Cheapest Way to get a RAID-5 file server?

[Garet Jax]

Hello all,

I posted this asking for how to turn the SC440 into a RAID-5 server. It seems like it was mixing oil and water a little since the case doesn't appear to easily handle 5 or 6 drives.

Starting from scratch - what is the cheapest way to build/buy a RAID-5 server to be used as a file server?

Right now I have a 20 GB RAID-5 setup on an old Dell Poweredge 2300. Would probably like to get to at least 100 GB.

Thanks.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Any old P4 or newer system will make a good file server. Its all a matter of getting a raid card for it and the drives you want. So all you need is an old working system, a good raid card and the drives.

 

[sparks]

If all you want is 100GB, RAID 5 seams to be overkill. You would need minimum 3 drives so you could buy 3 x 80GB drives for about $40 each or get 2 x 160GB drives for $50 each and do a RAID 1. The RAID 1 solution is cheaper and gives better performance.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
Any old P4 or newer system will make a good file server. Its all a matter of getting a raid card for it and the drives you want. So all you need is an old working system, a good raid card and the drives.

Yep. As long as you're running hardware RAID (i.e. on a card as opposed to off the motherboard's built in controller), a file server is all about I/O performance and network performance.

HDs are so cheap these days that it doesn't make sense to pay $60 for an 80GB drive when you can pay $70 for a 500GB drive.

Just be aware that moving to a true hardware RAID card isn't cheap. Assuming your motherboard has a PCI-X slot, you could buy a used SCSI card and drives, cable/terminators off EBAY. Personally, I don't like used HDs and new SCSI HDs are expensive on the per GB cost. I'd stick with SATA HDs.

Are you considering turning a normal PC that you already have into a file server, or building one from scratch? That info would help us make more recommendations for you. This gets a little complicated when you start looking at RAID cards b/c then you get into PCI-X vs. PCI-E, how many ports, 66vs100vs133MHz for the SCSI cards, drives, etc. See what I mean?

 

[RebateMonger]

You never did say what the purpose of the file server is. Home? Business? Are you planning on IDE, SATA, or SCSI drives?

If it's primarily used to access files across a network, your data transfers will be limited to about 10 MegaBytes per second for a 10/100 network and around 30 MegaBytes per second for a Gigabit network. So the Read speed advantage of a RAID 5 array is pretty much lost across a network.

If you are intent on setting up a redundant RAID array, I'd take a hard look at RAID 1. It's much more reliable and cheaper than RAID 5. Especially when you only need a 100 GB array.

 

[Garet Jax]

Thanks for all the responses.

This is going to be for a home solution, but I have a lot of files that I really can't lose. I do most things electronically and would find it near impossible to recover from losing that data.

I have honed in on RAID 5 because it seems to offer the most ability to recover from losing hard drives. I have not really considered RAID 1 though. I would definitely consider it with a reasonable secondary storage mechanism (in additioin to its inherent mirroring) - something like a third disk with a manual copy or a tape back up system.

I really have no pre-conceived ideas about whether to use SATA, IDE or SCSI. I would like to find the best compromise between reliability, cost and performance.

If going with RAID 1, would you guys recommend a MB with it built in or a separate physical add-on card?

From what I have read, RAID 1 can only work with a maximum of 2 drives. Is this true? Could I add a third one integrated into the RAID for extra protection?

Thanks again.

 

[yinan]

RAID 1 only works with an even number of drives. You get mirroring but "lose" half of your capacity.

 

[KGB]

Originally posted by: Garet Jax
Thanks for all the responses.

This is going to be for a home solution, but I have a lot of files that I really can't lose. I do most things electronically and would find it near impossible to recover from losing that data.

I have honed in on RAID 5 because it seems to offer the most ability to recover from losing hard drives. I have not really considered RAID 1 though. I would definitely consider it with a reasonable secondary storage mechanism (in additioin to its inherent mirroring) - something like a third disk with a manual copy or a tape back up system.

I really have no pre-conceived ideas about whether to use SATA, IDE or SCSI. I would like to find the best compromise between reliability, cost and performance.

If going with RAID 1, would you guys recommend a MB with it built in or a separate physical add-on card?
From what I have read, RAID 1 can only work with a maximum of 2 drives. Is this true? Could I add a third one integrated into the RAID for extra protection?

Thanks again.

Definitely DO NOT go with the on-board controller.
A good add-in card will be more reliable and can be migrated when you upgrade the system.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Garet Jax
I have honed in on RAID 5 because it seems to offer the most ability to recover from losing hard drives.
.....
I really have no pre-conceived ideas about whether to use SATA, IDE or SCSI. I would like to find the best compromise between reliability, cost and performance.
.....
If going with RAID 1, would you guys recommend a MB with it built in or a separate physical add-on card?
.....
Could I add a third one integrated into the RAID for extra protection?

RAID 1 is less likely to fail or have data corruption than RAID 5. Striping adds a whole new level of complication. If you ever HAVE to recover data, recovering from a RAID 5 failure is MUCH more complicated and costly than from a matched pair of simple RAID 1 drives.

