look at any enterprise level solution offering NAS (network attached storage). For example...

http://www.overlandstorage.com/

RAID-5 or 10 is the expected and industry standard. For sure, Raid-1 the OS but the data array..? Please, you are kidding me.

Raid is completely relevant. He wants continously expanding storage while not giving 50% of his storage space every time. How do you expect anyone to have 2TB of storage with 50% in redundancy..? Are you out of your widget..?