Cheapest way to run like 16 hard drives at home?

[duckdown]

Hey all, I have been building a massive archive of HD content/TV archive ever since we got some media player devices, and I've already chrewed through like 4TB and it has become obvious I need alot more hard drives..

Problem is, most cases only fit like 8-10 drives at best...

Is there some kind of special "enclosure" that will hold like 16 hard drives? I plan to keep adding a new hard drive every so often until its full.. would be awesome to have that networked to my various XBMC devices throughout the house. I know about the RAID controller cards and all of that, but I'm more concerned about where the drives will physically SIT.

If anyone can show me the most cost effective solution (I know its not going to be cheap.. but can be in the hundreds rather than thousands (drives excluded)) then let me know

thanks in advance for any helP

[redzone]

um id just use 2 separate towers. you can build a FreeNAS / unRAID setup with just about any old computer so the cost would be minimal.

i think even server rack cases only hold 7 ish drives.

[redzone]

Or buy a bunch of drive cages

somethign like this

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1580897&CatId=340

and place them all next to the pc on a home built rack.

[Seiphas]

The cheapest solution is to not run 16 drives at home. At that price, factoring in power for an NAS and RAID cards, it would be cheaper to just upgrade to higher density drives every so often.

[SamInfinity]

Have you ever thought about using a docking station (http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=019554&cid=HDE.863) instead and have the drives on a shelf like a collection of books? That's the set-up I have and I find that it's ALMOST like popping in a DVD, except it's a HD. I find this set-up cheaper on power as you only have the one-drive running at a time rather than providing power to all of them.

[Seiphas]

Using a docking station provides no redundancy whatsoever. Not a good idea.

[BadDrafter]

How big are the drives?

I like the dock idea, I may adopt it rather than burning DVDs.


Using a docking station provides no redundancy whatsoever. Not a good idea.

Not if you don't keep a 2nd copy of every hard drive (which is what I do). I actually keep multiple copies in 2 cities. 2 in Calgary, 2 in Edmonton. I mirror the 2 in Edmonton daily with synctoy, but the 2 in Calgary due to time (and distance) constraints I back up every 6 months.

[TheFuteballer]

http://www.sun.com/storage/disk_systems/workgroup/2510/index.xml

:cheesygri "Simple, Reliable, Affordable"

Price tag: $6,600

[deep]

I built a nice unRAID server in one of these:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219021
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/11-219-021-04.jpg

If you want the complete specs, I can write it up, but basically it's an AM2 system with a couple gigs of RAM....quite cheap except for the controllers and drives.

[Seiphas]

Not if you don't keep a 2nd copy of every hard drive (which is what I do). I actually keep multiple copies in 2 cities. 2 in Calgary, 2 in Edmonton. I mirror the 2 in Edmonton daily with synctoy, but the 2 in Calgary due to time (and distance) constraints I back up every 6 months.

Anyone preparing to run 16 hard drives isn't going to be able to keep backups. Assuming 16x500GB drives, that's 8TB, or a MINIMUM of 5 months on a DSL connection (assuming no cap). Factor in the cost of drives at ($56 x 16) for the second set, and you're looking at an extra $1012 dollars, after taxes. Nobody has the money to have a second set up running like that, especially for movies.

[SLX4]

i agree on the docking station. for myself, i find that i like to archive a lot of tv shows and movies. however, i barely watch it unless something strikes the mood for it. this is definitely a better choice over dvds where one disc can't even contain a 720p movie, let alone a 1080p movie without splitting it.

edit @ deep's post: that's not a bad choice at all if you want to have all 16 of your hard drives readily accessible. Its more expensive than the docking solution but u might find it worthwhile

[edgedamage]

Canada Computers has the BLACX for 29.99 this week. I got two because I swap drives alot. The "54" box a is a old Medea 6 IDE to SCSI 150GB raid. My work was going to toss it out and I saved it. I removed the dead controller board and installed a 2X1 eSATA / USB 2.0 HPM from addonics:
http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/ad2sahpmeu.asp
I have two 500GB segates in raid 0
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j235/edgedamage/DSC00102-1.jpg
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j235/edgedamage/medea.jpg

[Seiphas]

Are those hooked up through eSATA, or USB?

