Looking for more file server advice

[MasamuneXGP]

Hello again all. I posted about this a month ago, but now that the time is near, I'd like a little more advice. I'm looking to build a file server. I've already secured myself a lovely Areca ARC-1220 RAID card, but as far as everything else goes, I'm still researching what I want. I plan on hitting the "buy" button the weekend after next.

I have two main questions. Firstly, what kind of hard drive should I be looking at? At first I was hoping for 1TB drives, but the $/GB is still too high, so I guess I'm going with 750's, four of them to start with. Obviously reliability is my primary concern, but performance is of course important.

Secondly, how much power is enough? I'm planning on running it headless, without a video card. Currently I'm looking at the 450w Corsair PSU. Would that be enough to power (an eventual) eight hard drives, or should I be looking at higher wattages?

Thanks all.

 

[MasamuneXGP]

Bump? Anybody?

 

[Twilling]

You should keep it simple and just get a Ready NASNV+. I had a couple of servers and after spending much time with Linux and then going with a Windows setup with much dinero for software I am so much happier with a simple Ready NASNV. I got four Hitachi 750GB drives screaming of my gigbit lan. Movies, music, photos, and redundant storage forever!

 

[tynopik]

what sort of raid level were you thinking of running?

the power supply should be plenty power-wise but it only has 6 sata connectors so you'll need 2 splitters for 8 if you're comfortable with that

if not, the 620hx has 8 connectors native, but it's quite a bit more

what OS? WHS?

 

[Rubycon]

450 is fine for that.

What mobo, cpu and ram?

Hitachi 750's with 32MB cache work great in multi user environments.

 

[MasamuneXGP]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Tynopik: I'm planning on using RAID 5. I know RAID 6 is more redundant, but the idea of losing *two* drives doesn't sit too well with me. Maybe once I max out all eight, I'll switch to RAID 6. As far as the OS goes, I'm very much undecided. I've heard great things about Samba, so that's one thing I'm considering. WHS is another, I'd like to see some sort of comparison review. And is there any reason I wouldn't want to use splitters for the sata power?

Rubycon: I'm still looking around, but my current shopping list is as follows:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130121
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819116040
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820144199

EDIT: I'm also looking at this for the case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811208022

One thing I'm really worried about is accidentally buying a board with gigabit ethernet off the PCI bus, as opposed to off the PCIe bus. How do I tell which is which? Also, is 1gb of RAM enough (assuming I use this thing for fileserving and nothing more)?

 

[tynopik]

> WHS is another

if you end up getting WHS you don't really need raid

you might also consider unRAID

then you could get something like the GA-EP35-DS3R with 8 SATA-II ports and sell the ARC-1220

> One thing I'm really worried about is accidentally buying a board with gigabit ethernet off the PCI bus, as opposed to off the PCIe bus.

that motherboard uses the Realtek 8111B, which as PCIe device

 

[MasamuneXGP]

> that motherboard uses the Realtek 8111B, which as PCIe device

Okay... how do you know?

 

[tynopik]

1. the specs of the motherboard explicitly say it uses the Realtek 8111B

2. search for 'Realtek 8111B' and its specs reveal that it is a PCIe device