[mittelhauser]

The subject pretty much says it all. Does anyone have any interest in reasonably priced huge disk servers to use for home media storage? We are in the process of putting together a company and one of the items which we plan to sell are terabyte media servers.


I'll be able to provide some more specifics fairly soon but I wanted to start a discussion of the requirements people might have...The basic goal is a server with enough disk to store all (or at least a large chunk) of your digital media in one place. When you have that much data, you can't really back it up efficiently so a requirement is a good RAID system (e.g. RAID 5) which will protect you from disk failures...


Our current thinking is something like:

----

1120GB of disk (RAID 5, hot-swappable)

1.6GHz, Pentium IV

256MB Ram (upgradable)

10/100 Ethernet (upgradable to 1000)

Basic audio/video

4u rackmount chassis

Windows XP server or Redhat Linux

etc, etc.

-----

For somewhere

 

[Alan Gouger]

Im interested but I have specific needs.

These are available via ebay at times but they are expensive.

I need something with HD SDI in and out.

A version with DVI in/out would be nice as well.

 

[Blight]

mittelhauser:

I guess it maybe just me, but aren't most HTPC people capable of building their own system from parts? Since we are talking storage space and not speciality noise/chasis/video-output ...


I would think it'd be easier to build a large-scale storage server than an HTPC system.


Just my 2 cents.

 

[wsaHarem]

I've just purchased 60gb/7200rpm drives for less than $100. Even if I doubled the price, I would still come in much lower than 8K.


I think that you would be better off offering a standalone disk storage device versus the whole PC with the drives.


Bill

 

[mittelhauser]

Alan,

The system will be based on a standard PC motherboard (Asus) and have plenty of open PCI slots to add DVI and/or HD SDI. It seems like the real question would be what type of disk performance you require. I'll be able to give specific benchmarks fairly soon in terms of what we would provide.


Blight,

Yes and No. We certainly aren't claiming to be creating anything magical here. Any more than AVS claims with their HTPCs. The exact specifics of all of the parts will be available and people could build the system themselves if they were so inclined and capable. However, many people aren't comfortable with this and/or value their time more than the extra cost. In addition, you know you are getting a system that has been burned in, tested, etc...


wsaHarem,

The pricing is just a swag at this point. However, it isn't fair to just look at disk prices when you are talking about a complete RAID'ed disk server. You are talking about needing a very special chassis, hardware RAID support, etc. etc. In terms of how you justify it (at least on the open market if not to AVS HTPC people), you compare it to other options. For example, standalone disk storage devices (per your suggestion) like the Snap NAS server. Here is the Yahoo! shopping page for the 960GB Snap server...

http://search.shopping.yahoo.com/sea...00&tool=0&did=

...with an average selling price of greater than $14k..


-Jon

 

[ramick]

Anyone interested may want to look at thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=132014


and the thread I posted in my last post to that thread.

 

[wsaHarem]

Maybe we aren't the right crowd for your research?


They're are too many folks who can rip DvD's today. (not counting the Tivio people).. I would also venture to say that most of us would build our own machines. So if you take the $1800 that I've spent building the HTPC, (high end), and add $100 to $300 for the raid controller (they're getting really cheap now adays), and add 1 terabyte of storage, I for one would think I could build one for less versus buying.. (and, I keep my wife from seeing the big picture )


Bill

 

[mittelhauser]

Quote:

Originally posted by wsaHarem Maybe we aren't the right crowd for your research?

*grin* At least you aren't. But don't assume that everyone who reads this forum is as tech savvy (or energetic) as you are.


Quote:

They're are too many folks who can rip DvD's today. (not counting the Tivio people)..

Who all need a lot of disk...


Quote:

I would also venture to say that most of us would build our own machines. So if you take the $1800 that I've spent building the HTPC, (high end), and add $100 to $300 for the raid controller (they're getting really cheap now adays), and add 1 terabyte of storage, I for one would think I could build one for less versus buying.. (and, I keep my wife from seeing the big picture ) Bill

*grin again* You are forgetting a chassis and power supply that can deal with 8 (or 16) drives, the hotswap capability, etc. However, as I said to Blight, there is no question that a technical enough person could build the system themselves for cheaper. However that is also true of Dell computers, AVS HTPCs, and pretty much all computer systems.