Also, nobody in their right mind would use RAID0 for data storage. If you're doing that, you sir, are a fool.

[edgedamage]

Are those hooked up through eSATA, or USB?

Also, nobody in their right mind would use RAID0 for data storage. If you're doing that, you sir, are a fool.
Only a fool would not capture and encode to RAID 0. They are all connected to eSATA.
Thanks to these guys I love RAID 0:
http://www.avid.com/medea.asp
http://www.quantel.com/
http://www.inlethd.com/
http://www.digital-rapids.com/
http://www.drastictech.com/
These are the toys at my work.

[edgedamage]

I built a nice unRAID server in one of these:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219021
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/11-219-021-04.jpg

If you want the complete specs, I can write it up, but basically it's an AM2 system with a couple gigs of RAM....quite cheap except for the controllers and drives.

Oh god 4 5X1 RAID HPM's to have more than one flavor of RAID storage drool.
http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/AD5HPMSXA.asp

[CSAgent]

:cheesygri "Simple, Reliable, Affordable"

Price tag: $6,600

For a corporation, $6,600 is pennies.

When I worked at one of the major distributors for Sun, it wasn't uncommon for a client to order 3-4 of these in one order. Sometimes more.

[deep]

For a corporation, $6,600 is pennies.

When I worked at one of the major distributors for Sun, it wasn't uncommon for a client to order 3-4 of these in one order. Sometimes more.
Exactly. Enterprise storage is not cheap...every vendor has something in the multi-hundreds of thousands of $ range - VMax, DMX, XP24000, Eternus.

I build 4-15TB servers for friends of mine, but in one of my day jobs, I'm looking at products in the dozens to hundreds of TB range. Those who need it, will pay for it.

[pitz]

:cheesygri "Simple, Reliable, Affordable"

Price tag: $6,600

$7k is *nothing* for something like that...

Geez.. you must be young :). Do you actually want a good paying job when you graduate (CompE, I understand)?? If so, then computer prices need to be high enough to pay people like you the big bucks...

[duckdown]

I built a nice unRAID server in one of these:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219021
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/11-219-021-04.jpg

If you want the complete specs, I can write it up, but basically it's an AM2 system with a couple gigs of RAM....quite cheap except for the controllers and drives.

now THAT looks good!

How massive is that box.. I don't actually have a rack installed here in my basement... trying to put in perspective how huge it is

[edgedamage]

Exactly. Enterprise storage is not cheap...every vendor has something in the multi-hundreds of thousands of $ range - VMax, DMX, XP24000, Eternus.

I build 4-15TB servers for friends of mine, but in one of my day jobs, I'm looking at products in the dozens to hundreds of TB range. Those who need it, will pay for it.

My day job also deals in massive storage arrays where fiber channel is the norm. When you need to capture and work with uncompressed 1080/23.98psf 444 HD video. You need enterprise level RAID arrays. I got my eye on some old medea videoRAID's that my work is thinking of tossing out.

[TheFuteballer]

For a corporation, $6,600 is pennies.

When I worked at one of the major distributors for Sun, it wasn't uncommon for a client to order 3-4 of these in one order. Sometimes more.


$7k is *nothing* for something like that...

Geez.. you must be young . Do you actually want a good paying job when you graduate (CompE, I understand)?? If so, then computer prices need to be high enough to pay people like you the big bucks...

I was trying to make a joke as this was recommended for an individual looking for something for their HTPC-ish system! Guess it wasn't a good one

[Hello-]

I looked into server racks before but my setup only has 4 hdd's for media storage (no raid) and even looking into the future a single tower case would be sufficient for my needs. The prices were far too expensive to justify. However, for 16 hdds it might be acceptable especially since it will have space for expansion and look a lot more tidy than having 2 individual tower cases or an array of various drive racks.

Looking at ~$500-600 for a small server rack 8-15u depending on your needs.
http://www.server-rack-online.com/

Then the rackmounted case for ~$350 from newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219034
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219033

All that's left is to build the actual rig inside the case with enough sata ports to accommodate 16-20 drives.

