Purchase Advice on my eSata Storage Subsystem

pinkpink
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
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



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



699.00





$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.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    pinkpink Posts: 6member
    Anyone in the same situation with storage? How did you solve your needs
  • Reply 2 of 4
    gwoodpeckergwoodpecker Posts: 367member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pink View Post


    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...



    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.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    pinkpink Posts: 6member
    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.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    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.
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