Massive media server - JBOD or RAID?

[QChronoD]

I've been ripping all my movies onto my computer over the last while and its pretty much full right now. I already have drive attached to all the on board SATA ports, so I'll need to buy a new controller card and some drives soon. I see three options:
1) Cheap 2/4 port SATA cards, and just run all the drives separately
+ cheap
+ simple
- i'll have to deal with a bunch of different drives shared on the network
- drive failure means I have to redo everything for the new drive
2) a GOOD 12/16 port RAID card, and one massive array
+ single drive failure won't lose anything
+ setting up shares and organization much easier
- expensive
- not very familiar with RAID
3) OTS NAS box (i.e. Drobo)
+ setup should be simple
- limited # of drives
- expensive

I bow to the wisdom of the masses and ask for your recommendations.
If you go with 2 or 3, what brand/model would you suggest??

 

[Absolution75]

How massive is massive? Like 50TB? Or 6? Somewhere in between?

If I wanted a really big server where performance didn't matter (media server), and was on a strict budget. I'd probably RAID 5 as many HD's as I could onto mobo or OS RAID.
OS RAID could be better for longevity (mb/raid card dieing is bad).

If you are really putting 12 2TB drives together though, consider getting a real RAID card. Though 24TB for movies seems kind of excessive unless you aren't compressing them at all. . . I'd reconsider how much money its worth for the convenience of your movies on your PC/server.

 

[RebateMonger]

How much storage space do you need today one two years from now?

 

[FishAk]

- drive failure means I have to redo everything for the new drive

Why wouldn't you simply restore to a new drive from a backup? You do have a backup don't you? If no, that should be your first priority. Sure, you can just convert the movies over again. But most people's time is worth more than the price of storage.

 

[corkyg]

Seems like a huge waste of time and money. But, that is a personal choice. Once I see a movie I have no desire to see it again. Looking ahead, the best bet may be "The Cloud."

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Seems like a huge waste of time and money. But, that is a personal choice. Once I see a movie I have no desire to see it again. Looking ahead, the best bet may be "The Cloud."

I'm leaning towards that view as well. I built a (then massive) quad core server with 4 TB of usable space in 2007 to hold movies, etc. It started filling up fast but has kind of leveled off since I stopped ripping so many DVDs to it (though I do need to finish a few). With Netflix and other streaming solutions available, it is making less and less sense to me to have a massive home server environment for the purpose of storing movies.

When I built this guy in 2007, I hoped it would last until 2012. I don't think that will be a problem unless I decide to start ripping my Blu Rays, and when 2012 hits, I am not even sure I will do an upgrade. I've seriously thought about discontinuing all of my big servers, re-purposing that hardware, and maybe running any "essential" server-type services on a low-power ITX box.

 

[Soulkeeper]

If redundancy or speed is of no concern, then I wouldn't even bother with raid, also JBOD is just an additional layer of complexity that I personally don't like.
I'd just get a standard pcie sata card (no raid) and start plugging drives in after exhausting all the motherboard connectors.

 

[Absolution75]

I'm leaning towards that view as well. I built a (then massive) quad core server with 4 TB of usable space in 2007 to hold movies, etc. It started filling up fast but has kind of leveled off since I stopped ripping so many DVDs to it (though I do need to finish a few). With Netflix and other streaming solutions available, it is making less and less sense to me to have a massive home server environment for the purpose of storing movies.

When I built this guy in 2007, I hoped it would last until 2012. I don't think that will be a problem unless I decide to start ripping my Blu Rays, and when 2012 hits, I am not even sure I will do an upgrade. I've seriously thought about discontinuing all of my big servers, re-purposing that hardware, and maybe running any "essential" server-type services on a low-power ITX box.

QFT


Consider the cost of a netflix streaming service, and consider the cost of whatever you're trying to build. How many months before the total sum of netflix cost >= cost of this server.

I'd wager it would take a loonnngg time for the server to be cost effective. Netflix also requires essentially no time input either.

 

[QChronoD]

Thanks for your replies.
I already have 4 - 1.5TB drives that are almost full, and ordering two more.
I don't really need the speed, I was looking at RAID more for redundancy so that I wouldn't have to either re-do an entire drive worth of stuff (esp anime/music/etc that was all downloaded a long time ago) with out needing to have a stack of HDs laying around doing nothing.
I do like to re-watch my movies when there isn't anything I really want to see on my DVR (plus they don't have commercials). I have thought about Netflix, but it doesn't seem any better than DVD, and they don't have surround sound for most things, and the selection isn't that great for streaming.

 

[Emulex]

drobo seems pretty superior if possible.

 

[sxr7171]

I Netflix HD streaming pretty much matches or slightly exceeds the DVD quality. So Blu-Ray is the way to go if you want a home storage server setup.

This make Drobo and some of the other commercial NAS options nearly irrelevant since they typically hold 6 drives at most and cost into the 4 figures just for the box (no drives). Some can be expanded but you'll be buying expensive expansion units.

I think building a ReadyNAS or Nexentastor (limit 18TB) appliance yourself is the way to go personally. I wouldn't JBOD unless they are 2 JBODS in RAID-1. Lose one drive and lose *everything*.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I personally avoid raid entirely, and use rsync to manually backup for redundancy.
You could setup your system to run rsync once a day while you are sleeping and it'll only transfer new/modified files

 

[Emulex]

i agree. a small fire could take out your entire computer, drives, room, house.

backup backup backup.

unless you need more bandwidth - which you don't to serve multiple blu-ray at the same time - stage the drives.