*Prices are in USD*

[Pete Jones]

Hey all, I have been building a massive archive of HD content/TV archive ever since we got some media player devices, and I've already chrewed through like 4TB and it has become obvious I need alot more hard drives..

Your problem is one of density. How big is your largest hard drive? You can build yourself an unRAID server today with 4.5TB of protected storage and it will only use 4 hard drives.

If you're willing to pay a premium, you can use 2TB hard drives and increase your density/storage capacity even further.

If you don't want the hassle of building a NAS, just use high-density hard drives and docking stations. Your smaller hard disks can still be used as a backup.

Ultimately though, your storage demands are probably going to shoot through the roof especially with HD content. You might want to consider going the unRAID route. Hopefully, storage density will keep up with your needs.

--Pete

[snider]

I agree. The Windows Home Server that I am building, the minimum size for each hard drive will be 750Gb. The old 500GB ones aren't worthy to be placed into the box so I'll be swapping those in and out of the BlacX or chucking them into enclosures for portable usage.

So I'll be housing 6 drives (2x1.5TB, 2X1TB, and 2X750gb) = 6.5 TB for 6 drives. As the pricepoint of the higer drives come down to reasonable price I'll be pulling the smaller drives out. Waiting for the 2TB drives to drop down to about $120ish before I upgrade again and yanking the 750's out of there.

[TruE SkiLLS]

now THAT looks good!

How massive is that box.. I don't actually have a rack installed here in my basement... trying to put in perspective how huge it is

It's exactly what it saids. 4U.
1U is about 2 inches tall? Its going to be heavy for sure though =P

[deep]

It's a little over 7 inches "thick", and over two feet deep. With nothing in it, it weighs about 40lbs. Full of drives, considerably more!

[asmielia]

It's a little over 7 inches "thick", and over two feet deep. With nothing in it, it weighs about 40lbs. Full of drives, considerably more!

Alright deep, how bout including those specs? We're all curious.

[deep]

Alright deep, how bout including those specs? We're all curious.
Not too much to the actual system, as I said above. UnRAID doesn't require much in the way of horsepower, so the specs below are even overkill...I've read about people running it on ancient boards with 512MB of RAM, etc etc. And I've run it on my old M10000 mini-ITX board which uses a gerbil as the CPU.

GA-MA780G-UD3H
AM2 5050e
4GB of DDR2 - Corsair or Mushkin, cannot remember.
750W Corsair PSU
2 x Promise TX4 PCI SATA controllers
12 1TB HDs (some WD, some Seagate)

When additional drives are needed, the next cards will have to be PCI-E, as this is not a full size board with 4 PCI slots. No big deal. Between the mobo and the two cards, you can manage 14 drives.

[asmielia]

Not too much to the actual system, as I said above. UnRAID doesn't require much in the way of horsepower, so the specs below are even overkill...I've read about people running it on ancient boards with 512MB of RAM, etc etc. And I've run it on my old M10000 mini-ITX board which uses a gerbil as the CPU.

GA-MA780G-UD3H
AM2 5050e
4GB of DDR2 - Corsair or Mushkin, cannot remember.
750W Corsair PSU
2 x Promise TX4 PCI SATA controllers
12 1TB HDs (some WD, some Seagate)

When additional drives are needed, the next cards will have to be PCI-E, as this is not a full size board with 4 PCI slots. No big deal. Between the mobo and the two cards, you can manage 14 drives.

Nice. So is that setup as two RAID 5 arrays?

[redzone]

he said hes using unRAID


http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/

[mwong168]

GA-MA780G-UD3H
AM2 5050e
4GB of DDR2 - Corsair or Mushkin, cannot remember.
750W Corsair PSU
2 x Promise TX4 PCI SATA controllers
12 1TB HDs (some WD, some Seagate)

When additional drives are needed, the next cards will have to be PCI-E, as this is not a full size board with 4 PCI slots. No big deal. Between the mobo and the two cards, you can manage 14 drives.

Very nice, using a very similar setup to yours except the case and one less Promise TX4. So I guess right now you are maxxed out on SATA ports because each Promise card has 4 and the mobo should have 4-5 ports.

