SW vs HW dilemma

[velis]

I currently have a RAID-5 running on Intel onboard controller (H67), composed of 4 1.5 TB drives. I'm running out of space on that, so now I'm facing a dilemma:

The MB in question only has 6 SATA ports and those are all taken (in addition to the disks there's also a CD + system SSD).

I'm considering adding two more 3 TB drives to obtain a total of 9 TB. The existing drives would be placed into 2x RAID 0 array, each 3TB in size.

Of course, the MB can't serve this many drives which means I need a better / different solution. I came up with two possibilities:

1. Buy a HP Smartarray P400 512 BBU version (up to 8 drives) - found some used ones for 40 - 50 EUR
2. Buy a simple SATA expansion card and use Windows Storage spaces to obtain the desired results. In order to actually obtain the desired performance, I'm also hoping to use Intel SRT over the entire array. For that I also need to buy a new MB (found one P8H77-v for 45EUR) + 15EUR for SATA card

Money-wise the controller seems to be the right way to go, but quite honestly I'm afraid of HW solutions. Once HW fails, the array goes for good. On top of that, those cables that come with this controller arent' exactly something I'm familiar with. Plus there may be future driver issues with it and current compatibility issues (I read that it doesn't want to work in some motherboards). I have no desire to spend much more on a controller. 100 EUR is pretty much the limit for me and I'm not exactly good at finding this stuff.

OTOH the SW solution will definitely require caching and I think SRT might be the way to go. There are SW solutions like PrimoCache, but its write-back cache is RAM only and that is not acceptable for me.

So, what would be a good solution for my predicament?

 

[VirtualLarry]

For your purposes, definitely go with a purpose-build hardware controller.

 

[velis]

This won't be as easy as one might think. I just went through entire P400 documentation and it looks like it can't do raid-0 on two drives then use that volume in a raid-5. It will be tricky to identify controllers that are at all capable of such configurations.

 

[Ketchup]

Is this computer THE computer, so to speak, or is this a computer set aside for storage /server duties?

 

[velis]

Storage / server + HTPC. It's not the main computer.

Edit: I did some further research, read: I installed Win10 technical preview. Storage spaces also can't do what I want. It's rather funny, how it reacts: Adding 4 x 1.5TB + 2 x 3TB drives results in suggestion for a parity array of 7.5 TB. I couldn't figure out how it reaches this size. There is no way to make it work as I want.

The only way I see it working is by first creating two HW raid 0 volumes and then combine them into RAID 5 with Storage Spaces. I don't really see how this could be a viable solution.

It would be better to just keep the existing drives in its own RAID-5 and then add a new array for my additional storage needs.

Edit 2: This is a total disaster: I found another interesting controller: LSI 8708EM2. However, I have seen a review on newegg that it only supports drives < 2TB. There's no info in any of its tech specs about that. Also not for HP SA P400. How do I even find this info?!?!

 

[Auric]

lime-technology forum has lots of good info. Avago-LSI 9211-8i HBA with SAS2008 chip are good and low cost, especially in OEM models such as IBM M1015 and Dell H200 on eBay (SAS to SATA cables are cheap too). However, six drives for only 9TB is unnecessarily complicated compared to simply consolidating the drives to higher capacity ones (and recouping the expense selling the old ones while they still have value).

 

[SViscusi]

I currently have a RAID-5 running on Intel onboard controller (H67), composed of 4 1.5 TB drives. I'm running out of space on that, so now I'm facing a dilemma:

The MB in question only has 6 SATA ports and those are all taken (in addition to the disks there's also a CD + system SSD).

I'm considering adding two more 3 TB drives to obtain a total of 9 TB. The existing drives would be placed into 2x RAID 0 array, each 3TB in size.

Of course, the MB can't serve this many drives which means I need a better / different solution. I came up with two possibilities:

1. Buy a HP Smartarray P400 512 BBU version (up to 8 drives) - found some used ones for 40 - 50 EUR
2. Buy a simple SATA expansion card and use Windows Storage spaces to obtain the desired results. In order to actually obtain the desired performance, I'm also hoping to use Intel SRT over the entire array. For that I also need to buy a new MB (found one P8H77-v for 45EUR) + 15EUR for SATA card

Money-wise the controller seems to be the right way to go, but quite honestly I'm afraid of HW solutions. Once HW fails, the array goes for good. On top of that, those cables that come with this controller arent' exactly something I'm familiar with. Plus there may be future driver issues with it and current compatibility issues (I read that it doesn't want to work in some motherboards). I have no desire to spend much more on a controller. 100 EUR is pretty much the limit for me and I'm not exactly good at finding this stuff.

OTOH the SW solution will definitely require caching and I think SRT might be the way to go. There are SW solutions like PrimoCache, but its write-back cache is RAM only and that is not acceptable for me.

So, what would be a good solution for my predicament?

Do you need SRT and RAID? If this is a HTPC/File Server disk performance shouldn't be an issue. I'd just go with the SATA controller, the 2 3tb disks, skip RAID and use storage spaces. You may even be able go with 4tb disks if you don't buy the 100 EUR controller.

BTW, skip hardware raid if you can. There are advantages for it feature wise but it's not needed in your situation. It's just an extra cost for little benefit especially with your hardware situation. Save your money, put it away for a future upgrade or just treat yourself to something else.

 

[SViscusi]

lime-technology forum has lots of good info. Avago-LSI 9211-8i HBA with SAS2008 chip are good and low cost, especially in OEM models such as IBM M1015 and Dell H200 on eBay (SAS to SATA cables are cheap too).

Yup those m1015/9211's have been absolute gems for home server use.

 

[Ketchup]

Velis, thank you for clarifying this. I will give you my honest answer:

I see no reason for RAID 0 on this type of machine. It just seems to be making things overly complicated, and for a NAS-type and HTPC server, I don't think RAID 0 would be necessary. I think RAID 5 (or even RAID 6) is a very good solution for you here.

 

[nk215]

For what you need, I would recommend SPM393 from Amazon (DATOptic). Basically, it's a hardware RAID 1SATA-to-5. It doesn't take a PCI slot. Just plug 5 drives to it and plug the board onto one of your SATA port. It's less than $100 and give you solid performance. I have one configured as a RAID5 running for about 3 years now 24/7 w/o issue.

I can have 20 drives connect to my file server using 4 of these cards and still have a SATA for optical and SSD boot drive on a 6-SATA ATX board. I save my PCI for nVidia Grid and Quadro and USB3 cards.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I currently have a RAID-5 ....
OTOH the SW solution will definitely require caching and I think SRT might be the way to go. There are SW solutions like PrimoCache, but its write-back cache is RAM only and that is not acceptable for me.

What exactly are your IOPS needs? It sounds a bit perplexing to me that you are using a RAID 5, but consider Software RAID to need a cache. Your speed issues, if you have any, would likely be satisfied with moving to RAID 10 mirror groups instead of using a parity RAID.

 

[velis]

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Ulitmately I have decided to just buy 4 5TB drives and configure it into a RAID 5 array just like I now had 4 1.5TB drives. This is a configuration that seems to work well for me and I will combine it with SW cache (not SRT) in order to overcome the 25-35MB/s write speed issues that onboard RAID has.

To clarify: I'm using RAID 5 for cost and space restrictions. I don't often need speed, but when I do, I like it to be there. That's why I desire cache: just to overcome the immediate stress of incoming data.