Having said all that, I do believe that there will probably be an "AVS special" price if people express interest...


-Jon

 

[Dizzy49]

I remember about 6 or 7 months ago slashdot.org had an article on a terrabyte server for under $4k. They broke down every single cost, and while it came un $2 under the $4k, that's still half of what you're quoting. Not to mention the drives they used are now half as much.


-Dizzy

 

[mittelhauser]

*grin* I knew I shouldn't have listed a price in the email. Ignore the pricing. It was an estimate and I said under 7-8k. Maybe it will be $6k. We'll see. The price wasn't the point.


The main question is whether there was interest and what requirements people would have for the server.


Just for reference, I went back and looked for the SlashDot article you referenced. I found it. However, it was January (4-5 months ago - and drives aren't that much cheaper now at all) and they put together a theoretical $5k server...not a $4k server.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...04&mode=thread


In addition, if you read through the posts, you will notice a number of people who spec'ed out other systems (e.g. the guy at $6k) or built systems (the SDSU guys at $8k each)...All of them spent many, many hours getting their systems working and configured and tested...but that *really* isn't the point. Again, anyone who wants to (and is technical enough) could build a system themselves cheaper than you could buy it commerically. The fact that there is a huge slashdot discussion suggests that it isn't as trivial as some of you may believe...


Again, the price wasn't really the question as much as whether people would want one if the price was right...And what other requirements they'd have.


-Jon

 

[Wykat]

I'm also one of those persons looking into building a terrabyte server myself. All the hardware is available, but I'm still missing some software parts;


1) RAID 5 gives security against data failure in case of a (single) drive failure. It doesn't however provides any protection against data loss because of software failures (e.g. virus). So Ideally I would need an additional software utility to track changes to the data on the terrabyte server. Since I don't expect a lot of changes to stored data, the required space for this would be limited.


2) Many modern mainboards have already 4 IDE slots for 8 drives. Why can't we use these for RAID-5 ? I'm not in need for a hot plugable solution, but would like to have the ability to add single drives when the need arises. (ps: is it possible to add more then 1 PCI raid 0/1 card in a system?)


Wykat

 

[Shaded Dogfood]

Does IDE RAID work as well as SCSI RAID? SCSI rules, but is by no means cheap.

 

[mjcumming]

Jon,


Don't let some of these guys who think a couple of 60g drives ='s a raid server discourage you


I am just at the point of building one but the time and effort to research this is exactly why your idea will sell - at least to some of us.


My initial requirements will be lower ie 1/4 terabyte with room to expand as drive prices come down. I also don't think I need the extra features of a server OS. For me, this really will be a low traffic large archive.


Mike

 

[amillians]

Jon:


There is obviously a need for such systems (Chris Stephens of Ultimate Entertainment might be a person to talk to, since he has clients with 1TB+ media storage), but this particular forum at AVS is going to give you the most objections. To put it mildly, there are a lot of cheapskates here! If you read some of the threads, people are complaining about having to spend $25 for shareware or $150 for a decent sound card. Others are here just for the sheer thrill of the DIY angle--why buy an Escient when you can reverse-engineer it in less than 500 hours?!?


Business-wise, these aren't the people to poll--I'd try polling the Video Processor forum for starters. There are plenty of non-DIY types around, many with large wallets...you just have to look. By the way, I think you have a very solid idea--but I think the *front end* (transparent whole-house media access) is the key.

 

[iago]

*hrrrm*

Why not see what Serial ATA will bring before committing to a specific

server application?

Possibly, a remote controlled array of disks will be a better option then?

 

[Selden Ball]

As a pricing comparison, Promise makes 4u scsi attached hot-swap ide raid arrays with 4 or 8 drives, so the larger one can be configured to be almost 1TB using raid5. Diskless, it sells for about $2K, plus maybe another $2.5K for 8x160GB disks.


One of the concerns I'd have would be the liability issue. What would the studios have to say about such a system?


Personally, I'd be more interested in a cost-effective scsi attached DVD jukebox.