Is 750W overkill for this setup? I'm just curious because I am only using 550W for mine which has 8 drives.

[deep]

The board actually has 6, so there are 2 remaining at this point.

750W hopefully gives me a bit of breathing room with the drives, as I could have up to 22 with 2 more 4-port PCI-E cards.

[Cybersid]

I actually have 22 HDD's (totalling 25TB)

I have 10x USB enclusures
I have 2x USB Docking stations
1 Acer Inspire Server
1 Homemade Server (Old rig q6600)
1 Main Rig
5 Laptops

Now that rackmount is looking real good, thanks for the lowdown!

[duckdown]

I reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally want to see that case deep is using in person.. I wish there was a place to buy this in the GTA

so tempting.

@Cybersid: 25TB would be soooooooo nice.. I'm approaching 10 probably and it isn't enough.. it sure is amazing browsing the library though, especially in XBMC :D

[duckdown]

deep: where did you buy that? and how much did it cost, everything included... tax, shipping, everything

if you bought it online, the shipping and handling must be like some crazy freight charge i would think... i would love to get the full number

cheers

[fitbrit]

Deep is using unRAID: Here's a thread I started in Jan 2008 on unRAID. (http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=553514&highlight=unraid)

Here's a thread on AVS forum (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1110689&highlight=4020) that has lots of pics of the Norco 4020.

There's now a better case, the 4220, but it's not available at Newegg.ca, only newegg.com (last time I checked); the 4220 has a better fan assembly and better integrated backplanes for easier disk installation.

The Coolermaster Centurion 590 is a good, cheap alternative- it'll house up to 15 drives with expensive 5-in-3 modules, or 12 with cheap 4-in-3 units. I use the latter, and have a Sans Digital TR4 eSATA (4 bay) breakout box, for a total of 16 drives with unRAID. THe next version of unRAID will stably support up to 20 drives, so I may trade in the TR4 for a TR8, 8-bay enclosure. If I had to do it again, I'd probably get a Norco 4020 or 4220.... or TWO Centurion 590s and a couple of those Addonics units someone linked to above. BUild the server in one case, and use the other case as a break out box for additional drives.

Finally an Antec 1200 can theoretically house 20 drives with four 5-in-3 backplane devices. The cheapest way to run so many drives is to get a mobo with 8 - 10 SATA ports, then add PCIe x1 4-port cards; you might be able to use the 16x PCIe slot for one of these controllers - especially if you have onboard video.

EDIT: the 4220 is now available at Newegg.ca!!

[fitbrit]

deep: where did you buy that? and how much did it cost, everything included... tax, shipping, everything

if you bought it online, the shipping and handling must be like some crazy freight charge i would think... i would love to get the full number

cheers

For a long time, the 4020 was a free shipping item at newegg.ca.

[deep]

For a long time, the 4020 was a free shipping item at newegg.ca.
That's correct - it's something like $70 to ship it now, but for a long time it was free. Great case if you need some space, I'm sure the 4220 is even better.

[jetway1212]

For a long time, the 4020 was a free shipping item at newegg.ca.

The only difference between the 4020 and 4220 is the rotation of the backplane. The newer one has the backplane mounted horizontally. This improves the air flow tremendously.

Your previous post made it sounds like the old one doesnt have backplane, lol. Whats the point of having hotswap cage with no backplane? :lol:

[jetway1212]

Very nice, using a very similar setup to yours except the case and one less Promise TX4. So I guess right now you are maxxed out on SATA ports because each Promise card has 4 and the mobo should have 4-5 ports.

Is 750W overkill for this setup? I'm just curious because I am only using 550W for mine which has 8 drives.

Wattage doesnt mean jack. Gotta look at how those watts get distributed.

For server build nowadays, should only use one railed 12v PSU.

FYI, its much harder and more expensive to build a one big rail than multiple small rails.

Never and i mean NEVER look at PSU by wattage.

[jetway1212]

I have built 50 drives archiving server using off the shelf parts. All fits inside a full length 4U case.

