Guide To Building A Media Storage Server - Page 7

Thanks for the info. Seems like the 1280ML is the safer route to go if you plan on using SATA drives.

I've asked Areca if they support the 1.5TB Seagate's but they did not give me a direct answer. Instead they went on about using enterprise drives instead as they and the hard drive vendors will provide support only for enterprise drives.

I would take one as well.
I'm in Rio Rancho, NM

Mario

I've read the whole post, all 7 pages as of now and WOW!, A lot of good questions, even more excellent answers.

I have a few questions of my own.
First, where I'm coming from. I've never had a server and my HTPC with 3 x 750 GB drives are full and I'm out of space (physical and SATA slots), so its time to consider NAS or server.
I think I would like to run server so I can do things that from what I understand NAS can't do; like running dyndns program for IP updates, have one place for backups and safekeeping of our media, photos, etc.
I think I've decided on the Norco 4020 as everyone can't say enough good things about them and price... what can I say.
I would like to run system in Raid5 or 6 with Raid6 gaining more footing the more I read about it.
Here are some questions:
1. Did you guys complete the eval of components and when can we see the list?
2. I'm a windows user (liking it or hating it, I've never used anything else), but I don't know anything about server administration. So, in residential use, do I want/need server or will XP or Vista do? What advantages do I bring by using server? What do I need to know about setting it up and is there a "Server for Dummies" synopsis that I can read thru and know what to do, more or less?
3. Having the 3 750Gb drives, is there a way I can use them with the 1.5Tb ones we'll be getting? I would hate to retire $300 worth of hardware and I know I can leave them in HTPC but with server having all the data, that HDD space would be wasted.
4. Never used a rack, have few other components (Russound CAV, XM radio, etc) that I could mount on it as well. What do you recommend? What's the cheapest way to go? Can't see myself spending $500+ on what essentially are 4 angle irons with some holes. I don't need wheels, or swiveling anything, rack would go in a small 5x5 automation room. If I can't find something cheap, server will be placed on a Home Depot $15 shelf.

Thanks for any answers, can't wait to build this monster.

Mario
Rio Rancho, NM

No problem. I feel like I'm harping every time I post my experiences with the 1680ix, but if it can help anyone else it's worth it.

I heard the same thing from them about Seagate enterprise drives, but I'd rather downgrade to a 1280ML than spend an extra 30-40% per drive for reliability.

I'm going to call Newegg on Monday, and talk to them about exchanging my 1680ix for a 1280ML. I'm tired of fighting with it.


I ran a headless "Server" for 2 years on Windows XP Professional. I was using it to run a BeyondTV server which didn't support Windows Server at the time. It worked find for my purposes, so no, you don't "have" to use a server O/S if you don't want to.

The Asus DSBF-DE combined with 1 or 2 e5405 or e5410's seems to be a pretty common setup for 4020 servers. It's a bit overkill for some situations (most? ), and it requires FB-DIMMS which are much more expensive than DDR2. I'd be suprised if Odditory didn't include that layout as one of the suggested templates. As was already mentioned, Corsair, and PC P&C are both good PSU's to use.

If you want to use your existing 750gb hdd's in a raid with your 1.5tb drives then your options are limited. A combination of hw raid to create 1.5tb volumes out of your 750's and OS raid to combine those new volumes with your 1.5tb's. Unraid which allows drives of different size to be connected with parity protection, but no striping. Or you could plug them in to a R5 or 6 with your 1.5tb's and be limited to 750gb per drive regardless of actual size.

You could also sell them

Thanks for replay.
What are the advantages of running a server in residential application?

Mario

Again, thank you for the suggestion.
I'm hoping this way overkill. I knew that getting into this wasn't going to be cheap, but I didn't know I was going to be looking at $300+ Mobo, $230+ chip, $200+ for memory and $1K for the controller card.
I'm hoping that you guys will pull a magic trick out of the hat and recommend something less expensive for us poor folks that are just looking to store and access rips of DVDs and BDs, for a 1-3 streaming setups (THPC, Master Suite, living Rm).

Mario

I was afraid that that was the answer.
UnRaid being a software solution is porbably out of the question. Am I correct in understanding that if my OS drive crashes, I loose all data on striped drives (Radi6) when using software RAID?
I didn't know this, but obviously buying 1.5Tb drives and only using 750Gb of them to match the 3 existing drives would not be wise, so I won't do that either.
I'm sure I'll find use for them, somewhere, maybe even sell them to someone at work, who knows...