 

[DIZ2]

Why would anyone, aside from cost want to use IDE RAID solutions with a Terrabyte of storage? I can't begin to imagine how slow and unreliable that would be. I believe what mittelhauser is proposing is true server class equipment (RAID 5 Array controller with a good amount of memory and it's own processor on board as well as Ultra SCSI Hot Swap Drives in the (10,000-15,000 RPM range). IDE does not support Head synchronization and cannot simultaneously read and write across multiple heads like SCSI can, plus you are limted to 4 devices on a chain per controller. IDE Raid for that much storage is BAD. Given those facts, the $7-8K range mittelhauser is proposing is reasonable. Just check the prices of SCSI Hot Swap drives at 10K or 15K rpm. There is some added value to a pre-built burned in warrantied system but most of it would come in regards to response time from the manufacturer in the event of a failure. I hope this helps.

Dan

 

[mittelhauser]

Quote:

Originally posted by Selden Ball As a pricing comparison, Promise makes 4u scsi attached hot-swap ide raid arrays with 4 or 8 drives, so the larger one can be configured to be almost 1TB using raid5. Diskless, it sells for about $2K, plus maybe another $2.5K for 8x160GB disks.

Good find. I knew of some similar devices but hadn't seen Promise's. Just for reference, our larger system will hold 16 drives so you'd be able to put in twice as much disk. I can argue both sides of the internal/external debate...


Quote:

One of the concerns I'd have would be the liability issue. What would the studios have to say about such a system?

As I described it? Absoultly nothing. It is simply a PC with a bunch of disk. What end-users choose to do with all of that disk is up to them.


However, if/when we start creating our own media management software, etc., then we'll need to be very conscious of this issue.


Quote:

Personally, I'd be more interested in a cost-effective scsi attached DVD jukebox.

A major problem with that is that it can only output one media stream at a time. I, personally, have a requirment to be able to output multiple media streams to different zones simultaneously...


-Jon

 

[mittelhauser]

Quote:

Originally posted by DIZ2 Why would anyone, aside from cost want to use IDE RAID solutions with a Terrabyte of storage?

That is a pretty big aside for many people. What, specifically, are your concerns with IDE Raid?


You mention speed. I have two answers to that issue. The first is that with a setup using a combination of striping and Raid 5 (what Promise describes as Raid 50), you get very zippy performance as well as data reliability. Which brings us to the second answer. What do you need that speed for in a home media system? Besides video editing (which I agree this may not be ideal for), you don't need absolutly incredible disk performance. I just need to be able to stream (to/from) the disk multiple media streams simultaneously to the network. The system I descibed should handle that without blinking. The dirty little secret in the industry is that IDE would work just fine but that they can charge much more for SCSI...


You mention reliability. Are you concerned about MTBF of the indivdual drives themselves? The RAID 5 covers you from any indiviual disk failures. In addition, compared to a hugh commercial installation (e.g. an ISP), these systems would have relatively low usage. IDE should be more than suffiently reliable for this usage.


Just for the record, the system I was describing is IDE-based.


-Jon

 

[DIZ2]

mittelhauser,


First , I understand that cost is an issue and what I was doing was showing justification of the $7-8000 range as reasonable for a Hot Swap SCSI based server with a server class RAID Array and a Terrabyte of storage. It was my mistake that you were promoting IDE solutions.

Quote:

What do you need that speed for in a home media system? Besides video editing (which I agree this may not be ideal for), you don't need absolutly incredible disk performance. I just need to be able to stream (to/from) the disk multiple media streams simultaneously to the network. The system I descibed should handle that without blinking.

You don't think large media files will need fast reads to stream the data without hiccups? Have you tested your theory? I'd be interested in the results. I also metioned the limitations of IDE drives and ARRAY controllers. Yes SCSI is more expensive, but no it's not just a marketing ploy. The server class controllers are built with more memory and higher end processors on board to handle the fault tolerance of larger storage requirements. IMHO, managing a Terrabyte of storage in any kind of RAID config using IDE technology could be very disasterous. However, I am not closed minded and if I can see some results of extensive testing that you have done that proves my information obsolete I will happily retract my statements. I don't make may judgements on theory or marketing campaigns, I go by hard data. I'd be very interested in any hard results you can provide.

Thanks,

Dan