Need help choosing the best setup for me

[haze420]

I'm new to setting up raid and i'm trying to build some sort of external raid setup with 8 to 10 1.5tb drives. I've been looking into a 10 bay port multiplier tower from pc-pitstop http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_port_multipliers/scsat10pm.asp, which i have no clue how good the tower is because there is no reviews anywhere to be found. Ive also looked at the drobo pro but at $1400 i could by two of the 10 bay towers from pc-pitstop. I cant seem to find many other raid solutions that will give me at least 8 bay (would prefer 10) and is around $900. Any advice on what to do would be great.


Also ive been reading some reviews on the western digital 1.5tb drive not being that good for raid because of the low power feature on the drive. Is this true and is that the same case for the 1.5tb seagates

thanks in advance

 

[MomoCC]

If you can find long enough SATA and RAID cables, why not just buy a cheaper microATX case? Or you can even make one yourself! The point is that you just have to create the space to seat your hard disks—without having to spend $900.

 

[haze420]

do microatx cases have enough bays for 8 to 10 drives? do i have to buy a certain type of motherboard. do i need expansion cards bc i dont know of a cheap motherboard that has 10 sata ports on it .... i could use some more info as this is my first time trying anything like this

 

[gazgaz]

haze420

I was at my vendor/It outlet yesterday asking about drives so I can fill a nas

and they indicated that they have not had problems with the 1TB WD
but have had a lot of returned 1.5TB WD

they did not comment on the other

I was in there asking there opinion in advance on the "black" WD 2TB

I was hopeful of putting 6 x 2 TB drives in a readynas pro pioneer ( I have not expertise in building a system but perhaps should look to finding someone who can)

Gaz

 

[sub mesa]

Don't use Port Multipliers in a RAID configuration.

Any WD Green drive will be excellent for a home RAID config, because the drives run cool, do not need cooling, will live longer due to less metal expansion/contraction because of temperature variation (the real cause of HDD deaths).

I would not choose 8-9W WD Black drives, since they will only be marginally faster in sequential transfers and use alot more energy and thus heat produced.

I prefer building a NAS myself, just a cheap and energy efficient AMD system, with 740/760/780G Micro-ATX motherboard with 6 onboard SATA. Just add a PCI-express add-on controller for more ports. And perhaps you also want a 2GB flash PATA SSD as a system drive, depending on the OS. This route is alot more fun than ready-made NAS systems which are extremely expensive, slow and non-flexible: you cannot change it to fit your individual needs.

 

[xtc28]

What they said.......... Build your own

 

[haze420]

thanks for the input

first why shouldnt i use a port multiplier for my raid setup (I dont care about speed all that much bc its only going to be used to store all my music)


Now if I was going to decided to build a computer just for raid can i get some recommendations on what motherboard and expansion card to get.


about the wd green drives, i heard they werent good for raid configuration unless you do some kind of workaround on them.....is this true bc i could care less about power consumption just care about reliabilty