NAS or build a home server?

[TheGuruStud]

I snagged a couple BNIB promise supertrak ex16350s. I paid 125 each (which was too much, he was letting them go for 100 later).
That's a 16 port hardware raid card (raid 6 too) and it came with 2 port splitters (so 4 drives each) and power adapters.

It's going to make a nice 12 TB server

Forget raid 5. Go 6 or 10. You want to be able to sustain multiple drive failures. Drives are too big and unreliable nowadays. One of those pos could end up erroring before it finishes rebuilding 2-3 TB, then you're up shit creek.

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by TheGuruStud

Forget raid 5. Go 6 or 10. You want to be able to sustain multiple drive failures. Drives are too big and unreliable nowadays. One of those pos could end up erroring before it finishes rebuilding 2-3 TB, then you're up shit creek.

Sounds like a familiar statement.

RAID-10 doesn't offer much in terms of better redundancy, just faster write speeds. You can lose at most 2 disks with 4-disk RAID-10 however you only need to lose 2 disks in some cases to kill your RAID. For media, RAID-6 would be more reliable and better geared for what he wants to do. RAID-10 makes more sense if you're going to be doing write-intensive work like video editing or running a database server.

[Wrigleyvillain]

Right...it's just RAID 1 striped into 0. Less boring and more worthwhile perf-wise than reg RAID 1 but no "safer". And as I recently learned and mentioned in one of these threads the Intel ICH's RAID 10 can't read from all four drives (pretty sure it was read...at any rate the perf is generally not great either).

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Wrigleyvillain

Right...it's just RAID 1 striped into 0. Less boring and more worthwhile perf-wise than reg RAID 1 but no "safer". And as I recently learned and mentioned in one of these threads the Intel ICH's RAID 10 can't read from all four drives (pretty sure it was read...at any rate the perf is generally not great either).

Right, but RAID-5 gives you 3 drives worth of space in a 4 drive configuration where RAID-10 only gives you 2 drives worth of space. If it's just media, you want that extra space and you're not going to care as much about your write speeds because you'll be reading more than anything and you're going to want that space. Good HD video eats up a lot of space.

[Wrigleyvillain]

Fair enough.

[camoxiong]

Originally Posted by Aquinus

Right, but RAID-5 gives you 3 drives worth of space in a 4 drive configuration where RAID-10 only gives you 2 drives worth of space. If it's just media, you want that extra space and you're not going to care as much about your write speeds because you'll be reading more than anything and you're going to want that space. Good HD video eats up a lot of space.

Your right, so RAID 5 it is.

[yogurt_21]

I call my home server a NAS, so there.

I picked up a 771 xeon server threw a 4 gigs of ram in it and loaded it with wd greens (*waits for newtechie to come in and say wd greens are terrible for raid, despite the fact I've been running those in raid, plus the ones in my primary rig for years without issue, not one single error)

it's a 4tb "NAS" (home server configured for NAS) simple dual core Xeon setup, works great.

Mines in a 2 post rack in my den and not everyone finds 2 post racks lying around nor rails for a 4 post rack case that fit a 2 post rack, but there's plenty of other options. Got an old 775 rig? shoot even Athlon 64 x2, almost all of those old rigs you have lying around will beat the prebuilt NAS enclosures.

freeNAS works well, but even desktop windows works with folder sharing, map the drive and have it replace your documents main folder and you're set. Just save everything to the NAS and use an external drive/online service to backup the most important things on the NAS on an automated schedule. This way you have redundancy without having to think about "whens the last time I backed up my stuff?"

[Wrigleyvillain]

Well WD Reds and RAID Editions (REx) may be "geared towards" NAS and RAID arrays but sure a Green or whatever other drive would work just fine.

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Wrigleyvillain

Well WD Reds and RAID Editions (REx) may be "geared towards" NAS and RAID arrays but sure a Green or whatever other drive would work just fine.

Some RAID controllers may throw WD Greens out of your RAID if lack of TLER becomes an issue. For example, on my X79 the C600-series RSTe RAID controller will kick drives out of your RAID occasionally when you enable patrol read which scans the drive in its free time for errors. So even though it kicks drive out, verifying the integrity of your RAID will always come out good.

[TRWOV]

Another case that screams "Home Server!!!": http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=...gory=2&prod=94

[camoxiong]

Originally Posted by TRWOV

Another case that screams "Home Server!!!": http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=...gory=2&prod=94

Yeah, I was watching Linus Tech Tips and saw him use a small Fractal Design case

[TheGuruStud]

Originally Posted by TRWOV

Another case that screams "Home Server!!!": http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=...gory=2&prod=94

I bought the arc midi b/c it was 60 bucks and will still hold 10 drives (2 in the 5.25s).

I really wanted the Define XL (so good looking and full of features), but at 110, it just wasn't worth it for a server/nas. It's stupid good for a regular PC, though, if you love silence.