[tgggd86]

So I think the drobo is amazing but it's $500 bucks without drives. I am looking for a RAID solution, preferrably RAID 5 but I will have at least 4TB in RAID, with drives of varrying sizes. I would like it to also be a NAS, but thats not a necessity. Also I'd like it to be quick enough to stream blu-ray ISO's to my HTPC.


Any suggestions of ideas would be much appreciated.

 

[tgggd86]




Please give me some help

 

[samw97]

Do a search for unRAID. Or click on:

www.lime-technology.com


I built my server (without drives and using the 3 drive free version) for under $200. It can support up to 16 drives (pro version), drives of differing sizes, drives with IDE and/or SATA interfaces, single drive failure redundancy, spin down of unused disks, etc. You can easily grow the array as your needs grow. Overall a highly recommended option.

 

[JoshDorhyke]

Yes, you can build a good unRAID server that will support 8 SATA drives for

 

[umdivx]



Quote:
Originally Posted by tgggd86 /forum/post/15534225


So I think the drobo is amazing but it's $500 bucks without drives. I am looking for a RAID solution, preferrably RAID 5 but I will have at least 4TB in RAID, with drives of varrying sizes. I would like it to also be a NAS, but thats not a necessity. Also I'd like it to be quick enough to stream blu-ray ISO's to my HTPC.


Any suggestions of ideas would be much appreciated.

if you know anything about raid, and especially raid5 you will know that all the drives in the array are limited by the smallest drive in the array.


so if you have one 500 gig drive, and say 3 750gig drives, you will be limited to only 1500gigs in the array if you were planning on doing raid 5.


as mentioned already un-raid, allows you to run mulitple drives of different sizes and not have the smallest drive limitation like you would in a conventional raid system.


- Josh

 

[samw97]

The best thing I like about unRAID is the ability to grow the array as your needs grow with little effort.


If you select the right components, you can start with a base system that costs substantially less $ than a product like Drobo and incrementally grow it to an array that is substantially larger than Drobo can support.

 

[umdivx]



Quote:
Originally Posted by samw97 /forum/post/15543760


The best thing I like about unRAID is the ability to grow the array as your needs grow with little effort.


If you select the right components, you can start with a base system that costs substantially less $ than a product like Drobo and grow it to an array that is substantially larger than Drobo can support.

other than the 16 drive limitation though.


- Josh

 

[JoshDorhyke]

FYI, the DROBO is not just a raid 5 box, well it kind of is. It's supposed to be a mix of raid 5 and mirroring to use the drive space. It creates a number of RAID5 arrays and then mirrors the leftover data if necessary.


From what I've read here are a few examples of what it does;


- 2 x 500G, 1x1T and 1x1.5T

0-500G -- use all 4 drives in RAID5 = 1.5T

500G-1T -- use the 2 big drives in a mirror = 500G

>1T -- 500G unprotected on the 1.5T drive = 500G


- 1 x 500G, 3x1T

0-500G -- use all 4 drives in RAID5 = 1.5T

500G-1T -- use the 3 big drives in another RAID5 = 1T


So, both examples have the same total drive capacity and the DROBO gives the same storage capacity with both examples but the first example leaves some data space unprotected and the second example is all protected.


Peter