Thanks for the info, I'm learning so much each day...

In the beginning I ran my media server, dvr, file server, etc. off the htpc in the living room. You've probably already discovered what a pain in the !#@ it is to need to restart the htpc because the interface froze (not uncommon), or to restart after updating the video card drivers etc. and realizing that you just disconnected someone in the house who was editing a paper, or interrupted the automated recording of your favorite tv show, etc. Another problem was when a "server" app would need more resources than I wanted to give it (i.e. automatic transcoding of video files to save storage space), there got to be so many of these that it just made NO sense to share anymore.

That was the motivation I had for creating my first server, to offload all those processes that I didn't ever want to interrupt, but that were irritating the heck out of me.

A "server" doesn't have to be loud, fast, and expensive. It can be a 5 year old pc that you don't use anymore, as long as it's capable of handling the jobs you need done. As you increase your use of it, and begin adding more and more server oriented devices to your home you might think about increasing it's size, and capabilities, or even running a second one.


It can be way, way overkill depending on your needs. Like I said above, you can use the cheapest machine you can find, as long as it serves your particular purpose.

Unless the data on your R6 array becomes corrupted when your OS drive crashes, I don't see why you couldn't associate the array with a newly installed OS on another disk? Raid array's do fail, so it's always prudent to have a backup. I had a customer at work lose ALL of their servers when their RAID controller failed. All they had left was a SQL backup, lol. They didn't have any redundancy besides the single RAID server.

If you were talking about Unraid when you asked if an OS drive failure could cause the loss of your array, then I'd have to say that in that case it would be unlikely. Firstly, your OS "drive" is flash based, so you have a more definate timeframe for failure, and secondly each disk in an Unraid array contains it's own filesystem. So even IF the disk in the array that you were accessing as you OS drive went down were corrupted you would retain the data on your remaining disks (and likely your parity disk as well, allowing you to rebuild the lost drive).

I personally look for any switch that offers a "non-blocking" backplane. What that means is that the backplane has a robust enough switching fabric and enough bandwidth to support all of the ports in the switch running at 100% full-duplex speeds. I've had goodluck with the Pro series desktop switches from Netgear (the ones in the blue metal enclosures, not the white plastic ones).

If you want to get more serious about it, look for a switch that supports jumbo frames and link aggregation.

I was not aware of that. I thought I read somewhere that software Raid was more prone to failure than HW based ones. I incorrectly assumed that it meant that if OS drive that had the RAID software failed, than my data went with it. You're saying that is not the case, so for my needs, cheap large data storage, really just a NAS with limited CPU functionality for say DNS update client, I should be OK with older system with couple of the 8 SATA cards at about $140-$200 each in that 20 drive case. Now I'm really excited to see what odditory or others recommend.

Mario

Kapone,

I'm based in dubai, and would be interested in a RPC-4020 chassis. No rush from my end on timing, so if you need to wait a while to get a bunch of people together fine from my end.

PK

You can use a Highpoint 3520 RAID card. It is only $400 and is a true SAS hardware RAID card with an intel IOP 341 chip. You are limited to 'only' 8 drives, but I'm pretty sure it supports SAS expanders if that ever becomes an issue.

At 1.5 TB/drive, that is still 12 GB of storage, minus the parity drive.

The Areca 1680ix sounds very impressive, but comes with a corresponding price tag. For some of us 8 drives will do the job.

I went on CraigsList and found a used Compaq 9142 rack with wheels and perforated front door and back door, but no side panels. About $250, if my memory serves me. Takes a large vehicle to move it (pick-up truck preferable), plus several people to lift it. Suckers are heavy. Take measurements and make sure it fits through your home doorways. Rackmountgears*dot*com has a great Ebay store for add-on rails, shelving and bolts.

Read up on unRAID. http://lime-technology.com/

It may satisfy your needs for a lot less money than you were thinking of spending. It is limited to 15 drives, but 15 drives is enough for most, and you can simply swap out the drives for bigger ones as needed.

The OS is stored on a flash drive, so you don't need to worry about a failed HDD taking your system down. If the flash drive goes down, that is easy & cheap enough to replace, and loading the unRAID software onto it is VERY easy (cut & paste).

