I am planning to put together a home server. I would use this to store anything from movies and music to financial documents. I would like to keep my data as safe and error free as reasonably possible, but I also want to do it as cheaply as possible.
The one detail that I've nearly nailed down is that I will probably use either a RAID-Z or a RAID-2Z array. While reading up on these topics, I repeatedly see recommendations for ECC RAM. Unfortunately, while I have more sticks of RAM than I have slots in motherboards, I don't have a single stick of ECC RAM. This has created my main hardware dilemma.
The system I originally planned to use for this file server is an Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 747) in an K8T Neo-FSR motherboard with one 1GB and two 512MB sticks of DDR RAM. The board reportedly supports ECC memory with a maximum of 1GB of RAM per slot. However, the cheapest ECC non-registered DDR RAM I found (here) is about three times as expensive as its DDR2 equivalent (Are there better places to shop for ECC RAM?). This makes me wonder if I would be better off just buying a whole new cheap, low power system.
My other issue with this older computer is that the board has four SATA connections and three IDE channels. I want to have more than four SATA drives for the server, but I could just get a couple of these IDE to SATA adapters. Is there any reason why that would be unwise?
In short, I'm currently looking at three possible solutions for a RAID-(2)Z file server:
1) Use old computer with non-ECC RAM and IDE to SATA adapters
2) Use old computer with new ECC RAM and IDE to SATA adapters
3) Buy a whole new system
Any opinions or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The one detail that I've nearly nailed down is that I will probably use either a RAID-Z or a RAID-2Z array. While reading up on these topics, I repeatedly see recommendations for ECC RAM. Unfortunately, while I have more sticks of RAM than I have slots in motherboards, I don't have a single stick of ECC RAM. This has created my main hardware dilemma.
The system I originally planned to use for this file server is an Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 747) in an K8T Neo-FSR motherboard with one 1GB and two 512MB sticks of DDR RAM. The board reportedly supports ECC memory with a maximum of 1GB of RAM per slot. However, the cheapest ECC non-registered DDR RAM I found (here) is about three times as expensive as its DDR2 equivalent (Are there better places to shop for ECC RAM?). This makes me wonder if I would be better off just buying a whole new cheap, low power system.
My other issue with this older computer is that the board has four SATA connections and three IDE channels. I want to have more than four SATA drives for the server, but I could just get a couple of these IDE to SATA adapters. Is there any reason why that would be unwise?
In short, I'm currently looking at three possible solutions for a RAID-(2)Z file server:
1) Use old computer with non-ECC RAM and IDE to SATA adapters
2) Use old computer with new ECC RAM and IDE to SATA adapters
3) Buy a whole new system
Any opinions or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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