D E F G

then copy
D to E, E to F, F to G so you have effectively less storage without pooling.

which is what WHS v1 does for you automatically.

go to dreamspark and get a copy of win2kR8 and use its distributed file system replication

 

[Attic]

I'm doing the same thing. For HD video with HD audio I like a good rip over Netflix HD streaming. Shitty timewarner does not have good speed to my home and PQ suffers when streaming.

I'm looking to expand storage but am limited by wireless speeds if I go NAS. I need local to my pc. For NAS is there any option to hook up a unit via USB to my HTPC or do I have to go through a router?

 

[Emulex]

you can network with firewire? but a pair of gigabit might be more useful.


how do you rip netflix hd pm me

 

[Attic]

you can network with firewire? but a pair of gigabit might be more useful.


how do you rip netflix hd pm me

I don't rip netflix, rather I can't stream netflix in HD without hiccups because of speed issues. I don't like to shuffle discs so I rip my movies to my HTPC where I can have very easy access through WMC w/ media browser and media center master to the collection. I find my HQ rips are 20+gb's.


You are saying I could use my available NIC on my HTPC to connect straight to a NAS device? I thought I had to have the NAS connected to my home router via ethernet and my PC then accesses the NAS via the router (in my case wirelessly which would be too slow).

 

[boomhower]

I use a WHS for your exact purpose and couldn't be happier. I bought an Acer H230(I think that's the model number). Currently has a 1TB, 2x1.5TB, and a 2TB. I haven't gotten close to filling it yet. By the time I need more space 3TB drives will be as common as 2TB's now and will just replace the smaller drives as I need the room. I paid ~$250 for the server and less than $100 a piece for the HD's. Just bought them as I needed them. That's the beauty of WHS, you can mix and match HD sizes and replace them with larger ones as needed. But it has it's downsides so just educate yourself on it before committing.

 

[Emulex]

i recommend using a gigabit switch in front of a router always. you do not want large amounts of traffic passing through a router. my hdhomerun would bring the mighty wrt600n to its knees passing a high def show (or two). putting a 8 port $15 gigabit switch in front - rid all of that nonsense.

 

[taltamir]

JBOD = concatenation = all the drawbacks of RAID0 and none of the advantages.
Did you mean, perhaps, "no raid at all" when you said JBOD?

 

[QChronoD]

Yeah, just as separate drives. That's what I always thought JBOD meant, and that spanning was concatenation. RAID0 I know means striping, and RAID1 is mirroring.

1) new SATA card <$50, 6x 1.5TB drives for backup ~$400
2) 12+ RAID card ~$600-$800, 2x 1.5TB drives for RAID6 ~$150
3) 2x 4-drive NAS ~$700, 2x 1.5TB drives for RAID5 ~$150

Right now, just running separate drives is cheaper, but a pain in the butt to organize everything. The RAID card and the NASes are about the same price (depending on model and sales) but the NASes would be about 60&#37; full right now, and if I ever filled them up, I'd need to buy a whole new one. While the RAID card could expand to 15TB (21TB for a 16ch card).
Since I don't really have any experience with setting up and maintaining a RAID array, would it be worthwhile to go that route to try and save money in the long run, or would guys recommend getting multiple NAS boxen and waiting for hard drives to get bigger and cheaper in the future?

 

[vshah]

i'd look into a whs if I were you. I've got 7TB in mine and couldn't be happier

 

[taltamir]

Yeah, just as separate drives. That's what I always thought JBOD meant, and that spanning was concatenation.

there is no government agency that regulates use of words... typically people use spanning, concatenation, and JBOD to mean the same thing. some people use JBOD to mean "no raid at all".
that is why i asked

 

[RebateMonger]

By the time I need more space 3TB drives will be as common as 2TB's now and will just replace the smaller drives as I need the room.

While I think that WHS is great, and that the Acer pre-builts are a great buy, I wouldn't count on being able to use 3 TB hard drives in one. Right now, Windows Home Server doesn't support disks larger than 2 TB. There MAY be workarounds (a couple years ago I read of people forcing GPT-partitioned disks into early homebuilt WHS servers), but maybe not. Plus, since you don't have the option of adding other disk controllers, that'll make things tougher.

Frankly, at this time, it's not clear WHO will be able to use 3 TB disks. Western Digital is including an add-in SATA disk controller with all their current 2.5 and 3.0 TB disks to avoid potential BIOS incompatibilities. You'll likely not be alone in not being able to make use of 3 TB disks in your current PC, especially without an added disk controller.

 

[taltamir]

WHS simply does not work, or rather, it works but it serves no purpose. ANY windows OS can do everything WHS EXCEPT for their creative data storage scheme... but their data storage scheme suffers from data loss because its just badly designed and implemented.
MS tried to solve it in their next gen WHS, but it ran into bugs and they canceled it altogether. bottom line, WHS means your data is not safe.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I use a "JBOD" for both my media servers, "JBOD" meaning I don't join the volumes together - I mount each drive in its own empty folder on a single unified volume.

Server 1 : Assortment of 15 drives/brands (~1/2 1.5TB, a few 1TBs, a few 2TBS) = 24TB
Server 2 : 12x Hitachi 2TB = 24TB

In both cases, the drives are driven by the motherboard's SATA ports (Server 1 = ABIT AB9 Pro, Server 2 = Gigabyte 965P-DS3) and a SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8.
Here's a video of it in action :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krWKoo75rEA