Windows 7 PC, want to share files with network

[snuuggles]

Hi,

I have an existing win 7 PC with an SSD main drive that I'd like to add 2 (or 4, eventually) large HDDs to stream movies to my PS3 (media streaming) and serve as a file repository for my laptops (OSX and win 7/8).

I plan to set up windows media player to share the movies folder for the PS3.

I plan to map other folders to the OSX laptops.

I'd like to use RAID 1 so the data is protected in case of a drive failure.

I plan to continue to use the PC as my main gaming PC. I will almost never stream from this PC while gaming so that's not an issue ( I think!)

questions:

- windows 7 home (not pro) will support volume duplication (RAID 1), right?

- windows 7 will or will not take advantage of the TLER feature in WD Red drives. Is there something I need to do to turn that feature on, or is that feature not worth using in this situation. I have 1 new 3TB WD Red drive, and planned to purchase a second, but I just realized I should be sure the WD red drives are the best solution to this.

- can I add two more identical drives in a year or so and add to the storage space or would I need to set them all up together as one big volume. Or does windows 7 not even support that. What I mean is, I'll start with 2x3TB drives in RAID1, with the result being a total of 3TB on one volume. What I'd like is to eventually add 2 more identical drives and simple double to available space on that volume to 6TB, not to have 2 3TB volumes.

- is there some other reason I should/should not use WD Red drives for this? Speed? Reliability? Heat? Noise?

I'm certain someone has already asked this before, but I couldn't find answers to my particular questions. Please feel free to just link me to a useful thread if you can think of one. And thank you!

 

[Cerb]

I plan to continue to use the PC as my main gaming PC. I will almost never stream from this PC while gaming so that's not an issue ( I think!)

Won't be an issue anyway, unless you are playing a disk-heavy game whose files reside on the same HDD.

- windows 7 home (not pro) will support volume duplication (RAID 1), right?

No. Your motherboard drivers might, however. H67, Z68, H77, Z77, H87, Z97, H97, and Z97, all do, for instance, using Intel RST.

- windows 7 will or will not take advantage of the TLER feature in WD Red drives.

The drives have that baked in. Way back in the day, you could change it for some drives, and others would actually accept the controller giving them a timeout. Now, drives with it have it on, to a certain time limit, end of story, for marketing reasons.

- can I add two more identical drives in a year or so and add to the storage space or would I need to set them all up together as one big volume. Or does windows 7 not even support that. What I mean is, I'll start with 2x3TB drives in RAID1, with the result being a total of 3TB on one volume. What I'd like is to eventually add 2 more identical drives and simple double to available space on that volume to 6TB, not to have 2 3TB volumes.

Intel officially supports RAID 1/10 to 5 migrations:
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/cs-020674.htm
But, since you can go from single drive to RAID 0, I'm not sure why it would not allow RAID 1 -> single -> RAID 0 -> RAID 10. But, no guarantees, except for moving to RAID 5.

 

[snuuggles]

Thanks for the feedback! Looks like it's slightly more complicated than I was hoping, but I'll definitely poke at it to see where I get.

I really should have started by asking some more basic questions, which I have here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37034039#post37034039

in case you have any feedback--thank you!