I advise you NOT to follow some advices here and use docking solution. They obviously have never heard of or cared about consolidating data.

Btw, archiving server is the easiest build. Performance was never really an issue.

[fitbrit]

The only difference between the 4020 and 4220 is the rotation of the backplane. The newer one has the backplane mounted horizontally. This improves the air flow tremendously.

Your previous post made it sounds like the old one doesnt have backplane, lol. Whats the point of having hotswap cage with no backplane? :lol:

Thanks for the correction, I think. My terminology was off, but what I meant was:

One of the major features of this case is the use of (5) SFF-8087 Mini SAS connectors for use with the hard drive backplanes of this case.

From this page (http://www.wegotserved.com/2009/06/11/hands-on-norco-rpc-4220-rackmount-chassis/).

I remember the early buyers of the 4220 raving about the connectors on the backplane, and wrote the wrong thing. I do believe the fan assembly is different as well, or perhaps I'm not recalling that correctly either; I do know many people modified the 4020's fan assembly to improve airflow, and Iw as under the impression that the 4220 had improved things, but still wasn't perfect for the pickiest users.

[Jon Lai]

The board actually has 6, so there are 2 remaining at this point.

750W hopefully gives me a bit of breathing room with the drives, as I could have up to 22 with 2 more 4-port PCI-E cards.

But I thought the rack only has space for 20 drives?

[jetway1212]

Thanks for the correction, I think. My terminology was off, but what I meant was:


From this page (http://www.wegotserved.com/2009/06/11/hands-on-norco-rpc-4220-rackmount-chassis/).

I remember the early buyers of the 4220 raving about the connectors on the backplane, and wrote the wrong thing. I do believe the fan assembly is different as well, or perhaps I'm not recalling that correctly either; I do know many people modified the 4020's fan assembly to improve airflow, and Iw as under the impression that the 4220 had improved things, but still wasn't perfect for the pickiest users.

What are you preferring to is the connectors for the Backplane. That is a bonus, not hardly an upgrade as SATA cable is small and easy enough to manage.

The only "flaw" with the 4220 is still the choice of fan. These genius engineers still think their case is built for data centre so they chose high pressure, high RPM 80cm fan array. However what we want is a low RPM, low noise minimum 120mm fan array.

Anyway, this case is a great choice for anyone planning to use 16+ drives.

However, just to remember UnRaid doesnt support hotswap. Also few consumer SATA controllers do not support hotswap well enough.

[jetway1212]

But I thought the rack only has space for 20 drives?

He just said his headroom in term of SATA port. He never hinted that hes going to put 22 drives in there.

[Nyte]

Sounds like you could use something like this:
http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/

Of course, you'll probably want to scale back on the number of drives unless you actually want 67TB.

Oh yeah, found some guys who can build the case: http://www.protocase.com/ if you're interested.

[deep]

Jetway, did you use a case with vertical mounts for the 50 drive unit? I'd like to see that beast! Even the backblaze units only cram 45 drives into their chassis.

[FerrisB]

UNRAID looks great!

"Hard drives not being accessed may be spun down."

For the person using it now, so it only spins up whichever drive it is using at the time?

Having 10-20 drives running constantly would be a huge expense in power and would create a lot of heat.

[jetway1212]

Jetway, did you use a case with vertical mounts for the 50 drive unit? I'd like to see that beast! Even the backblaze units only cram 45 drives into their chassis.

Yes the HD mounted vertically. My build was quite similar to Backblaze one. Except a few things:

+ I didnt have a prebuilt port multiplier so my drive SATA port facing up for easy cabling.
+ I used 2 x 1u PSU stacking vertically.
+ I used 2 x PCI-X 1u and 2u riser to mount SATA controllers

The motherboard compartment is only 2U in height and allow 8 more drives mounted on a custom chamber.

Overall it was a fun project.

[WolfDV]

I also used a norco 4020 case for my unraid server; works fantastic with the xbmc htpc's I have setup around the house

[WolfDV]

UNRAID looks great!

"Hard drives not being accessed may be spun down."

For the person using it now, so it only spins up whichever drive it is using at the time?

