dino213aa

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I don't see where this has an eSATA output, so I'd end up using my last slot for a sata-to-esata bracket... plus, considering it's mainly serving up music files, I'm still left doubting it's really worth it. I mean, I don't doubt that hardware RAID is the way to go, but for what I'm doing, I'm not sure it's really worth it to race out and get a new motherboard and a hardware RAID controller and go through all that work (and time) just to save a few CPU cycles on writes... especially since I'm not doing much "writing" anyways. Just trying to weigh cost vs benefit and not let my geekiness get in the way of practicality.

I've only been turning the drives off if I turn the CPU off (or if I leave the CPU in an extended sleep mode)... no point in leaving them on if the PC isn't even on, eh? As cool as I think true hardware raid would be, I think I'm probably doing fine the way I am... just too many hurdles to deal with for not enough benefit. As for slowdown, you're right.. I think I only notice overall slowdown when I'm accessing the array. Then again, I'm also usually multitasking (resampling, playing audio, writing to another drive, etc.- all at once) which may have something to do with it Overall, I feel like I came up with a decent solution. May not be perfect or the very best, but I did achieve my basic goals of expanded storage and fault tolerance.

Umm.. I'm using this now and it works great... plus I have fault tolerance. So I guess RAID really is doing squat for me.

The PCI part is the real bummer. All I have left is a standard PCI slot and a single lane PCIe. It's slim pickins on 1x PCIe cards, and I was unable to find a 1x PCIe, true hardware raid, raid 5 card that supports over 2TB. I suspect that doesn't exist. If there's something I'm missing, please someone let me know. Until then, here's the setup I went with: 5x500gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drives Silicon Image SiI3124 4-port card standard no name 5-bay hotswap enclosure. For what I'm using it for (media storage) it seems to be just fine. I have noticed some slowdown in CPU performance, but nothing drastic. Here's another question: Is there any harm in turning off the drives/enclosure when I'm not using it? Also, should turning off the drive restore some of the CPU performance? Thanks everyone for all your help! dino213aa

I think that was made already clear enough, about the redundancy thing. Mirroring and such doesn't count as "backups" though. Like he said before, speed is largely irrelevant for this setup. RAID 6 would also be a better pick than 10 here. RAID 10 being more expensive? For sure! RAID 5 requiring a more expensive controller? Only if you're going the hardware RAID way, which he isn't, so it's NOT the case. So it's more like RAID 10: 8x500 GB + cheap controller card = ~300$ more, counting HDs alone RAID 5: 5x500 GB + cheap controller card 500's aren't too bad. Considering the extra power more drives will use, you eventually pay the difference (and often more) in electricity (in AC too). More drives also mean a beefier PSU, or dual PSUs, and a larger case and more ventilation overall, and perhaps more controller cards for the extra ports if required (further negating the price advantage). And filling up a large case so quickly with smaller drives means less room to upgrade down the road, without throwing the old drives away (kind of like buying 512MB sticks nowadays, then having to remove them to upgrade to 1GB sticks later...) There's always a fine line between getting the absolute cheapest $/GB and being stuck with countless small drives (which use power and create heat). 750GB and 1TB drives are too expensive though. If 1.5TB will do for now, it's likely the best option (just add more cheap drives later) This is already supposed to be the backup. I'm no big fan of backuping backups. And Blu-Ray / HD DVD burners cost an arm and a leg, and so does the media. External HDs are far cheaper and are faster, and require no 1000$ drive (that nobody has yet) to work. Personally, I keep a cheap external hard drive at my dad's place (a few 100 KMs away) just in case the place burns down or something. One can just reuse and old drive with a total cost of 0$. Hey, I ended up ordering a 5 bay enclosure, a PCI eSATA controller that handles RAID 5, 5x500gb Seagate Barricuda 7200.10 drives. Once everything gets here we'll see how it goes.

Well, basically what I want to use this for is music, and more specifically for a hifi audio. The way I see it, in about two years I've maxed out my 500gb drive with about ~40,000 tracks of lossless audio (FLAC files). Since I have a big ole tax return coming, I'd like to not only upgrade my storage, but have some sort of safeguard against data loss. It also seems to me that it doesn't take a whole lot of performance or speed to load audio files... hence the reason I was considering the Buffalo NAS. I set the 2tb goal just because it seemed like that would tide me over for a while. I'm not really dead set on any one configuration, but whatever it is, I would prefer it put less load on my CPU. That's why the hardware RAID controller sounds attractive. I can't really decide on the best setup, but all of the input here has been really helpful.

I heard somewhere that hardware controlled raid is better than software controlled. Is that true? If so, would that mean 4x750gb is a better option, even though it might cost more $/gb? I don't think I really care whether I use 4 or 5 drives... the number is not as important to me as properly implementing it. So basically I'm looking at a case of my choosing (maybe that CM Stacker- there's one with a $50 bid on Ebay), 4x750 drives (at about $250 - $350 each), a PSU (should be around $100 - $150), and a RAID card (about $50). So if I play my cards right... the low end is about $1250 total and the high-end would be around $1600. Does that sound about right? Does the Sabrent controller handle 4x750gb?

It entirely depends on how many drives you're going to use (4x500 for 2TB?), and how much expandability you want (will you want to add more HDs to that box sometime?). Recommendations for a 4 drive or a 12 drive setup will be very different, especially for the case and PSU. With just 4 drives you can use just about anything, but as you add more drives you need more drive bays, more cooling, more power and all. I guess I had in mind a 4 drive setup, but I'm open to a larger drive setup if that's what it takes. From what I've been reading, a 4 drive, 2tb (available) raid 5 isn't possible unless I use (I'm assuming) 750gig drives... which I guess is fine except I haven't seen any hardware that seems to actually support this. That being said, wouldn't I need more that 4 drives to achieve a true 2tb of available storage in raid 5? As for expandability, at this stage of the game I'm not concerned with that at all. Considering all of the additional cost and considerations, I'd rather just stick to a goal of 2tb, and accept that one day I may have to start from scratch. I can live with that. Does this help narrow it down any?

Hey DL, thanks for you help. So basically I need a budget-minded shopping list to set this up.. including a PSU. 1) Any controller would have to be standard PCI since my express slot is already taken. 2) Since it's just a media server, the drives don't need to be hot-swappable. Any help would be great.. I'm clueless.

So a CM Stacker, seagate drives, and a sabrent controller would do the trick? Anything else I'm missing on my shopping list?

Crahak, thanks so much for your help. One more question: what should I use for a case? What drives should I use? Can you recommend any brands/models for those?

Hey crahak, thanks for your help. I saw the other thread you provided the link for, but the original poster seems to have more constraints than I do. I agree that tape seems expensive and time-consuming. Since I'd be mainly using this storage for media files (especially lossless audio), I'm not too terribly concerned with speed. I'm just realizing that with my ever-burgeoning multimedia collection, I'm going to need not only something larger than the 500gig internal drive I have now, but something that can protect all of this data. Still, knowing exactly what hardware I need is the big question. I don't have a PCI Express slot available just a reguler PCI, so is there a way around that?

Hey, I'm looking for a way to establish 2tb of hard disk storage that I can also backup. I know there are some RAID solutions that would work, but what is the best configuration or hardware to implement this? I was looking at the 2tb Buffalo Terastation Pro, but under "mirrored" mode that would be 1tb instead of 2. Or would I just leave it on the factory default (RAID 5) and keep a spare HD handy? I also have no objection to tape- time is not a factor here. What's the best way to go about this?