Purchase Advice on my eSata Storage Subsystem
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.
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
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.
The xserver RAID is beyond my budget.
You might also look into a SAS JBOD.