A Special Kind of Question

[Tegeril]

So I'm data paranoid. I am going to have a supply of spare cash and would like to setup a file server for HDDVD converted movies. This is the kind of data I never wish to lose as it takes 12-24 hours to reconvert just one movie.

Thus, I find single parity solutions to be insufficient for my needs. I've explored the Drobo, Unraid, and a variety of RAID-5 type implementations and decided that I'm very interested in RAID-6. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to connect 8 SATA-II 1TB drives to a RAID-6 card, and have one smaller drive run the OS on the system. I was also thinking of Windows Server 2008 for it's self healing file system support. I'm over my head with this kind of hardware research, and while I grasp a lot of the ins and outs of it, there is one thing I do not get:

PCI-Express x4 and x8 controller cards. They are physically larger than PCI-Express x1 slots and physically smaller than PCI-Express x8/x16 slots that I see on consumer and server boards... do they just sit in such a slot and occupy less space? If not, can someone show me a server board that has this specific slot?

Also, I'm looking for any kind of informational input with regard to choice of card in the lower price bracket of this type of raid environment while still supporting 8 drives and being solid.

I realize a lot of people will find this line of questioning ridiculous, "RAID-5 is fine!" - but with an array of 1TB drives, I am concerned for data loss during recovery and find RAID-6 to be a fantastic option. Write performance does not matter to me as I'll be writing extremely infrequently (one conversion at a time...when they finish) and read performance really doesn't matter either.

Notes: My other ridiculous thoughts throughout this process included an unraid setup with duplicated disks (so 3 disks = 1TB unique space, 5 disks = 2... with a pair of drives always containing the same data and the parity drive existing...) and RAID-5+1. That said, I believe that the cases/controllers/solutions for those options call for an unnecessarily high amount of hard drives to achieve similar levels of storage.

Part of this is purely a prospective look at the technology and the cost, and the other part is really wanting it if it is feasible.

Thanks for reading and any feedback you feel to give.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Honestly with that kind of paranoia over losing your data, I'm surprised you're not more concerned with a fire, earthquake or some other natural disaster (valid concerns mind you).

Two drives failing at the same time is a pretty rare event (rarer imo than a fire or natural disaster)

Not trying to be negative or anything, just you're not only losing performance with the extra parity, but also storage space.

Just curious why you want to spend $1000+ for HDDVD's. Wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy a bunch of said HDDVDs?

Anyways you asked about controllers, the Areca 1220 supports raid 6 and has 8 SATA ports. It's a pretty popular SATA raid card (good performance and features).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16816131004

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: Tegeril
So I'm data paranoid. I am going to have a supply of spare cash and would like to setup a file server for HDDVD converted movies. This is the kind of data I never wish to lose as it takes 12-24 hours to reconvert just one movie.

That's not that paranoid at all really.

Thus, I find single parity solutions to be insufficient for my needs. I've explored the Drobo, Unraid, and a variety of RAID-5 type implementations and decided that I'm very interested in RAID-6. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to connect 8 SATA-II 1TB drives to a RAID-6 card, and have one smaller drive run the OS on the system. I was also thinking of Windows Server 2008 for it's self healing file system support. I'm over my head with this kind of hardware research, and while I grasp a lot of the ins and outs of it, there is one thing I do not get:

That configuration sounds beautiful. I highly recommend getting a smaller drive for boot. The Areca ARC-1220 does not officially support Server 2008 yet, butit does support Server 2003. Just something to be aware of. Otherwise I highly suggest this card.

PCI-Express x4 and x8 controller cards. They are physically larger than PCI-Express x1 slots and physically smaller than PCI-Express x8/x16 slots that I see on consumer and server boards... do they just sit in such a slot and occupy less space? If not, can someone show me a server board that has this specific slot?

Are you talking about PCI Express and PCI-X cards? PCIe slots are found on almost all new mobos; PCI-X is a standard that I've never seen on anything but server motherboards, and even these slots are being phased out by PCI Express. If you would like to look at some server mobos, here is a selection of Supermicro @ Newegg.

Also, I'm looking for any kind of informational input with regard to choice of card in the lower price bracket of this type of raid environment while still supporting 8 drives and being solid.

What do you define the lower price bracket? RAID isn't cheap to implement well, and it's often one of those things that you get what you pay for. To me, one of the best things about getting a good card is the feature set--online RAID level/stripe migration, array roaming, etc.

I realize a lot of people will find this line of questioning ridiculous, "RAID-5 is fine!" - but with an array of 1TB drives, I am concerned for data loss during recovery and find RAID-6 to be a fantastic option. Write performance does not matter to me as I'll be writing extremely infrequently (one conversion at a time...when they finish) and read performance really doesn't matter either.