Having 10-20 drives running constantly would be a huge expense in power and would create a lot of heat.

yes; exactly that; only drives needed to be accessed are spun-up. it can be spun down again after not in use for a certain time

[edgedamage]

I have built 50 drives archiving server using off the shelf parts. All fits inside a full length 4U case.

I advise you NOT to follow some advices here and use docking solution. They obviously have never heard of or cared about consolidating data.

Btw, archiving server is the easiest build. Performance was never really an issue.

I only use the HDD docks for the endless work I have to do on my familys virus infected systems. Any data worth keeping is stored on protected HDD's in proper cases/enclosures.

[KorruptioN]

Wattage doesnt mean jack. Gotta look at how those watts get distributed.

For server build nowadays, should only use one railed 12v PSU.

FYI, its much harder and more expensive to build a one big rail than multiple small rails.

Never and i mean NEVER look at PSU by wattage.

Here's some good reading for you: http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3990


The bottom line is, for 99% of the folks out there single vs. multiple +12V rails is a NON ISSUE. It's something that has been hyped up by marketing folks on BOTH SIDES of the fence.

[betamaxman]

I am very surprised no one has mentioned the absolute best way to do this, especially with regards to data safety. The best way though perhaps not cheapest is of course the DROBO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sENCMKXBUc) way.
An amazing system with available networking.
http://www.drobo.com/

[deep]

I am very surprised no one has mentioned the absolute best way to do this, especially with regards to data safety. The best way though perhaps not cheapest is of course the DROBO way.

I would not call Drobo the absolute best way. Probably wouldn't crack my top 3, actually.

[jetway1212]

Here's some good reading for you: http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3990


The bottom line is, for 99% of the folks out there single vs. multiple +12V rails is a NON ISSUE. It's something that has been hyped up by marketing folks on BOTH SIDES of the fence.

Wow.... I didnt think someone would misunderstand Johnyguru to that extend.

Re-read the damn post again and come back for questions?

Also read SLI and Crossfire power requirement to understand why splitting rails are not ideal.


You're obviously the "99%" avg joe. huh?

[fitbrit]

UNRAID looks great!

"Hard drives not being accessed may be spun down."

For the person using it now, so it only spins up whichever drive it is using at the time?

Having 10-20 drives running constantly would be a huge expense in power and would create a lot of heat.

Yes, that's true. You can decide (on a per-drive basis) the idle time after which the drives are spun down.
Using a low power CPU, some users have used Kill-a-Watt to monitor power usage and it was about 40-65W (iirc). My own system uses a 35 W CPU and several fans which are on all the time. Of course, spinning down the disks results in a delay when spinning them back up, but it's a small price to pay as far as I'm concerned.

[edgedamage]

One of the techs at my work gave me the heads up that they are going to toss four of these in the trash:
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://reviews.cnet.com/sc/30191680-2-200-0.gif&imgrefurl=http://reviews.cnet.com/external-hard-drives/medea-videoraid-rtrx-hard/1707-3190_7-30191680.html&usg=__F-Bw-Kc84On3MObof-zpu6_0C_g=&h=150&w=200&sz=13&hl=en&start=9&um=1&tbnid=hZ5UlhWc5FMhxM:&tbnh=78&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmedea%2Bvideoraid%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN% 26um%3D1
Gotta save these from the trash.

[duckdown]

I am very surprised no one has mentioned the absolute best way to do this, especially with regards to data safety. The best way though perhaps not cheapest is of course the DROBO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sENCMKXBUc) way.
An amazing system with available networking.
http://www.drobo.com/

holy f***ing expensive. but looks great...

too bad the empty 8-bay box with NO hard drives is a shocking $1600 before tax...

[Icedawn]

Currently running 15 drives in a raid 6 plus another system drive. Using ubuntu + mdadm for the software raid setup. Three extra 4 port consumer level sata pci cards in addition to the mobo ports for actually connecting the drives. Fairly low end processor, couple gigs of ram, and an extra power supply round out the system that's sitting inside a Coolermaster case.

Other than the drives, I probably spent under 400 for the actual setup a couple years ago (80 for case on Craigslist, 90 for the extra pci cards, and 230 for the mobo/processor/ram/power supplies)

A couple drives have failed over the years - have popped in a new drive and rebuilt without any problems both times.