In general, hardware RAID is better than software RAID, but unRAID doesn't stripe data like traditional software (and hardware) based RAID systems. unRAID is a very hardy system, and very failure tolerant. You can swap out mobo, CPU, and RAM, and it will still work the same. You can take out individual drives, and put them in another machine, and get the data that was stored on just that drive.

Everyone has different needs, but if 22.5TB (15 x 1.5TB) is enough storage space for your immediate needs (you can always get more space when larger HDDs hit the market), and you don't require insane transfer speeds then unRAID may be just what you need. My mobo has 8 sata ports. To get more ports I just need either (2) 4 port cards or (1) 8 port card to max out my system.

I paid about $300 to get my mobo, RAM, CPU, and case w/ extra fans. I threw in my HDDs, and my spare PSU, and my system has been up and running for a couple weeks now. I've transferred all my important data (~300GB), and have started to move some of my DVD collection across. No problems so far, and plenty fast for what I need it for. I watched a movie on my Gaming/HTPC that was streamed from the server this past weekend, and there were no issues whatsoever.

As if he didn't give you enough reasons! In addition, as I said earlier it is also one of the few ways to leverage your existing 750GB hdd's without limiting your new 1.5TB hdd's.

I feel like a member of the Unraid cheerleader squad, like Odditory feels like a member of the Areca/Norco squad, lol. The funny part is, that I personally have relegated my Unraid box to secondary storage, but not everyone needs/wants the speed/risk that true raid striping can give you.

Techforless.com has cheap racks.

You are not the only cheerleader for unRAID.
I'm an advocate and totally dedicated to it now.
I'm selling off all my lil nas boxes, Kuros, Theucs 5200BR and ReadyNAS NV+.

It's sort of a thrifty man's NAS, but it's exactly. What I need. A Protected JBOD with a continuous view. I've moved different drives of different sizes into the protected JBOD array and saved a few spindles along the way.
Plus it saves some electricity by spinning down the unused drives.

The ease of shutdown, swap drive, boot up, click and expand has me sold!
Plus having the root filesystem boot from flash and then reside in ram eliminates the need for a spinning disk all day long. I'm a total advocate.

A 9 drive setup with trayless removable SATA units cost me less then $700, although probably less with all the rebates and reused spare parts.

Abit AB9 PRO ~ $90 (9 internal sata, 1 external sata)
Celerom M 440 2ghz ~ $50
4g Ram ~ $70
Centurion 590 ~ $75
Power Supply ~ $80-120
Extra 120MM fans ~ $15 (box of 4 coolermasters).
unRAID Pro License - $150
Kingston SD Card + reader $15

Additional costs are based on how you mount SATA Drives.
You can use the 4 in 3 modules or use the i-Star fanless trayless SATA modules like I did.
These were $15 each. I used 9 (1 per internal sata port).

Some fancy taping to direct air where I wanted and I'm all set.

Granted this is only 9 drives, with the ability to add 1 externally.
I guess I don't grow as fast as others do.
As soon as I fill up the slots, it seems drives get big enough for me to begin replacing the smaller ones.

I plan to grow into either a 15 drive setup with 5in3 trayless removables or graduate to a Norco setup if I find the right motherboard for it.

Anyone considering UnRaid might want to look at FlexRaid as well

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1016375

I used something similar for my Unraid server: http://www.coolerguys.com/840556060086.html

I'm anal about cooling

"# flexibility on host OS"

- Awesome!

"# limit of one protected data path per hard drive to maintain protection from hard-drive failure (data "unit of risk" capability promised in future to facilitate multiple protected data paths per hard drive)
# doesn't automatically re-compute parity after file modification or deletion (i.e., snap-shot RAID)"

- If I understand correctly, ACK!

Also:

"FlexRaid is not a "hot" Raid system. Unlike other Raid systems, if a disk dies the missing data can NOT be re-built on the fly. Instead, the disk must be replaced and rebuilt from parity. While not a killer problem, it's certainly something of which users should be aware."

Overall it sounds like a very cool solution. I'll have to wait until Flexraid LIVE/NAS comes out, and compare once again.

Kapone,

I'm interested in 2 cases and I'm based in Dubai, UAE. thx

I have a USB key with unRAID on it (pro version) that I am looking to sell. Contact me through PM if anyone is interested.

For those new to media server builds;

Sometimes AVS guys get carried away in recommendations and advice that often reflect more enterprise scale solutions that don't apply to everyone's home server needs. They're fun to play with and interesting to read about, but often it scares people away thinking they just can't afford or understand these kind of builds.

