Looking for Network File Storage Advice

[bastion]

So I recently bought a new HDD based camcorder to record vid of our first child, which along with my years of digital photos and my growing itunes mp3/podcast/video collection, has finally pushed me to install some increased storage reliability. I was looking at some standalone NAS units at first, but figured for a bit more $$, I could upgrade from my current PC and then use the old one as a file server or NAS. So now I?m struggling over what is the best route.

What I?ve currently got:
Board: MSI KT333 Ultra Socket A board ? 5 PCI (2.2), 1 8xAGP, 2xIDE, no SATA, no RAID.
Proc: Athlon XP 2400+ (2GHz)
Mem: 1 GB PC 5200 DDR (2x512)
Drive: 320GB Maxtor PATA drive
Video: Leadtek 6800 LE (12 unlocked pipes and 5 unlocked shaders)
Power: 450 Watt (can?t remember the mfg, but it?s a pretty solid supply with 2 12v rails).
Other: Sound blaster 5.1, USB 2.0 card, Firewire Card, DVD Burner, DVD Drive, Floppy Drive

I?m looking to upgrade to the following. Not looking to spend a ton of money, but want to get up to the current AM2, PCI-E, DDR2, SATA since my old motherboard is so outdated and un-upgradeable.

Board: GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4 AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI
Proc: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Dual-Core (Black Ed.) with AC Freezer 64 CPU Cooler
Mem: 2GB (2x1GB) G.Skill DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Drive: Keep the 320GB Maxtor PATA drive in here for the time being.
Video: XFX GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB GDDR3 PIC-E x16
Power: Antec Earthwatts 500W Power Supply
Other: Lite-on 20x SATA DVD Burner, Floppy Drive

First off, thoughts on new build? Based on discounts and rebates on newegg, would cost about $455

Ok, now to the main question. How to utilize the old box. I?d like to stick at least 2 500GB drive in there for the time being, with some form of redundancy, probably RAID 1 mirror. I?d also like the drives to be SATA, so that when I eventually replace them with larger drives, then the 500GB SATAs can go into my new box and replace the 300GB PATA. I?ll stick with the 300GB in there now though, since most of my files will be on file server, and I?ll only pull down videos and pics that I need to edit in real time onto the new box, so it won?t need as much storage space. This means I?ll need a SATA controller for my old box, and it?ll need to be PCI (2.2 compliant) since the old MSI board doesn?t have PCI-E.

Now we get down to the nitty gritty. What is my best solution/use for the old PC in terms of file storage/reliability. Keep in mind, I?m not looking to host anything outside of my house, just have a central location for storing my video/mp3/pictures, host them to my PC/laptop/PS3, and have reliable data loss protection, since a lot of what will be going on there in the near future is video and pics of our new baby. Honestly, the data loss protection is my biggest concern. I?d also like to have the flexibility of moving to RAID5 at some point when I add more drives, but it's not a necessity at this point.

So, do I go with hardware SATA RAID controller or a SATA controller card w/ software based RAID? Do I go with a NAS based solution (freeNAS, NASLite, Openfiler)? Or do I just make a file server (Windows XP with Hardware based RAID or Software based: http://www.tomshardware.com/20...to_make_raid_5_happen/ ). Any other options I?m missing?

Any advice you guys could give from your experience would be great. I just want to make sure that our digital memories of our first child aren?t lost due to a HDD crash, and upgrade my PC in the process would be nice. But honestly, if a dedicated NAS (D-Link 323 or Buffalo Link Station, etc.) or External Drive based solution is best, then I?m fine with investing in that and not upgrading my PC for the time being.

Thanks!

 

[oynaz]

Using your old PC instead of a stand-alone NAS will cost you quite a lot in terms of power. It might easily add up to 100+ $ a year. Many people forget that, so I just wanted to point it out.

The new build looks fine, except for the PSU, which is way overkill. A 300 watt PSU would be plenty.

 

[tw1164]

If data lose is your biggest concern I would just buy an external drive. You can sync/backup your data every weekend and take it w/ you to work (or any where off site) on Monday.

 

[bastion]

Problem with that is I do not plan on keeping all of my files on my main PC, since the video footage off my HDD camcorder will take up alot of space. I just want to be able to take what ever file I'm working with, pull it over to the PC's drive from the storage, and then edit/process/burn and remove it again.