[grape]

.... really? 16 drives? how big is ur storage?

[Avatar]

I will build and daisy chain a couple of WHS. The good thing about WHS is that you don't need to use matching HD. And more importantly, unlike RAID with Linux, you can retrieve data by connecting the HD (NTFS) to any PC if the mobo/system drive is dead.

With WHS, you can easily setup/stream video to anything at home even via Internet. Not to mention the cool remote desktop and WOL any PC features.

[pitz]

Currently running 15 drives in a raid 6 plus another system drive.

A couple drives have failed over the years - have popped in a new drive and rebuilt without any problems both times.

How fast are your drives?

Do you really have all 15 drives running in one RAID?

What processor? How fast to rebuild?

I have an AthlonXP 2500+, and I'm thinking of going to PCI SATA for its drives, and maybe RAID-5, with 2Tb drives. But I'd like to keep the rebuild times reasonable, and not sure what sort of performance my CPU would give. PCI is limited to what, 133mb/sec, tops, so a 4-drive 6Tb (4x2Tb) RAID-5 rebuild would take at least 17 hours.


And more importantly, unlike RAID with Linux, you can retrieve data by connecting the HD (NTFS) to any PC if the mobo/system drive is dead.

You can do NTFS on Linux if you want...

Is "WHS" just a mirroring, RAID-1 solution?

Anyone here do mirroring to a remote machine through iSCSI?

[Icedawn]

How fast are your drives?

Do you really have all 15 drives running in one RAID?

What processor? How fast to rebuild?

I have an AthlonXP 2500+, and I'm thinking of going to PCI SATA for its drives, and maybe RAID-5, with 2Tb drives. But I'd like to keep the rebuild times reasonable, and not sure what sort of performance my CPU would give. PCI is limited to what, 133mb/sec, tops, so a 4-drive 6Tb (4x2Tb) RAID-5 rebuild would take at least 17 hours.


Slow... bunch of old 250gb drives. Now that I think about it, it might actually be older than 2 years.... time flies... but I remember moving into my current condo with it. Probably close to 3 or 3.5 years.

And yes, was a bad decision, but what can you do.

And hmmm... probably something similar to the 2500+, potentially even slower.

And yeah, it takes FOREVER to rebuild, although probably not 17 hrs.... likely in the 12 hr range for me.

[coolspot]

I am very surprised no one has mentioned the absolute best way to do this, especially with regards to data safety. The best way though perhaps not cheapest is of course the DROBO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sENCMKXBUc) way.
An amazing system with available networking.
http://www.drobo.com/


Drobo is a good solution, but overpriced. WHS is much nicer and integrates nicely with Windows.

The automatic backup provided by WHS is a very nice feature. Works well.




Is "WHS" just a mirroring, RAID-1 solution?

Anyone here do mirroring to a remote machine through iSCSI?

It's not mirroring, it's duplication (drive extender). It selectively copies data onto one or more drives for redundacy.

For home, it's probably better than RAID.

RAID is designed for uptime, where as duplication is designe for data backup.


With RAID, if you experience a failure, your remaining drives will be under increasing strain (since data is stripped across all drives). But with WHS duiplication, the remaining drives will only be access IF the OS determines there is data to retrieve from the drive.
You can add/remove drives without rebuilding your array


WHS is probably one of Microsoft's better products - highly recommended if you need a home server. Some people on the WHS forums are running like 22-drives in their WHS systems! So its very expandable for a small home network.

If anyone is looking for a WHS machine, the Acer H340 is pretty good - it even has an ESATA port AND PCI-E port which means it can support an "unlimited" number of drives.








For lots of drives, it's probably best to get a ESATA external enclosure, a 6-bay enclosure is only ~250.00. 8-bay+ enclosures about 400ish.

[Scottathon]

Sorry to bump an old topic, but I have a question about the Norco cases, or rackmount cases in general. This may sound dumb, but do these cases need to be mounted on racks? If it's, say, sitting on the ground, can it get the airflow it needs to not overheat?

