I want to build a LARGE raid system

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mitchell1029

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Apr 18, 2013
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I just received 60 brand new 250gb WD IDE 10K rpm drives. I was to set up a LARGE raid system, does anyone know what is the largest raid capacity? What devices are needed to create this type of raid?
 
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WyomingKnott
Well, if you want to play with it and see what happens, have a glorious amount of fun! The thing about IDE drives is that they are pretty old tech, and you are going to have a heck of a time finding a RAID controller card that can handle more than 4 of them. This is the biggest one I found in a cursory search: http://www.directron.com/rr133.html . You could load up a machine with a bunch of IDE controllers and RAID them in software (a Linux distro would be best if you want RAID5), but you'd stress the CPU.

There's one here: http://www.3ware.com/support/UserDocs/EscaladeUG7000-122003.pdf or http://www.jjwei.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=59 , but another thing about IDE controllers is that they tend to be PCI bus, which is not that fast...
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WyomingKnott

WyomingKnott

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Aug 29, 2006
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Are you sure that they are IDE drives? Most controllers these days are SATA or SAS. Dunno if you are going to find an IDE RAID controller that can handle that many drives.

We've got a member lurking around who built a raid with, if I remember correctly, 48 drives. Huh - my old bookmark links are broken. I'll poke around. The user is firewire2, and you can find him off-site here: http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22898&page=4

Unasked for advice: No RAID level is a substitute for external backups. Back up your data.
 
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mitchell1029

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Apr 18, 2013
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These drives are old New stock. Friend found 3 cases of new unopened drives (20 per case) I have no ideal of what to do with 60 drives but build an array. If i build a level 5, it might speed the h*ll out of my system.

P.S. I'm obviously a newbie
 
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WyomingKnott

WyomingKnott

Legenda in Aeternum
Aug 29, 2006
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Well, if you want to play with it and see what happens, have a glorious amount of fun! The thing about IDE drives is that they are pretty old tech, and you are going to have a heck of a time finding a RAID controller card that can handle more than 4 of them. This is the biggest one I found in a cursory search: http://www.directron.com/rr133.html . You could load up a machine with a bunch of IDE controllers and RAID them in software (a Linux distro would be best if you want RAID5), but you'd stress the CPU.

There's one here: http://www.3ware.com/support/UserDocs/EscaladeUG7000-122003.pdf or http://www.jjwei.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=59 , but another thing about IDE controllers is that they tend to be PCI bus, which is not that fast anyway.

If I had them, I'd see if I could sell them for enough money to get a honking big SSD.

 
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popatim

popatim

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Dec 2, 2009
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I agree with WyomingKnott. Even in raid these will be a dog due to the pci bus interface you'll have to use. Remember IDE can only support 2 drives per port. They did make 8 port cards but only in pci form so 16 drives is what you can install to the typical motherbd with 1 pci slot. Pci tops out at 133 mb/s which a single modern hard drive can match... and I think theres 1 that hits 150mb/s

Sell them for anything you can get for them and get yourself an SSD or a couple of 4tb drives.
 
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FireWire2

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Oct 30, 2006
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IDE bus is not quite efficient bus, there for many IDE in a bus you will stuck due to many IRQ being send

In order to use it you MUST convert this IDE to SATA via IDE to SATA adapter

Once converted then you can configure these HDD in to RAID volumes as follow.

A) PM technology
Each controller connect to 5x HDD as RAID
http://www.amazon.com/multiplier-hardware-RAID0-CLONE-Controller/dp/B004JPUZWU/
so 60:5 = 12 SATA port host that you need
MB with 6x SATA host and ONE PCIe with 8 SATA ports that will server the purpose

B) SAS solution
Get 3x 24xport SAS expander. daisy chain them so you can have 72 ports
Add a SAS RAID card create a RAID50 - TWO RAID5 of 30x drvies each, then RAID 0 on top

Now you are ready to MOVE some serious data

FW2

Update: Here is what I did with PM technology:
http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22898&page=4
 
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