12+ Disk Raid

TWr · May 20, 2014

Hi, I've been looking at preconfigued Diskless NaS servers, and they seem to be relatively cheap on the low end 2-4... but when i go to 8-12-16+ it seems like it might just be cheaper to build a new pc and simply designate it as a server.

I have no problems setting it up with w/e OS i choose, probably windows.

I'm considering using a raid 6 vs a raid 5 for more fault taulerance.. (might be overkill but if i understand it correclty, why not). I plan to use to for potential remote vpn storage, but mostly home-file sharing/storing, maybe a media server as well.

I'll probably be using 4 TB drives, x 6 or so to start, and would like to expand it to 12 or more eventually. or might temporarily fill it with 6 x 4tb and then 6 750gb, (for fun)...

Any Cost effective ideas to cover my bases? (plz don't consider the cost of the drives, Unless you got some Out-of-this-place deals!)

Thank you

das_stig · May 20, 2014

A home built server, using proper server parts is better bet, but use a real raid controller if the motherboard doesn't have hardware raid controller.

Anything over 6TB SATA, raid-5 not good enough due to non-recoverable read error rate and the chances of a non-recoverable read error occurring during the array rebuild increases, so raid-6.

popatim · May 20, 2014

I would suggest an AMD build as many of their motherbd support server grade ram (usually unbuffered ecc).

choucove · May 20, 2014

There are a ton of options out there for nice quality pre-built NAS systems, but just like you have found, when you start getting into the bigger and more robust systems, you are looking at the cost of a new full server at least, sometimes even more. Just today I was comparing pricing on a Synology 1U NAS to a new HP ProLiant server. The Synology could support dual-redundant power supplies, but only has a dual-core Atom processor with 2 GB of RAM, no expansion (such as additional DAS storage or 10GbE options) and only SATA hard drives. All said, I could purchase a DL360e G8 with a Xeon processor, 2 GB to 4 GB of RAM, and a license of Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials all for about the same cost. While the onboard controller for the server only supports SATA hard drives, it at least supports expandability such as a dedicated hardware RAID/SAS controller, external storage, 10GbE, etc. And a large portion of that cost would just be the Windows licensing, if you went with a free OS such as FreeNAS you could save even more.

If this isn't a business critical system, you could probably do a home-built whitebox computer with a bunch of hard drives for pretty decent cost. I've seen people take standard ATX towers and put hot-swap hard drive cages in the 5.25" bays, or even purchase a rackmount 2U Supermicro chassis which supports up to 8 3.5" hard drives or even larger form factors for larger hard drive densities.

popatim · May 20, 2014

Its the raid6 card killing it IMO. My server cost all of $250 (already had the case) with a $70 motherbd, $50 AMDx3 720BE, 4gb ecc ram, and a seasonic psu. 6 drives installed with 8tb usable on the motherbd ports.

choucove · May 21, 2014

Yep very good point Popatim. If you go the hardware RAID route, you have to get the right kind of card to support RAID 6, and to have any decent performance with that type of array you need to have a pretty decent performer with onboard cache, which makes it more expensive. My Adaptec 6805 that I have in one server does RAID 6 pretty well and decent performance, but they aren't the cheapest for a home build.

If you want to keep costs down and are willing to do a little learning, then perhaps you could also look into ZFS. Personally I haven't done anything with it, but from what I have ready it is very nice when set up. Great performance, and RAID 6 like reliability and performance but without the need for any additional RAID hardware. Just connect directly to the SATA ports on your motherboard or a host bus adapter without any RAID logic, and you can create large pools of fault-tolerant RAIDZ2 storage.

popatim · May 21, 2014

Yes, I was thinking along the same lines; keep in mind that ZFS needs 1gb of ram per TB of storage so chose a motherbd wisely.

Also, if these files are important and since raid is not a backup, how will you be backing up such a huge collection?

TWr · May 23, 2014

popatim :

welp I'll probably have separate Backup solution, although a lot of stuff is not mission critical stuff, just large backups of DVDs, and music, games, etc.. things like peronsonal photos, etc.. i've not look too hard yet, therefore not found a nice way to back up my important docs and pics, cuz those do take gigs and gigs of space, i'd like a solution for that that does incremental backup (checking what's changed, and just backs that up, hope i used it correctly).

But i DO have plan to take appart my external drives about (all segate/maxtor) 6-7x 750, 4x 2 TB , 2-3x 4TB, 2 3tb, 1x 1.5tb, and get some more actual internal ones as well

TWr · May 23, 2014

choucove :

hmm welp i guess i'm thinking for getting a 16-port adaptec, i've JUST started looking into them again, last time i did was about a few years ago, when raid 6 was a new thing.

I LOVE the concept of having a and external SAS Expander, but that just seems to get TOOOO expensive
i'm proably ok spending ~$1k on a good Raid Controller that gonna last me a while, but i think i'd want it to have more internal sata connections vs sas expansion ports, but maybe if i'm planing on doing 12-16 drives, as 10-drive bay towers are relatively easy to find, just need the apropriate PSU.. lol..

Thank you ALL for your HelpFul Responses, Any further help still would also be appreciated

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