Best set up for a large storage system?

[dugdiamond]

you gotta be joking - the initial setup of the RAID5 with onboard took effing ages

with initial large writes to the raid5 takes ages - but reading unchanged data flies

terrible for performance - great for stability

win7 striping just uses 64kb and is raid0

i have the OS on a lone drive and 2 sets of 3 HDDs in striped arrays - the one array is a back up of the main storage.

it was the only solution for the time being - for size, speed and stability

 

[hmmblah]

So you don't suffer any drop in performance when the array is rebuilding?

Of course you do. You suffer a drop in performance on a rebuild with a normal RAID card as well. I was referring to the rebuild time on a stripe. There is no rebuild time. As dug said, the array just dies and has to be recreated.

 

[sheroo]

Of course you do. You suffer a drop in performance on a rebuild with a normal RAID card as well. I was referring to the rebuild time on a stripe. There is no rebuild time. As dug said, the array just dies and has to be recreated.

Gottya

 

[yggdrasil]

I have decided I will go with building a file server as a NAS box is pretty expensive and I can build a 16 HDD to 20 HDD server with a Raid card for cheaper, Raid cards are expensive but seems if I spend the money on it its some thing I will use for many years.

What are Highpoint Technologies Raid cards like? of what is a good brand of Raid card?

I am looking at getting a 16 to 24 port card.

Also If I expand for more storage would it be better to add a second Raid card to the system or build another complete system? Just looking at future proofing the system.

Also looking for a good case for it, I got in mind a tower with 12 5 1/4 drive bays and fill it with 4x 5 3 1/2 bays HDD.

there is the Antec 1200 but is there other options out there just not sure on the case names.

 

[dugdiamond]

for the case - i would look for a non-windowed case as those HDDs are going to be noisy, and you may want to noise-dampen the side panels.

the antec1200 is a nice case and has the bays for you, but is has no 'built-in' dampeners on anything inside it. Lian-li is a much better choice

 

[yggdrasil]

Ok I found a few things I think I will get for the server, I am also a bit lost on what motherboard and CPU to get.

Case: Norco RPC-4224 24-bay Server Chassis, 4U - $459 AU



I figured I would go with a server Chassis designed for exactly what I am trying to do.

HighPoint RocketRAID 2760 - 16-ch SAS/SATA 6GB/s, PCI-E 2.0 x16, Internal 24 Ports, Internal Mini-SAS, Support Raid 0,1,5,10,50, JBOD, No cable - $809 AU



I not sure if it would be best to get a single 24 sata raid card or get multiple cards, A single card would work out cheaper.

Corsair AX-850 850W ATX Power Supply, 80 PLUS Gold Certified - $275.00 AU



Noctua NH-C14 - $115 AU



I am not sure if I should have the server do more that be a file server, I would run vmware on it if I have it do more than just a file server and also use a i7 CPU but if it just serves files will probably opt for a i3.

 

[sheroo]

It's gonna be a monster...

 

[yggdrasil]

Yeah but it will all cost about $2500 au for a i7 server and a good 8 bay nas box sets u back $2000 here in aus so should be worth it and also will make a nice project and build log =]

 

[yggdrasil]

Yeah but it will all cost about $2500 au for a i7 server and a good 8 bay nas box sets u back $2000 here in aus so should be worth it and also will make a nice project and build log =]