How do you feel about RAID in an HTPC?

[Kaido]

I was playing around with ideas for a home theater PC (HTPC) today. 400gb hard drives are fairly low-priced now at $200 a pop; it'd be easy to build a basic system with a terabyte of storage for under a grand. How do you feel about putting big hard drives in RAID? It seems like it would be a good idea, but at the same time, (1) how important are TV shows if your hard drive dies and (2) that could be an extra 400 gigs of TV shows for your viewing pleasure, rather than just backup. What do you think?

 

[Matthias99]

I have a RAID5 array in my HTPC.

In practice, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you run them in RAID or not, but it's nice to have the high STR for streaming and/or copying multiple big video files at once.

 

[Bobthelost]

I don't think it's really worth it, if it's a small factor PC then you'll end up swapping the drives out before they die (probably). As such it'd be a bit of a waste of time/money.

 

[EatSpam]

Put the RAID array in a server with lots of fans to keep things cool, then place the server where it can be noisy and not bother anyone. Build an HTPC with only one drive and try to make it nearly silent.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: EatSpam
Put the RAID array in a server with lots of fans to keep things cool, then place the server where it can be noisy and not bother anyone. Build an HTPC with only one drive and try to make it nearly silent.

That's the other thing I was thinking. The two options I'm looking at right now are (1) a PC-based HTPC and (2) a Mac Mini-based HTPC. The PC-based HTPC could be built to run Half-Life 2 and other games very well and also has a variety of software and hardware available (Firefly remote, Hauppauge PVR card, SageTV, etc.). The Mac Mini would basically be just an audio/video player, but would be small, sleek, and sexy. It would also cost less to run (20 watts with about a 32 watt max at full load vs. 300+ watts for a PC). I'd have to design some nice HTPC software to run stuff over the network from the server for it, so it would be a lot more work to get up and running.

I got my wife an Intel iMac for her birthday, along with an external PVR box for recording shows like Lost, My Name is Earl, etc. I could use a Mac Mini as a set-top box to play DVDs and to stream iTunes music and recorded TV shows. There is also an app out there that will let you watch live TV and pause live TV over a network connection, so that would work out really nicely. My budget is shot for awhile because I bought the iMac, so I'm just in the "ideas" stage right now lol. I kind of like the idea of having a seperate machine to do the recording and streaming because it offers a more powerful approach to content creation as well as more control over recording functions. For one, I can edit commercials out of shows much easier on a dedicated computer with a high-res monitor than I can with a remote on a TV. Also, the iMac has iMovie and iDVD, so it'd be a cinch to burn shows to DVD with custom menus. OTOH, a nice PC with dual 400gb hard drives, a gaming card, and HTPC equipment would cost about the same as a decked-out Mac Mini, plus let me play games on my TV and have room to record tons and tons of shows. So that's something to think about.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I have a RAID5 array in my HTPC.

In practice, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you run them in RAID or not, but it's nice to have the high STR for streaming and/or copying multiple big video files at once.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of RAID 1 (mirroring) for backup purposes. It doesn't prevent data loss due to virus or corruption, but it does prevent you from losing everything if one drive goes. However, at $200 extra for protection, I don't know if I care about my saved TV shows that much

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Kaido
I was playing around with ideas for a home theater PC (HTPC) today. 400gb hard drives are fairly low-priced now at $200 a pop; it'd be easy to build a basic system with a terabyte of storage for under a grand. How do you feel about putting big hard drives in RAID? It seems like it would be a good idea, but at the same time, (1) how important are TV shows if your hard drive dies and (2) that could be an extra 400 gigs of TV shows for your viewing pleasure, rather than just backup. What do you think?

Just get 4 drives... and RAID5 them. You'll have 1.2TB for space and a 400mb drive for parity.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I have a RAID5 array in my HTPC.

In practice, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you run them in RAID or not, but it's nice to have the high STR for streaming and/or copying multiple big video files at once.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of RAID 1 (mirroring) for backup purposes. It doesn't prevent data loss due to virus or corruption, but it does prevent you from losing everything if one drive goes. However, at $200 extra for protection, I don't know if I care about my saved TV shows that much

When you lose 400gb of stuff... or 200 hrs worth of TV, you will.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I have a RAID5 array in my HTPC.

In practice, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you run them in RAID or not, but it's nice to have the high STR for streaming and/or copying multiple big video files at once.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of RAID 1 (mirroring) for backup purposes. It doesn't prevent data loss due to virus or corruption, but it does prevent you from losing everything if one drive goes. However, at $200 extra for protection, I don't know if I care about my saved TV shows that much

When you lose 400gb of stuff... or 200 hrs worth of TV, you will.

Ack, I need a better-paying job

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I have a RAID5 array in my HTPC.

In practice, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you run them in RAID or not, but it's nice to have the high STR for streaming and/or copying multiple big video files at once.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of RAID 1 (mirroring) for backup purposes. It doesn't prevent data loss due to virus or corruption, but it does prevent you from losing everything if one drive goes. However, at $200 extra for protection, I don't know if I care about my saved TV shows that much

Well, I also use mine to backup data from the other systems on the network as well, so it's not just TV shows.

But yes, when my HTPC blew up (motherboard failure), I actually ended up losing some data because the filesystem had been corrupted (the chipset fan failed and the northbridge was apparently overheating and randomly corrupting data being written to disk). RAID itself is certainly not a guarantee of protecting your data.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Matthias99
I have a RAID5 array in my HTPC.

In practice, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you run them in RAID or not, but it's nice to have the high STR for streaming and/or copying multiple big video files at once.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of RAID 1 (mirroring) for backup purposes. It doesn't prevent data loss due to virus or corruption, but it does prevent you from losing everything if one drive goes. However, at $200 extra for protection, I don't know if I care about my saved TV shows that much

Well, I also use mine to backup data from the other systems on the network as well, so it's not just TV shows.

But yes, when my HTPC blew up (motherboard failure), I actually ended up losing some data because the filesystem had been corrupted (the chipset fan failed and the northbridge was apparently overheating and randomly corrupting data being written to disk). RAID itself is certainly not a guarantee of protecting your data.

Definately, I agree. I'm a big fan of using Norton Ghost to make system clones of PCs (see my tutorial here). I think that if you're serious about backup, Ghost + RAID + external backup is the way to go. However, I don't need that level for an HTPC, so maybe Ghost + RAID or Ghost + external backup would do the trick. That way I could restore the system in an emergency and also have a file backup, either on a RAID disk or on a backup system (external hard drive, tape setup, etc.)