Notes: My other ridiculous thoughts throughout this process included an unraid setup with duplicated disks (so 3 disks = 1TB unique space, 5 disks = 2... with a pair of drives always containing the same data and the parity drive existing...) and RAID-5+1. That said, I believe that the cases/controllers/solutions for those options call for an unnecessarily high amount of hard drives to achieve similar levels of storage.

Part of this is purely a prospective look at the technology and the cost, and the other part is really wanting it if it is feasible.

Thanks for reading and any feedback you feel to give.

 

[MerlinRML]

Originally posted by: Tegeril
Thus, I find single parity solutions to be insufficient for my needs. I've explored the Drobo, Unraid, and a variety of RAID-5 type implementations and decided that I'm very interested in RAID-6. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to connect 8 SATA-II 1TB drives to a RAID-6 card, and have one smaller drive run the OS on the system. I was also thinking of Windows Server 2008 for it's self healing file system support. I'm over my head with this kind of hardware research, and while I grasp a lot of the ins and outs of it, there is one thing I do not get:

RAID is not a replacement for a backup, remember that. If you get a virus that causes random data corruption, RAID won't protect you from that. If your power supply goes and takes who knows how many components with it, your data may not be retrievable. I'm not saying RAID is bad, I just like to make sure people know what they are and are not getting.

Originally posted by: Tegeril
PCI-Express x4 and x8 controller cards. They are physically larger than PCI-Express x1 slots and physically smaller than PCI-Express x8/x16 slots that I see on consumer and server boards... do they just sit in such a slot and occupy less space? If not, can someone show me a server board that has this specific slot?

PCI-Express has 3 components: electrical lanes (i.e. bandwidth to the slot), the physical slot size, and the connector on the card. None of these 3 must match, and you are limited by the least common piece. Also, you cannot use a card with a larger connector than the physical slot on the motherboard.

For example, a motherboard may offer a 16x PCI-E slot, which really means 16x physical connector. The electrical lanes may be the same or less than that (1x, 4x, 8x, or 16x). So you can plug any sized card that is 16x or smaller in that slot, and the bandwidth will depend on how many lanes are running to that slot. The card will negotiate the bandwidth and run slower if necessary.

 

[Tegeril]

Originally posted by: MerlinRML
RAID is not a replacement for a backup, remember that. If you get a virus that causes random data corruption, RAID won't protect you from that. If your power supply goes and takes who knows how many components with it, your data may not be retrievable. I'm not saying RAID is bad, I just like to make sure people know what they are and are not getting.

Oh yes, I'm familiar with those problems though the system would not really be ever touching the internet directly and would need authenticated access to write to so I'm not terribly concerned about viruses. As for other hardware components failing, I can't really protect against that feasibly so simply buying quality parts will be my goal.

Originally posted by: MerlinRML
PCI-Express has 3 components: electrical lanes (i.e. bandwidth to the slot), the physical slot size, and the connector on the card. None of these 3 must match, and you are limited by the least common piece. Also, you cannot use a card with a larger connector than the physical slot on the motherboard.

For example, a motherboard may offer a 16x PCI-E slot, which really means 16x physical connector. The electrical lanes may be the same or less than that (1x, 4x, 8x, or 16x). So you can plug any sized card that is 16x or smaller in that slot, and the bandwidth will depend on how many lanes are running to that slot. The card will negotiate the bandwidth and run slower if necessary.

So that's how it works - I was thrown off by the physical connector size being different. So the PCI-E x4 and x8 RAID cards would have no problem being plugged into a consumer grade motherboard's PCI-E x16 slot(s)...that would definitely help with not needing to buy $300+ server boards.

 

[Tegeril]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
Honestly with that kind of paranoia over losing your data, I'm surprised you're not more concerned with a fire, earthquake or some other natural disaster (valid concerns mind you).

Two drives failing at the same time is a pretty rare event (rarer imo than a fire or natural disaster)

Not trying to be negative or anything, just you're not only losing performance with the extra parity, but also storage space.

Just curious why you want to spend $1000+ for HDDVD's. Wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy a bunch of said HDDVDs?

Anyways you asked about controllers, the Areca 1220 supports raid 6 and has 8 SATA ports. It's a pretty popular SATA raid card (good performance and features).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16816131004

That Areca card is more or less what I was looking for. I also don't mean to say they're all HDDVDs, Blu-ray too... the idea is to not have to touch discs in order to watch anything after the initial rip off the disc. With eight 1TB drives... I would have about 930GB*6 of space to work with. Rips clock in at about 12GB average...would leave room for 465 movies. I don't really anticipate owning that many anyway, so loss of storage is totally understood and anticpated.

As for two drives failing at the same time being a rare event it is increasingly possible with drives of this capacity, I also simply worry about read errors during a rebuild with only one parity disk, but that's another issue.