[laevy]

I have a Ubuntu media server in a Coolermaster tower with 12 WD Caviar Green drives for a total of 16TB. I bought 2 of these babies (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817993002) which has the fan built into it. I have physical mirrors for almost all of the drives which are kept in a safe off-site. They system works well for me.

[death_hawk]

It's an old post, but I figured I'd address a few points.


The only "flaw" with the 4220 is still the choice of fan. These genius engineers still think their case is built for data centre so they chose high pressure, high RPM 80cm fan array. However what we want is a low RPM, low noise minimum 120mm fan array.

Anyway, this case is a great choice for anyone planning to use 16+ drives.

However, just to remember UnRaid doesnt support hotswap. Also few consumer SATA controllers do not support hotswap well enough.
There's a few other flaws with the 4020. The backplane is crap. So crappy in fact that it literally scares me. Apparently they did fix the hot swap issues in their new revisions.


The only difference between the 4020 and 4220 is the rotation of the backplane. The newer one has the backplane mounted horizontally. This improves the air flow tremendously.

Your previous post made it sounds like the old one doesnt have backplane, lol. Whats the point of having hotswap cage with no backplane? :lol:
The other main difference is that the 4220 uses SFF-8087 instead of discrete SATA.


Here's some good reading for you: http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3990


The bottom line is, for 99% of the folks out there single vs. multiple +12V rails is a NON ISSUE. It's something that has been hyped up by marketing folks on BOTH SIDES of the fence.
Except in this case. My Supermicro uses 715W on spinup. Even a 1000W PSU with multiple rails would choke on that.


I am very surprised no one has mentioned the absolute best way to do this, especially with regards to data safety. The best way though perhaps not cheapest is of course the DROBO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sENCMKXBUc) way.
An amazing system with available networking.
http://www.drobo.com/
Drobo isn't bad if you're dealing with under 4 drives. Once you pass that, it's no longer cost effective.


Sorry to bump an old topic, but I have a question about the Norco cases, or rackmount cases in general. This may sound dumb, but do these cases need to be mounted on racks? If it's, say, sitting on the ground, can it get the airflow it needs to not overheat?
It's just like any other case. You can stick them anywhere you like. It's NICE if you have a rack to stick them in, but no means a requirement. Hell, My SC846E1 is sitting on my table since it hasn't met my rack yet. (I'm still working on it)


As for the OP, the best way to store more than 8 drives is with a Supermicro SC846E1 + 3Ware 9690SA-4I
The Norco is an option, but unless you software RAID or use something like WHS, it's actually MORE expensive by about $200, plus you lose 4 slots, a redundant power supply and a quality backplane.
Software RAID is fine, but writes suck for parity. And let's face it, you're gonna be running parity based RAID with this many drives.

WHS is a joke IMO. It's not horrible for small time or non mission critical stuff, but a proper solution it is not.
I wouldn't even trust my backups on it.

[chinese zzz]

To be honest what's inside of those hard drive...? Documents..?:confused:

My main PC only have 1.5 TB Yes I'm going to get more...:)

[loybond]

I'd probably go with two big ass cases with good, cheap components like an Intel E3200 CPU (I got one in my server in the basement, on the stock cooler at 3.6).

Those external hard drive docks can work, if you use eSATA, USB will be too slow given all the other bottlenecks, but one thing I wanted to mention is that temps are a fair bit higher than when having those drives inside a case with some airflow. I've noticed differences of up to ~20 c, not sure what that will do for longevity.

[CSAgent]

To be honest what's inside of those hard drive...? Documents..?:confused:

My main PC only have 1.5 TB Yes I'm going to get more...:)

The original post from September of last year indicated they were movies.

I know how he feels/felt, 1080p mkv rips usually range from 8GB to 15GB, sometimes more if they're true uncompressed rips - in which case it's 25GB per movie.

Running on 6TB right now personally, add to the insane amount of photos I have as a photographer, it adds up. (5-10MB per jpg, 22-25MB RAW, times 90,000 and growing of photo files = lots and lots of storage needed!!)

I'm super happy that 2TB drives are dropping in price...:D