hdd storage server raid5 thingy

[reven]

well i'm sick of my drobo (its a piece of crap, lots of issues, and i cant depend on it to keep my data secure), so can anyone recommend something secure (completely worry free that just works, and i dont need to worry about a drive dying).

i would like raid 5 or raid 6, and money isnt that big of a deal (i dont mind spending a bit to keep it secure), i have lots of data 4TB atm, but will likely increase that over the years, so need something that can grow.

so any recommendations?

[pBS]

sounds like a perfect customer for Unraid...linux based raid-4ish setup, but obviously requires it's own box to do it all...but offers all the features you want...simple, expandable, single parity drive recovery, don't have to use same size disks...and not really dependant on specific hardware.. runs off a thumb drive..

i've heard good things but haven't had a need for that much security yet...

"unRAID offers a unique solution which keeps the parity and disk rebuild functions of RAID, but doesn't stripe data which leaves you the freedom to add disks to the array at anytime or even take disks out of the array anytime."
"Linux savvy users might be better served administering their own server as unRAID really consists of just Samba, FUSE, and a nice little web administration interface (which SWAT could be substituted for) built on Slackware 11" [and a special raid-4 driver built off normal raid sources]

free ver only serves 3 disks, 69$ for 6 drives, 119$ for 12 drives..

[psycik]

What about a Windows Home Server?

Its not a raid in the strictest sense, but deals with multiple disparate sized drives and allows folder duplication.

I'm using one for a VM server, but putting videos and crap on there as well. The gbpvr server is separate and just runs a since 1.5 tb drive.

[reven]

i love windows and all, but i suspect that would require more maintenance and as far as im aware it doesn't support expandable drives (well your MB could do raid, but then whats the point of shoving home server on it, especially since i wont be using any of the features).

i just want a network device that looks like 1 big hard drive and that will keep my data save and sound and i dont have to worry about it.

ill look into unraid, but keep the suggestions coming

[psycik]

no the point of the WHS is that isn't not "real" raid.....but to you it looks like it is. Everything shows up as one drive, and it doesn't take a lot of tinkering with.

It can be a fairly small box as well.

For more traditional raid you can go FreeNAS as well. But that doesn't have the individual folder replication (basically folder mirroring, not drive mirroring) that WHS has.

[johnsonx42]

FreeNAS will do what you want. http://www.freenas.org/

[-stattik-]

I was on the same journey as you about a year ago. After checking out many of the options above, I realized that I wanted something I could setup and forget. After all the research, I came up with two options.

The first option was a RAID card that had onboard I/O processing so my reads/writes wouldn't be impacted with raid 5/6. Areca and 3ware make solid cards as long as your motherboard is supported. The cards run about $400 plus a little more if you want battery backup in case of power loss.

The other option was the simplest. Raid 10 using the motherboard RAID or using a cheap 8-port RAID card.

I went the Raid 10 route. 3TB total space(4 drives). 120 MB/sec read and write. I can lose two disks without losing data. I can move to another motherboard or any RAID 10 solution without losing data.

If you went the RAID 10 router, you would max out at 8TB using today's technology. (Cheap 8-port RAID card, 8-2TB drives.) Theoretically you could expect 200MB/sec reads and writes depending on where the bottleneck would be.

Whatever route you take, I would suggest you get a solution that allows for SMART monitoring. Working with the data sizes you want plus having hard drives that may be the same model and batch means you run the risk of losing a second drive during the rebuild process of replacing a bad drive.

[peter t]

I have recently set up a Thecus N5200 NAS Box. http://www.thecus.com I am running 5 X 1TB Samsung Drives in Raid 5 this gives me 3.6TB of reliable storage. It appears as a drive on my network and so far has proved reliable.

[reven]

i think id rather go the hardware route, and stay away software based solutions.

and well a rack seems cool anyone have any insights as to what i would need to make a rack based system? not sure if its actually possible (well economically) to do such a thing. but i did some trademeing and a rack case would cost me nz$300ish for a second hand one, a server would cost around $500-$1000 for a second hand one, and im not sure what i would need to handle the SATA2 hdds and setup a normal raid5/6 setup. hopefully something that supports 4 hdds at least, and can be added on to later.

i know a rack may be over kill, but its just so damn cool. and well hopefully dependable.

[reven]

ok, i changed my mind, and am in the process of setting up an unraid box.

the only thing i cant do is get bubbaraid working with rtorrent (wtorrent, the webfrontend for it works fine). also all the links on the bubbaraid page (http://tower:83/ for normal web config page) return 404 errors.

anyone got bubbaraid working on an unraid box?