New file server needed / RAID questions

[markwm]

I have a server up in the attic(conversion) which I use for work to encode videos and as a file server. It's only a lil' Shuttle SN41G2. It has the following hard drives attached to it in some way or another:

120GB Maxtor IDE (internal)
200GB Maxtor IDE (internal)
80GB Western Digital IDE (external USB)
250GB Maxtor IDE (external USB)
200GB Maxtor IDE (external USB)
200GB Seagate SATA (spare unused drive)

Most of the drives are full with large sized video files. All this is networked to the other machines in the house so I can access the files whenever I want. As you can imagine though it's less than ideal having all those odd sized drives, and not to mention it's not exactly tidy up there. It's time now that I got my stuff organized. So I'm looking to replace the main components(case, MB, CPU, GPU, Hard drives). I have other components already.

I'm going to get a nice swanky Lian-Li case, either the PC-V1000 or the V1100. The problem is I'm not exactly sure which route to take regarding internals. I don't even know whether to opt for a Intel 775 solution or an AMD 939. Noise+heat is an important factor, it's gets very cold up in the attic in winter and very hot in summer which swings me toward AMD but then I know Intel is always better for encoding.

I'm tempted to buy 4 300GB DiamondMax10 SATA drives & RAID0 them and be done with it but I'm sure that might not be the best solution, I haven't used RAID before at all. Which is an area I need advice on. Also I haven't really considered a backup solution.

I have already a whole bunch of odd sized IDE drives, ranging from 80GB to 250GB. Is there an easy way I could intergrate these into a new system or what you just start fresh with a bunch of new equal sized SATA drives? I know NForce4 allows raid between SATA&IDE but is that an option for me?

I have maybe $1500-2000 to spend and I'm trying to get a simple, quiet, powerful solution. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[windraider]

just a couple of questions,
do you currently, or are you planning to do live encoding on this machine? or just set it up and let it run while you go do something else?
are you accessing files from multiple computers in your house at once?

i'd think you'd be better off starting from scratch as far as the drives are concerned. for really heavy encoding i'd grab a dualie xeon on a mobo with at least a gig of ram, and a PCI-X slot for a good hardware SATA-RAID card and run it as a raid-5 with a good back-up solution. (RAID-0 as you mentioned would be good too, provided you have a good back-up solution. i just suggest RAID-5 due to redundancy, one drive goes down you can still operate.. especially if you utilize the hot-swap capabilaties of SATA, but for that you really need a backplane.)

anyway, let us know and we'll see what others recommend for you.

 

[Vegito]

My lian li v2000b

http://www.thefesteringcyforce.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=36

That was my old setup, 10 scsis.. 18gb boot + 73gb raid5 data

I upgraded since

73gb boot Raid 1
73gb swap / virtual machine partition Raid 1
1tb storage - 146x7 raid 5 w/1 hot spare

the lian li are great..

I can't help you with the mobo stuff but do not use RAID 0.. you lose 1 drive, kiss all data good bye.. if you need storage, use raid 5, get 5 300gb drives

I would suggest using seagate for their 5yr warranty. You can always sell off the old drive and get new ones

 

[markwm]

Originally posted by: windraider
just a couple of questions,
do you currently, or are you planning to do live encoding on this machine? or just set it up and let it run while you go do something else?
are you accessing files from multiple computers in your house at once?.

Not sure I understand what you mean by 'live' encoding. Basically I go up into the attic, set up an encode and then leave it. Once it's done I go back and edit the files. I sometimes use remote desktop to set up the encoding config too.

Files are only accessed by one machine at a time over my network, I'll open them up on my 'downstairs' computers to work on. Whichever one I'm at.

Everyone seems to rave about raid 5, I haven't yet found a regular consumer board that supports it. Maybe I need to start looking at server mobos.

 

[windraider]

that's what i meant, if you'd be sitting there watching it, or just leaving it and coming back. since you're just leaving it, the choice of platform doesn't make a heck of a lot of difference, since AMD's been making great strides into that area as of late, so i'd say go for an opteron/A64 based system for your noise/heat requirements.. less than the latest p4/xeons.
anyway, RAID 5 is a redundant RAID type, it writes the information to all of your drives at once, save one drive to which it writes a parity bit. and the drive that gets the parity bit changes each time, so you have data and parity across all the drives in the array, so if one dies you can still access your data, and when you replace the dead drive the controller card will rebuild the data onto the new drive. w/ RAID 0, data is striped to all drives with no parity, so one dies, you loose it all.

i asked about multiple access as if you did that you would benefit more from SATAII's NCQ abilities, but since you're not that's a moot point. so any SATA drives/RAID cards would work fine for you.

sorry for the long post, hope this helps in your decision making process once you have some recommendations, i'm trying to find some ideas for you now. i'll keep ya posted.
Cheers

 

[markwm]

thanks, so in order to get RAID5 I need to get a seperate controller card? and forgo all the S-ATA connectos on the mobo? RAID5 does sound perfect for what I need.

edit: I found this article http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=r52005&page=1 which explains alot. I see new 775 asus motherboard have a RAID5 chip.

 

[windraider]

basically, yes. i am unaware of any mobo's that have RAID-5 funcationality built-in, but there may be some. if any of the more experienced members here know of any, please chime in.

you can get a seperate RAID card and forego the SATA connectors yes. or you could use one of the ones on the mobo for your boot drive and use the RAID Card just for storage/file serving.

here's a decent Raid Card for $315, hardware raid 5.

and a hot-swap enclosure as well..

for drives i would also recommend the seagates as forcesho said, quiet, cool, good performance and the 5 year warranty can't be beat.

you can probably do better than that if you look around for the card/enclosure.. and i am just recommending the hardware raid 5, vs. software raid 5 as that will eat into your processor resources, while hardware cards don't take anywhere near as much hit on them. that card should work in a 32bit/33mhz PCI slot, but that would really be limiting it.. to let it fly you need a 64bit/66mhz slot, which is usually the domain of workstation/server motherboards..

hope this helps some
cheers

damn, you're fast. i was just looking at raid cards themselves for ya, but a motherboard with it built-in would probably do you just fine too.
cheers again