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2TB, RAID-5, Firewire-800, external storage recommendations?

M

MIDIman

Diamond Member
A bit of a high-end question, but for those who have done it, can anyone recommend a particular RAID-5 external storage solution with at least 2TB total storage? There's a bunch of brands with these, and reviews are scarce.

Looking to do Firewire-800 to get that extra bit of output, and it needs to have support for RAID-5. I'd also prefer SATA drives, but I haven't seen too many enclosures supporting it.


Secondly - anyone have any issues installing Firewire-800 devices on Win2K Servers?

Finally - just so I understand - with RAID-5, its best to use RAID-5 + hotspare? And in that configuration, if you have 4x500gb, the total data would be 1.5tb. Correct?

 
Its weird tho - it appears that there's an option for RAID-5 with the hotspare. Not quite sure what the differences are.


Looking around, I can't find much other than the Lacie FW800. Too bad they're still ATA drives.
 
I don't know what you're trying to do w/ this Array but, I wouldn't use firewire, If you're going w/ SATA go with external SATA. SATA offers hot swap (if you case/card supports it).

Check this out
Text
 
The Lacie linked above actually also offers hot swappable HDs.

Haven't seen too many external SATA devices that do the same as linked above, but I'll look into it some more.

There is the Lacie S2S which appears to be very similar to the F800, but its about $500+ more costly, and doesn't support RAID-5 + hotspare.

Any other comments?
 
i'm looking to do the same, large external firewire/usb 2.0 RAID-5 array with SATA drives. want just an enclosure, will add my own HDs. i also can't find any that support SATA and RAID-5. even reasonable PATA ones are relatively scarce, with the best option and price so far:

hxxp://www.firewiredirect.com/firewire/products/RAID_V800_5Bay.shtml

still looking...
 
Originally posted by: geofftate
i'm looking to do the same, large external firewire/usb 2.0 RAID-5 array with SATA drives. want just an enclosure, will add my own HDs. i also can't find any that support SATA and RAID-5. even reasonable PATA ones are relatively scarce, with the best option and price so far:

hxxp://www.firewiredirect.com/firewire/products/RAID_V800_5Bay.shtml

still looking...
Click to expand...

fixed and linked
 
Originally posted by: blure007
Not sure about external storage but as for Raid 5 you loose a drive so yea, 4x500gb drives will total 1.5TB
Click to expand...

Nope.

A hot spare drive is one that is ready and spinning so it can be automatically used for a rebuild should one of the array drives fall offline.

Therefore, the total capacity of a hot spare RAID-5 array consisting of 4x 500GB drives would be 1TB:

3x drives in RAID-5, one drive's worth of space lost to parity information = 1.5TB.
1x drive in hot spare, which means that it isn't used until a drive goes offline = 1TB.
 
decided to go with the ReadyNAS. Gigabit rather than FW800, but supports 4 SATA drives in RAID config. the ReadyNAS 600 sports a standard RAID 0/1/5 controller (with hot spare option), while the ReadyNAS X6 sports an X-RAID which allows for dynamic RAID expansion as you add disks (2 disks = RAID-1, 3 or 4 = RAID-5), but only supports one volume.

for my needs, I like the idea of the dynamic expansion and don't need multiple volumes, so I'm starting with two Seagate 400GB SATA drives in a RAID-1 config and will later add additional drives as needed (which will dynamically reconfigure to RAID-5).

the barebones ReadyNAS retails at $600. my total including the NAS, drives, giga NIC, and giga switch came to just over $1100 shipped (the drives are still pricey).

the ReadyNAS got a great review at Tom's and there's a very active user forum at Infrant's site with quick responses to questions. the most important thing I learned is that the marketing material is overly confusing and a little outdated; despite what it may seem, the two models run identical RAIDiator2 software and the only difference is RAID vs X-RAID.

this should make a fine external RAID solution, although with only 4 bays, the current max would be 1.5TB in RAID-5, and only 1TB in RAID-5 + hot spare (ReadyNAS 600). also, it's not hotswappable because of the enclosure makeup, although they do make a rackmountable one that is.
 
If you want to spend about $3k, there is the miniVault which is 1TB on RAID 5. Its hot swap, so all you need is spare disks to continue using it.

How is the ReadyNAS working for you? Is the performance alright? I was told you can run GigaBit on it exclusively to get better performance. I just don't find USB 2.0 to be a reliable way to move lots of data around.
 
Unfortunately, the ReadNAS is NOT working. Apparently they've discovered a firmware incompatibility with Seagate drives, so I haven't even gotten the thing going yet. Infuriating really, since these drives were clearly listed as approved on the compatibility chart and Seagates are the only desktop drives I'm willing to buy anymore. They're working with Seagate on this, but I'm not hopeful in the short term.

Also, the gigE speeds are not what you'd expect. the ReadyNAS is pretty slow with a lot of overhead, so you don't get nearly what you would from a typical server box connected gigE. Would be much better off with even a USB 2.0 enclosure.

I'm still hanging on because I don't want to pay restocking fees, but at this time I'm not sure I can whole-heartedly recommend the ReadyNAS.
 
I've bought the product since and am very happy with it. I threw in four 250GB SATA drives. Sustained transfer rate is about 12MB per second on unused GigaEthernet network. Network congestion does reduce the transfer rate. Sorry to hear about your Seagate issue. We had a brown out here recently and the ReadyNAS even e-mailed me when it turned back on that it did not shutdown properly and that I should scan the disk for errors. I thought that was pretty cool. It also does an excellent job of maintaining network drive connection. Some low-end enclosures have problems keeping a reliable connection. So, I am very happy with it.
 
$1600 for a NAS?????? I built a 1.2TB NAS that will smoke the ReadyNAS for less than $1100. PLUS, I can actually use it as a backup machine. For home use, the ReadyNAS is a complete and total waste of money.
 
Originally posted by: sun818
If you want to spend about $3k, there is the miniVault which is 1TB on RAID 5. Its hot swap, so all you need is spare disks to continue using it.

How is the ReadyNAS working for you? Is the performance alright? I was told you can run GigaBit on it exclusively to get better performance. I just don't find USB 2.0 to be a reliable way to move lots of data around.
Click to expand...

$3k? You could build a nice, low-power Pentium M based storage server with a hardware RAID card and 8x400gb SATA drives for that much. That'd be 2.8tb in RAID 5.
 
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