The "best compromise" is probably SATA. The drives are dirt cheap and the interface is fast. However, with your limited data storage needs, you could even get SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drives at a reasonable price. I just sold a pair of brand-new HP SAS drives (73 GB each) for about $300 on eBay.

As noted, a removable PCI or PCI-E controller can be easily moved to a new motherboard. But with your limited data needs, you could also create a new RAID array on a new motherboard and just restore data from your backups.

You can use a third drive as a "Hot Spare". If/when a hard drive fails, the RAID controller automatically replaces the failed drive with the hot spare.

--- No matter what you decide, be sure to keep ongoing backups of your critical data. I recommend full system backups to speed up recovery of the entire system. RAID systems (even RAID 1) DO fail, and there are many dangers that RAID won't protect against.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: yinan
RAID 1 only works with an even number of drives. You get mirroring but "lose" half of your capacity.

RAID 1 works with any number of drives greater than 1, actually.

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: KGBMAN
Definitely DO NOT go with the on-board controller.
A good add-in card will be more reliable and can be migrated when you upgrade the system.

OK

I took a quick look at newegg and this card looks like a really good bang for the buck. It supports all RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and RAID 5. It also supports 4 X SATA internal and 2 X SATA external connections - although it seems like there may be issues with using all 6 at the same time.

It also supports Windows Server 2003 (which I will probably be running).

Are there other cards to consider?

Thanks.

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
RAID 1 is less likely to fail or have data corruption than RAID 5. Striping adds a whole new level of complication. If you ever HAVE to recover data, recovering from a RAID 5 failure is MUCH more complicated and costly than from a matched pair of simple RAID 1 drives.

The "best compromise" is probably SATA. The drives are dirt cheap and the interface is fast. However, with your limited data storage needs, you could even get SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drives at a reasonable price. I just sold a pair of brand-new HP SAS drives (73 GB each) for about $300 on eBay.

As noted, a removable PCI or PCI-E controller can be easily moved to a new motherboard. But with your limited data needs, you could also create a new RAID array on a new motherboard and just restore data from your backups.

You can use a third drive as a "Hot Spare". If/when a hard drive fails, the RAID controller automatically replaces the failed drive with the hot spare.

--- No matter what you decide, be sure to keep ongoing backups of your critical data. I recommend full system backups to speed up recovery of the entire system. RAID systems (even RAID 1) DO fail, and there are many dangers that RAID won't protect against.

These are all very good points. These are some reasons I am looking to "upgrade" my existing system. I had a drive fail not too long ago and I wasn't able to recover my data from the RAID 5. I had to replace the drive, recreate the array and restore completely from backup.

When I tried to rebuild it, it failed and killed my array. This was likely user error, but it scared me enough to get a more updated solution with updated docs and support.

If I recall correctly, I also had a hot spare configured within this array and it did not automatically kick in. Again probably user error, but a source of inspiration nonetheless.

Do most cards include enough software and documentation to automate some/all of these tasks?

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: Garet Jax

Originally posted by: KGBMAN
Definitely DO NOT go with the on-board controller.
A good add-in card will be more reliable and can be migrated when you upgrade the system.

OK

I took a quick look at newegg and this card looks like a really good bang for the buck. It supports all RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and RAID 5. It also supports 4 X SATA internal and 2 X SATA external connections - although it seems like there may be issues with using all 6 at the same time.

It also supports Windows Server 2003 (which I will probably be running).

Are there other cards to consider?

Thanks.

With a PCI interface, am I really going to notice the difference betweem SATA I and SATA II?

 

[Syran]

I wouldn't worry too much about the SATA 1 and 2, most of the time, hard drive speeds (even with the faster drives) can't keep up with the bandwidth of Sata 1.
My recommendations are toss 2 640GB Western Digital hard drives in a Raid 1 (mirrored) configuration. It should be fairly inexpensive ($200 or so with that controller listed above), and would give you A LOT of space over what you are considering (100GB is nothing with today's drives) and the redundancy of Mirrored Drives. I don't know if they controller supports it, but you may want to check out something that allows mirroring with a hot spare, and put 3 drives in, allowing it to rebuild a drive if one fails; but you are probably looking at a much more expensive controller, or trying for something on ebay then.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Garet Jax
Right now I have a 20 GB RAID-5 setup on an old Dell Poweredge 2300. Would probably like to get to at least 100 GB.

Thanks.

100GB? Not 100TB? Just buy two 640GB SATA WD WD6400AAKS drives and RAID 1 them. That will give you over 6x your target storage amount, with redundancy, without the complexity of RAID5.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Garet Jax
I took a quick look at newegg and this card looks like a really good bang for the buck. It supports all RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and RAID 5. It also supports 4 X SATA internal and 2 X SATA external connections - although it seems like there may be issues with using all 6 at the same time.

It also supports Windows Server 2003 (which I will probably be running).

Are there other cards to consider?

Thanks.

link

This is the card that I have. Simple, straightforward, software RAID 0,1,0+1 (or is it 1+0, I can never remember), and 5. No RAID6, but it does support hot spares, IIRC. I have it running a four drive RAID5 with WD 500GB SATA HDs.