ESATA Raid Question

[ddawson24]

I want to get an external enclosure that has an eSATA port that does raid. Right now I have a Venus T4S with (4) 500 gig drives in a RAID 0 that is full. I think next time I want to do a RAID 5 because it seems like it's a safer way to go. It looks like Sans Digital and Rosewill both have 8 bay cases that are affordable but you can only use 5 drives per RAID array. Is there anything out there that is affordable that has 6-8 bays that can do RAID 5 and has eSATA? I've been searching all day and those were the two I could come up with. I'd like to do more than 5 drives in my RAID array if possible. Thanks.

 

[Gatorbait]

What is affordable? and why eSATA? Try PCI-express external or 1Gb RAID NAS unit.

 

[ddawson24]

Affordable would be $300 to $400 for just the enclosure. I've used NAS before but it just seemed so much slower than the eSATA enclosure I've been using. I have gig LAN too, but it still seemed slow so I figured direct attached storage is the fastest way to go. I basically just want the fastest way to access data. For instance, if I have a folder with 300 gigs of music in it I want to click on it and be able to open it right away and not have to wait for a minute before the folder will open. I don't know much about the PCI-epress external. If it's faster than maybe that would be the way to go.

 

[chookman]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128353
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116039
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145525
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119189
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703017

$280 , yes its a full machine, yes its over network but it will be faster than any NAS box. You can do more with it, gives you your 6 ports and room for more if needed (with addon card for SATA). When you can build a system this cheap why would you buy those expensive NAS/DAS enclosures?

 

[ddawson24]

If I built a system like that could I use it as DAS?

 

[Gatorbait]

No, Chookman's box is NAS. It would be storage and the drives internal can be set in a RAID configuration, but it would not be as fast as DAS. DAS does not have to go though the Ethernet protocol. One extra step... but with your budget, I do not see a way to do hardware DAS. I do not know of anyone making an external DAS product using the PCI-E external or e-sata, but it would not be hard for a manufacturer to do so. Cost would be the same as a PCI-E HW RAID card, CASE, and Drive Bays. Maybe some one makes one. HW RAID cards can range from 200-800$ depending on features and ports. Do not get SW raid... it will tax your CPU and local memory.

 

[chookman]

Yes it would be much like a NAS and couldnt be directly attached. However, as said it would be faster than any NAS currently on the market that i know of it gives you the amount of drives you need with expandability later on (which that i can see no current NAS does). Its cheaper than any NAS/DAS system available at the moment.

"Do not get SW raid... it will tax your CPU and local memory." If you have a dedicated machine to do it like i suggested that wouldnt matter.

Ive got a Q6600 with 8x500gb drives in RAID-5 (admittedly on an Adaptec 3805 HW controller) over a gigabit network connection and i wouldnt want anything faster, streams HD video fine and copying to and from is quick.

 

[jfurterer]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332021

It's not a RAID 5 but it does support RAID 10 which would give you the performance and redundancy.

 

[ddawson24]

That case doesn't have enough bays especially for a RAID 10.

Gatorbait, what type of budget would I need to do the type of hardware DAS you are talking about?

chookman, what type of OS are you using on your system? Is it just XP with a mapped drive or is it something like FreeNas? Also if I have multiple folders with 200 or 300 gigs of files how long will it take to access those folders. That is my main concern is when I click on a folder it will sit there and wait a while and then I can open the folder. I ran into that problem with other NAS solutions before.

 

[Gatorbait]

PCI-E HW Raid Cards are anywhere from 200-800$ alone. External cases can be more expensive, so if you have room in your box and a big enough power supply then you could have your drives in the same case as the computer.

Just searched and here is a company doing eSATA RAID.
http://www.micronet.com/products/desktop-raid.htm

 

[chookman]

ddawson24:

Im being extremely nerdy and currently have Server 2008 Standard setup on the box in a home domain (not registered DNS) it also runs Hyper-V (virtual PC for 2008 server) with 3 VM's running. As for the files and clicking... i commonly call that the "Flashligh Syndrome" where windows get the little flashlight out before your files appear. With Vista and Server2008 this issue has sorta been eliminated by the fact that it will display the files instantly, however, it will be a while before they all show up (adds to the list in explorer or whatever your using). XP however is a different story i have one folder that contains ~50gb with about 13000 files and it comes up pretty much instantly the majority of times not sure how many more would go.