Not everyone (very few) needs 100TB of storage for home media.
For most users, file systems like NTFS (current v6 GPT can handle up to 256TB btw) are just fine and don't need to be concerned with suggestions to switch to something like XFS, which comes with it's own set of issues. And not everyone needs a hardware raid card with 800MB+/s performance.

So be careful not to get too carried away with some of the suggestions made on threads like this. It's still a great place to share knowledge and learn from each other.

Technology advances very quickly so don't plan for too far ahead into the future. Size up what your storage needs are today and give yourself some comfortable breathing room, but don't plan on what you'll need in 3 years from now. What you buy now will be obsolete then.

Take for example just a year ago 500GB HDs were the sweet spot, now 1.5TB drives are at that same price level. Your storage capacity just tripled for the same money and the same number of drives.

Finally, while learning is fun and this can be a great hobby, try to stick with what you know so you can leave yourself enough time to actually enjoy the media and the server you built. In other words keep it simple. For each of us simple implies something different. It's up to you to determine what that is.


Here's a suggestion for some parts for a kickass media server

mobo: Supermicro X7SBA Intel 3210 chipset (2 x PCI-X) + 6 SATA $163
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813182144R

cpu: depending on your budget - pick any cpu from this list
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...nd&Order=PRICE

ram:
Grab 2GB DDR2 800 (2x1GB)off this list $30
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...d&Order=RATING
Suggestion: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820134635

or if you prefer 4GB DDR2 (2x2GB) $60
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...d&Order=RATING

Either of these PSUs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9005&Tpk=650TX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139006

a Case like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...enturian%20590
If you want to get fancy with some hotswap bays this case can fit 3 of them for holding 15 drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817995001

or if you prefer a rack mount case with 20 drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...k=Norco%204020

add these additional 8 port SATA cards; $94 ea.
Your motherboard already has 6 ports.
http://www.provantage.com/supermicro...8~7SUPM0X9.htm

1 card + mobo Sata ports = 14 ports
2 cards + mobo Sata ports = 22 ports

For drives - the 1.5TB are priced sweet right now and will allow you to store more running less drives, so less power and also lowers the odds of a drive failure. Buy as you need em.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148337

For OS -
Windows Homeserver (WHS) - 6 month full trial is available at MS -just sign up for it and download. It should give you enough time to see if you like it or until WHS2 comes out
https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer

Lots of other free OS choices as well depending on what you want to do with it.

This should give you a pretty kick ass server for not much money and will grow as your storage needs grow.

Have fun !

Forgot to mention, as an option - if you do go for the Norco case and buy 2 x 8 SATA cards you'll have 2 extra SATA ports. Don't waste em. Get an adapter and channel them to eSATA ports and connect an external drive or 2 to backup your critical data, which will as a side benefit be portable and you can take it offsite if you like. Don't add these drives to the WHS storage pool. 3TB (2 x 1.5TB) should be able to cover most people's family pics and other special files.

Don't suggest to use WHS's folder duplication, it just wastes space (double) and it slows things down.

Google says a lot of things.

That, it certainly does my friend

http://www.elementalpleasures.com/

We told him it was overkill and recommended a cheap Unraid setup. That doesn't change the fact that the DSBF-DE based setup is a great building block (no pun intended asus fan's), for a more advanced system.


Now you're just being silly.


Nice! Though if you want to get really cost effective with a single channel solution like WHS (or Unraid, Flexraid, Freenas, etc.), where you won't be maxing out the PCI bus (or anything else, ) you might as well ditch the server board and go with something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138121

and this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116052


Hoo-rah!

Some of you guys were asking about good GbE switches....

Both the 16 and 24 port (depending on your needs) Dell web managed switches are great deals for the money right now.
http://www.dell.com/content/products...=04&l=en&s=bsd

They both offer signifcant backbones, link aggregation -4 links per group), vlans, 9K Jumbo frames and so much more.

I've been very impressed with my 2716.

I know MiBz didn't recommend it, but for anyone who's tempted by the cheaper 2708, I had a customer who's brand new server software wouldn't work properly due to dropped packets. We narrowed the problem down to the switch in the server rack (dell) which we replaced with a different brand/model. I believe it was a 2708. I found that it does have possible issues (repeatable and fw based):


I checked Dell's website. The 2005 firmware is still the only listed download for this switch.

However, the 2716 looks NICE! I might pick one of those up myself, thanks for the link MiBz!