Windows home server OP

Thank you for your reply, the NIC port is GbE so that's good. I have never built a NAS system before I just won't to get it right. I was thinking of going with Windows Home Server 2011 64 bit, I want to be able to give my family access to it outside of my network so they can view the movies that I have of my son. And watch the movies that I ripped in my video library. Do you know of a good RAID controller

I know of lots of good controllers. How much moolah you gots?

A good cheap one will set you back about $370 (LSI 9260-4i). This requires a SAS -> SATA cable for about another $30.

If you don't need cache, go with a High Point Rocket RAID. They're really cheap. About $70... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Personally, I'm an Areca fanboy, but they are pricy.

Most of the PCI E hardware raid out there are good.

The question is what connection do you have at final? Single GbE, Dual GbE or Quad GbE. This will dictate the storage need.

I'm assume you will have a single or even bonding 2x NIC, which is 2Gb/s or roughly 200MB/s

So the PCI express x4/x8 is way over kill, unless you get that under $200.00, then it's OK.

Look at the SMP393/SPM394 hardware controllers, these are the BEST for NAS application.
Not drivers, no software to load... just show up as a drive fully protected (RAID5)
Don't take my words. Do some research yourself.

Just an FYI but WHS has a partition limit of 2tb and 4 partions per logical disk (max 8tb per raid)
You'll want a couple of small hdd's to boot the system off of. One will be the system backup drive for which WHS will claiim the entire drive so dont drop a 2tb drive there thinking you'll be able to partition or use it for anything else. I have a 160 boot/system and a 320 as the backup. These were old drives that I had just laying around.

Don't waste an SSD in the server unless you really don't have some other use for it. The system drive pretty much only gets used at boot time which is seldom. I haven't rebooted my server in about a month and that was only to apply updates.

edit - I should also mention that whs'11 will need to be 'tricked' to install onto anything less than a 160gb partition.
Instructions here:
http://connecteddigitalworld.com/2011/09/20/installing-...

Thank you for your feedback, I really wanted to do more than a 8TB server I definatly missed that when I was looking at WHS 2011 specs. I wanted to build at the minimum a 12TB server but ideally a 24TB server would be more realistic. what operating systems would you recommend that would be easy to use? all I want it to do is backup and stream videos movies and pictures across my network and I also want to be able to set up a username and password to my friends and family so they can stream the movies and videos at their own homes

That is very strange! WHS built bases on Win2008 it certainly support GPT, right?

Time to find out. I will built one :-) and report back

Best answer selected by Terry99.

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nHey Terry, it occurs to me that, for your application, you don't really need a RAID card so much as you need a decent HBA card. A video server doesn't require the redundancy a RAID array provides (and don't confuse redundancy with backup), it isn't "mission critical". I don't know how much of the 24TB (a whole lotta rippin' goin on) you plan as backup storage, if any, but you may be best served by installing a Host Bus Adapter to port out to the dozen or so SAS/SATA drives you'll have. Something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... will drive 8 internal/external (backup?) drives simultaneously.
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nWhile this is a fast card, it has no cache (read, less expensive). But then, you are serving video with bandwidths that aren't likely to exceed 20Mb/s while a single hard drive is capable of pumping out 5 HD sources simultaneously. Eight primary drives would be capable of pumping out, well, 40 HD streams simultaneaously and you wouldn't even begin to tax the SATA 2 (much less SATA 3) bandwidth limits.
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nThe only drawback to the card above is the need for a breakout cable for each drive set. Those can be found here -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... and here -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
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nThe external set of drives (backup) should be in a housing capable of supplying the requisite power and eSATA ports (for each drive).
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nOr, you could go with something from High Point -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... with the accompanying cable sets -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... (this external enclosure would need a miniSAS 8088 port).
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