Help me setup a personal server..

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jbass

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Nov 12, 2004
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I need to build a personal file server. It will be used to store music, videos, files, etc...I would like to use SATA drives (300gig each) in a RAID Mirroring configuration. I would also like to be able to add more drives later. So 2x300gig now, and add 2x300gig later, and more if necessary. What is the most efficient ($$) way of doing this?

Should I get SATA RAID Card that supports 4 devices?
or
Should I get SATA Card and use software RAID?
or
Look for MOBO that has 4 SATA plugs and supports RAID?

Is drive spanning a good idea? or should i stay away from that?

I can use Win xp Linux (not extremely good with linux, but can get done what needs to get done)

Any help would be appreciated.
 
J

jbass

Member
Nov 12, 2004
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What about an onboard RAID 5 solution? A mobo with this is only around 140$ and will take 4 drives. Any thoughts?
 
Homerboy

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
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do not use onboard RAID
buy a dedicated RAID5 controller card with minimum 64MB SDRAM onboard.
 
J

jbass

Member
Nov 12, 2004
148
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If i have a RAID 5 setup on 3 drives, can I add a 4th drive at a later date?
 
JackMDS

JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
29,545
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Quote: I need to build a personal file server. It will be used to store music, videos, files, etc...I

It is very exciting to play with all the hardware that you mentioned.

However it is not really necessary in order to serve Music and Video.

Any computer above 2GHz with good big Hard Drive will suffice.

:sun:
 
2

2thAche

Member
Mar 1, 2005
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Do you really need RAID5 for a home file server? A simple RAID1 setup will do what you want unless you and 5 buddies are streaming pr0n over gigabit LAN.
 
Homerboy

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,890
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Above 2ghz? My lord... I my home server streaming music, video genreal files on a P233 for the longest time. CPU speed hardly matters.

RAID5 is the ideal set up as it gives you space and redundancy. I currently have 4x160gig in RAID5 (and its near full) I have full fault tolerance with maximum space. RAID5 is the best for any file server, home or work.
 
Homerboy

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,890
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I love in that Tom's hardware article that the I/O was ~1MB/sec on that WinXP hack.... 1MB/sec? Do you have ANY idea how slow that is? Dear god, I'd fear a rebuild (or format) on that kind of speed. For $150 you can get a decent RAID5 controller card. You're data is worth it.
 
quakefiend420

quakefiend420

Lifer
Aug 26, 2004
14,685
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Originally posted by: Homerboy
Above 2ghz? My lord... I my home server streaming music, video genreal files on a P233 for the longest time. CPU speed hardly matters.

RAID5 is the ideal set up as it gives you space and redundancy. I currently have 4x160gig in RAID5 (and its near full) I have full fault tolerance with maximum space. RAID5 is the best for any file server, home or work.
Click to expand...

thats what i was just thinking...my file server is a celeron 533...
 
G

gsattler

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2005
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I setup a RAID 5 file server this past June. I started out tring to use a Promise SX6000 6 channel PATA PCI controller that I bought off of eBay. At that time I was trying to get the RAID array setup under Suse 8.1, and after realizing that the hacked Promise drivers were going to take a huge effort to get them to work, I abandoned the RAID card and sold it. The whole situation was further complicated by my lack of proficiency with Linux. I ended up getting a 3ware Escalade 7506-8 PATA RAID 5 PCI card, and installing Win XP Pro. I used 8x200GB Seagate 7200.7 Hard Drives due to the reliability ratings in the Storage Review drive reliability survey (objective evaluation of drive reliability by model, and not by brand only is good). I kinda went all out and used an Enermax NoiseTaker 475 to insure that I would have enough power for all the drives, and heavily modded an Antec SLK3700AMB to fit 9 3.5" drives inside. The processor and motherboard are kind of overkill, an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe v2.0 and AMD Athlon 2500+ that I was reusing from my primary computer. A few weeks ago I had a critical fault on the array, and had to reseat the connectors on one of the RAID drives, but the array rebuilt fine and quickly. On another side note, I get much faster data transferrs with the onboard nVidia ethernet port on the A7N8X compared to the onboard 3Com port, and also lower CPU utilization. I am really happy with my array, about 1300GB formatted capacity, and shouldn't need upgrade for the rest of 2005 (crossing my fingers).

Conclusion: I am really happy with my 3Ware hardware RAID solution. The card was on the expensive side ($365 shipped, Hyper Microsystems). I would highly recommend that anyone building a file server with this many drives either be prepared to route bulky PATA cables all over the place, or do the SATA thing. Also, don't forget how important cooling and good airflow is in a case with many, closely spaced hard drives. Data is reliable when you insure redundancy (mirroring, parity), and insure drive longevity (cooling).
 
BurnItDwn

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,330
1,841
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This may seem stupid, but if it's going to be a file server, you are going to pretty much be limmited by the speed of your network, unless you go all out and buy Gig-E everything.

Also, a good Raid card is expensive, as are SATA drives ...

You may want to consider using integrated Raid, and just using raid 1 (or raid 1+0). for under $200 you should be able to get an athlon XP and a mobo with onboard raid.
Then pick up 4 x 200 GB drives for like $320 or so (look through Hot deals and buy the cheapest 200gb drives you can find.) and you will have a pair of raid 1 arrays, or a raid 1+0 array if you would like.

You will get 400GB of totally usable space that will be redundant.
Even though it's probably going to be a crappy raid controller, because it's raid 1, it's not going to suffer in speed the same way a software Raid 5 array does. (doesn't need to calculate any parity to just write something to both drives). It's true your write speed won't be so good (compared to other RAID options). However your read speeds will match Raid 0.

to get 400 GB of usable space in Raid5, you would need a good controller, and 3 x 200GB drives .... as was mentioned before, a good controller is NECESSARY for raid 5 if you want decent speeds. So you would need to spend $300+ on a controller, and then $240 on the drives ... this will cost a lot more even though you won't need to purchase as many drives.

Also, if you don't need the redundancy because everything important is on DVD or Tape backup ... then go with raid0 to maximize the space you get.


Raid Cards can be a bit of a pain to set up in Linux, as can be Samba, however after running a linux server for several years, I couldn't imagine ever switching my server to a Windows platform. (Even though Windows is pretty stable these days with 100+ day uptimes not too rare a thing.)
 
Homerboy

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,890
5,001
126
decent enough RAID5 cards can be had for sub $200....
It would be silly of him to "Waste" the space on 2x200gig drives doing RAID0+1
why not just do it RIGHT and do RAID5
 
J

jbass

Member
Nov 12, 2004
148
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I DO need ALOT of space.. So i dont really want to go the RAID 1 route and lose alot of drives for backup. RAID 5 seems right for me, and now it is just a matter of choosing a controller and setting things up. I guess i will stay away from the WINXP RAID 5 (software) due to the slow transfer rates. I will just have to go the more expensive route with the separate card.
 
2

2thAche

Member
Mar 1, 2005
26
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See if you can find an old Promise SX4000. I'm running plain old IDE RAID0 with 256MB of on-card SDRAM and it's very fast.
 
H

halfadder

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2004
1,190
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Personal server? Just run your server apps on your main desktop rig. If you really want/need a dedicated server, hit ebay and buy an old SPARC for a few dollars.
 
G

gsattler

Junior Member
Mar 4, 2005
2
0
0
Saw this over on Slashdot. Took a look at it and thought of this thread. There is an article on Tweakers.net that discusses the performance and relative value of different SATA RAID 5 PCI card implementations. A good read, tons of information.

http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/557/1

Graham
 
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