Purchase Advice on my eSata Storage Subsystem

[pink]

I want to put together a storage system for my photography, movies and mp3. Please advise on my purposed setup.

15 bay server case used for placing Hard Drives
SUPERMICRO CSE-932T-R760B Black 3U Server Case 760W Triple-Redundant (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811152069)

Will need to get some adapters to get this to connect to the raid card. This should be possible.

Areca ARC-1220ML 8-port PCIe to SATA ll RAID Adapters (http://www.areca.us/products/externale.htm)

699.00 (http://www.tekramonline.com/SATARAID.html)


$754.99 Case
$699.00 x 2 8port raid controllers

$2152.99

I want to connect all this to a Xserver that I also plan to buy. Don't want the hassles of windows or to learn linux.

[pink]

Anyone in the same situation with storage? How did you solve your needs

[gwoodpecker]

Anyone in the same situation with storage? How did you solve your needs

How about an Xserve RAID? I don't know exactly how that one would compare price-wise. Configuration and set-up seems to be really easy. Plus: no compatibility and/or Windows or Linux knowledge needed.

For the server case you mentioned, you need a mainboard, CPU, RAM, etc. For RAID cards, there is also Promise. So your price (including drives) will be a lot more than the $2152.99 you quote.

Oh, I just checked Apple's prices: Xserve RAID 1.0 TB starting at 5999 USD... :wow:

P.S. OK, so together with a Xserve (that might be overkill just for storing things?) your total price will probably end up being beyond 6000 USD. What I did for my home storage server:

CoolerMaster Stacker case (11 x 5 1/4" slots)
3 x 4-in-3 hard disk cage with 12cm Fan for 4 HDs each
8 storage HDs plus system HD
RAID controller card
AMD Mainboard, AMD CPU, RAM etc.
Windows XP Pro (I suppose you don't want to have more than 5 people accessing that storage server).

Well, in the end the main question would be: how much space do you need and how do you want to back up all those things? In my solution, the data is on one RAID-5 set and the backup is on the other RAID-5 set. Plus I have another backup set of HDs externally that I keep off-site.

Another Idea would be the external solutions:

LaCie Biggest FireWire 800 drive, 2 TB max. (http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10218)
LaCie Biggest S2S with PCI-Express Card, 2 TB max. (http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10194), also available with PCI-X card

or a NAS (network attached storage) solution like:

LaCie Ethernet Disk RAID, 2.5 GB max. (http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10160).

Depending on your storage needs, there might be other NAS solutions out there. I just think that for file storage only, you wouldn't need a dedicated server.

[pink]

Will use the server case just for the hard drives. Won't have to put a motherboard in it. Using it to house the drives only.

The xserver RAID is beyond my budget.

[wmf]

You could save money by getting a non-RAID card and using ZFS -- if you can find a non-RAID multiport eSATA card.

You might also look into a SAS JBOD.