Just an external drive wouldn't provide redundant failure protection for the data on that drive. At that point I'd be looking at something like the D-link 323 or the other NAS or USB/eSATA. So, any good suggestions for that kind of solution?

 

[Old Hippie]

I haven't used it, but it's getting rave reviews. Windows Home Server for all your storage needs.

 

[bastion]

Hmm, that does look pretty nice. Non-raid, but still offers data redundancy across multiple drives with hot swap capability. Just kinda pricy though. $700+ would build me a nice new rig along with a good hardware SATA RAID controller for my old box.

Hmmmm, not sure what to do here, but the opportunity to upgrade is making me lean more towards building a mirrored or striped file server in my old box. But does anyone have any experience with running programs like freeNAS or naslite on a box instead of a standard XP or linux OS?

 

[bastion]

Ok, ended up buying parts for a new build and will turn my old build into a file server or NAS, so I'm still really interested in finding out opinions on the PC based NAS OSes (freeNAS, etc.) versus running WinXP or Windows Server on it.

Also, what would be my best route for now, knowing I'm going to be putting 2 500GB SATA drives in the old box for mirroring (initially, will eventually add more drives at some point and do striping, but not till I really need the space). Should I just get a cheaper PCI SATAII controller card and do software mirroring in windows or the NAS OS? Or should I pitch in more $$ and get a decent PCI SATAII Hardware RAID card that suppots hot swapping, like the Promise TX4310?


Also, here's what I ended up with for the new build. Quite a change, went with the e2200 intel chip instead of AMD so I can OC the crap out of it and have a nice platform for upgrading to a better chip somewhere down the line:

Proc: E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 Dual-Core - $95
Gigabyte GA-P35-DSL3 - $90
XFX GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB GDDR3 PIC-E x16 - $90 (AR)
Antec Earthwatts 500W Power Supply (I know it's a bit beefy, but couldn't beat the price) - $49 (AR)
Corsair XMS2 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800 CAS4 kit - $35 (AR)
Samsung 20x SATA DVD Burner - $31
Floppy Drive - $7
Antec P180 Mid Tower - $50 (AR)

Total Cost after Rebates - $447

Plus the two new 500GB SATA drives I bought to go into the old box - $180

Thoughts?

 

[dclive]

Seconded - Windows Home Server. Find the cheapest CPU you can (an old P3/1000 would be plenty), cram 512MB of RAM in there, and plug in a SATA card of some kind, and start adding 500GB HDDs. Install Windows Home Server. Poof - you're done. It's brilliant; I wouldn't even bother with anything else.

 

[blacklabelrum]

I couldn't have said it better my self.

 

[bastion]

Originally posted by: dclive
Seconded - Windows Home Server. Find the cheapest CPU you can (an old P3/1000 would be plenty), cram 512MB of RAM in there, and plug in a SATA card of some kind, and start adding 500GB HDDs. Install Windows Home Server. Poof - you're done. It's brilliant; I wouldn't even bother with anything else.

sweet, so I just need to get a copy of win home server and a sata controller.

hardware raid or software?

 

[dclive]

Again, a SATA card of some kind. I'd go for the cheapest you can find, but that's up to you.

RAID? Who mentioned RAID? You don't want RAID.

 

[bastion]

I don't? Then where's my redundancy? Like I said, I want to keep all of my shared files on the file server, so I can stream or pull down what I need on my laptop or desktop. But if I'm not doing mirroring or striping on the server, then what's preventing data loss due to HDD failure?

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: bastion
Then where's my redundancy?

You didn't read the link to WHS yet, did you? WHS includes a mode that automatically duplicates data across multiple hard drives. You can expand your redundant drive space by simply adding another drive.

As always, don't consider RAID or any other in-PC redundancy system a "100% backup". People lose data from RAID arrays. A secondary backup system is the only way to be sure. Fire, flood, user mistakes, theft, and multiple drive failure are common ways that data is lost from RAID arrays.

 

[bastion]

well, after reading some more information about WHS, I think I'll wait till they work out some of the bugs with file sharing. Apparently it is a great solution for backups, but a very glitchy file server, and MS isn't really keeping their knowledge base updated about it either as indicated here: http://forums.microsoft.com/Wi...stID=2642866&SiteID=50

Think I might stick with the two 500GB drives and WinXP and just do RAID 1 Mirroring for the time being. Then when I want to expand to 3+ drives, hopefully WHS will be a bit mroe stable as a file server.