RAID 5 on a budget?

[Enygma 6]

Greetings, just a general question to the forum, and a request for advice in virgin territory (for me).

After the recent semi-demise of a networked external hard drive that I had been using for backups, it became apparent that I needed something slightly more secure in terms of semi-permanent storage. I tend to collect video files and pictures, and currently have a few hundred GB filled between the few computers on my home LAN.
To help with my data preservation and access needs, I was thinking of setting up a fileserver computer, whose sole purpose would be to act as storage and backup for my collections. Since this computer would not be used for much of anything else, I was thinking of saving a bit of money on components so I could put as much hard drive storage into it as possible.

My parents are willing to donate their old computer (which I had originally donated to them 4 years ago). It is a K6-III 450MHz, 256MB ram, 8MB video. The power supply and original (6GB) hard drive will be replaced if I use this setup (I already have an almost-new 40GB drive that will host the OS -- no booting off of the RAID array). The nice thing about this setup is the case, which IIRC, has 4x3.5" internal, 1x3.5" external (floppy), and 4x5.25" external drive bays in an AT mid-tower setup. I can leave a CDRW and floppy, and have plenty of room for hard drives.

I was looking at the Highpoint raid controllers, specifically the RocketRAID 1640 SATA raid controller (4-port SATA, RAID 5)
or the RocketRAID 464 (4-channel ATA RAID 5)
Either one of those combined with at least 4 300GB drives (possibly 400GB if the price is right)

If anyone has experience with either of these raid controllers, I would appreciate some recommendations.
Price and noise are my main factors here, not speed. This machine will most likely reside in my bedroom, and I want to keep costs as low as possible, but given the age of the CPU I intend to use, I have doubts about setting up a WinXP software RAID5 (as I've seen in the THG How-To's).
From the few reviews I have found on the Highpoint controllers, they appear to use the CPU a bit more than pure hardware controllers such as by Promise, etc., but they are also a fraction of the cost.

If anyone out there has experience with this type of a setup or components, any help with my questions would be greatly appreciated:
1. Am I crazy for considering using an older CPU/motherboard like this?
2. How big of a power supply is necessary to keep 5 to 9 hard drives in decent working order?
3. Is software RAID5 possible on slower processors at a useable speed?
4. Are either one of the Highpoint controllers good for this application?
5. If in the future I decide 900GB/1.2TB isn't enough, how difficult is it to add new drives to a RAID5 without destroying data?
6. What is the best OS for use with this? (my current LAN consists of 2 WinXP's and a Win98 machine)
7. Would it be difficult to get a Mac to see the shared RAID array on the LAN? (the Mac mini is looking very tempting)

I'm looking to start this project in the next 1-2 months (whenever bonuses and tax returns get here), so I'm attempting to harvest as much useful information as I can before I shell out my money.

 

[WalkingDead]

Stay away from the Highpoint cards because all of them are software based. Go for the LSI or Promise hardware based cards.

 

[dartworth]

good raid card for around $200...

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr1820a.htm

 

[Jeff7]

I use Promise's SX4000, which uses 4 regular ATA drives, and I'm impressed with it.
They have the S150 SX4 too, which uses SATA drives.
You'll need the SX6000 if you want more than 4 drives. And then you'll probably need a server motherboard that supports the 66MHz PCI bus, or else you're going to choke a 33MHz PCI bus, assuming the SX6000 even supports it.

1. Am I crazy for considering using an older CPU/motherboard like this?
Yes, I think so. I use my SX4000 in a 2GHz AthlonXP-M system with an nForce2 motherboard, and its sustained transfer rates exceed 100MB/sec, close to PCI's 133MB/sec theoretical limit.

2. How big of a power supply is necessary to keep 5 to 9 hard drives in decent working order?
My system runs with a 430W Antec Truepower - total of 5 hard drives in there, 4 on the array, one on the motherboard's IDE port.

3. Is software RAID5 possible on slower processors at a useable speed?
I don't see it recommended even on high-speed processor systems.

4. Are either one of the Highpoint controllers good for this application?
Don't know. You'll probably want a hardware assist card though, no matter what your CPU.

5. If in the future I decide 900GB/1.2TB isn't enough, how difficult is it to add new drives to a RAID5 without destroying data?
Not really difficult, but very time consuming. I upgraded my array of 160GB's to 200GB drives. One at a time - remove one old drive, put a new one in. The array recognizes that one component is missing, and it automatically regenerates the missing data from the parity information. This can take awhile though - it took 22 hours per drive when I did it. But then, the array was still the same size - the new space wasn't visible. I copied all of the data off the array (except the Windows partition, as my imaging software couldn't see the SX4000), onto the now-available 160GB drives, then I wiped, and re-created the array. Reinstalled Windows, and then copied the data off the 160GB drives.

6. What is the best OS for use with this? (my current LAN consists of 2 WinXP's and a Win98 machine)
I'm using WinXP Pro SP2 on the RAID 5 system. I don't know if it's "best" but it seems to work just fine.

The initial cost when I built the 160GB array, plus the extra 160GB drive, was $666 for the SX4000, and the 5 hard drives. I also needed a stick of RAM - 128MB PC100 ECC was what I chose - for the SX4000 for use as a buffer. That was only maybe $20 on the forums here. So RAID 5 isn't really a cheap thing. It can be cheaper than RAID 1, which needs pairs of drives, and only gives you a storage capacity equal to half the total amount used. RAID 5 offers fault tolerance, even or odd numbers of drives allowed, and it only needs one drive's-worth of space for its fault tolerance, no matter the size of the array. Of course, in theory, RAID 1 could have half the drives die (maximum, it would likely take less though, depending on which drives fail) and still work. If RAID 5 loses two drives, all's lost; it can only handle one drive dying at a time.

7. Would it be difficult to get a Mac to see the shared RAID array on the LAN? (the Mac mini is looking very tempting)
Don't know a thing about Mac's, however, if you can get a Mac to see any shared drive on a Windows network, it'd be able to see the RAID array. Just share the partitions like you'd share any regular drive.



One other option, cheaper, is removable drives. They don't offer the convenience of always having the drives active, but they're cheaper, and they save power, as only one is in use at a time. I recently added this mobile rack to my fileserver system; it accepts these trays. One hard drive fits in each tray. Just swap out the drives as you need them. Be sure to disable the write cache for your SATA controller though (manufacturer's utility might be able to do this), which reduces performance, but it also greatly reduces the risk of data corruption - if data's present in the write cache when the drive is swapped out, you can corrupt the drive's contents. I've read that SATA is hot-swappable, though Windows doesn't recognize it as such. But I've done it already with this mobile rack on an Abit NF7-S rev2 motherboard without problems.

 

[WalkingDead]

the Highpoint card do not support online expansion

 

[Alex]

stay away from highpoint!

 

[tynopik]

if you're concerned about data security and don't have enterprise-level equipment i would STAY AWAY FROM RAID-5. There are too many horror stories about controllers dieing or losing their settings and destroying an entire array.

i would recommend a few raid-1 setups, which has the advantage of being practically foolproof. if your controller dies, you can just pull a drive out and hook it up to a regular ide port, no problem. yes you lose some space and the space won't be one continuous piece, but is it really that hard to spread your collection across a few drives?