RAID suggestions wanted

[jhh]

Hi,

I don't see the Buffalo Terastation becoming easily available over here so I might as well build a system myself. This would be more expensive than the US pricing for the Terastation although I can get the price per GB down if I go for a larger system.

As for controllor cards I'm looking at these two - obvious question is which one would you go for:

3Ware 9500S-8 Raid Controller Card Serial ATA150/133/100 8port with 0/1/10/5/JBOD (approx € 599)

Promise [SuperTrak] SX6000 controller 6-channel Ultra ATA/100 RAID 5 Card with onboard processor (approx € 256)

and it brings on the next question also: S-ATA or ATA?


Also what limitations would I suffer if I plan to switch it off when not using. I'd use it to store DVD's, pictures and music. If I remember correctly Sage cleans up its recordings list when it looses access to a share. Does Sage have to reimport everything after libraries come back online?

How can I switch it on automatically - can I send a magic network packet to enable to WOL?

Your input is welcome!
Jan

[nielm]

Personally I would go for S-ATA: no difference in drive price these days, and a heck of a lot easer to cable than using wide ATA ribbons, or thick rounded ATA cables.

If I remember correctly Sage cleans up its recordings list when it looses access to a share.

not any more (since a late 2.0 or early 2.1 version) -- it keeps the files (and says it cannot access them -- after the network timeout, which locks the UI and can be very annoying).

Library files are only removed if the root library directory is accessible and the files cannot be found.

WOL: depends on the network card/motherboard... Some require magic packets, some just wake up with normal network traffic (sometimes this is switchable in Windows's network driver details)... The magic packet can vary for different net cards: never managed to get it working myself (but didn't try very hard either!)

[src666]

3Ware. I have the Promise, and while it is a nice card, I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling about continued support from them. They are WAY behind on their Linux drivers, and this product has been on the market for at least 3 years, so I don't expect them to keep up the Windows releases much longer. Promise (I have learned) doesn't have a great track record for legacy product support.

[stanger89]

You might want to check out the other RAID-5 thread:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...ghlight=raid-5

Basically, I've been a strong 3ware supporter (had a 6400, currently have a 7506-8), but since AMCC bought them their driver development has kind of stopped. The 9000 series was supposed to have OCE by now, but it may not ever happen now.

What I would look at are the boards from Adaptec (the 2x10SA) and LSI.

What to look out for:
Stuff from Promise (don't trust them after their crappy Fasttrak)
Highpoint
Neither of which have hardware XOR (although I think the Supertrak does)
And Broadcom/Raidcore - which had issues spontaneously dropping arrays, it may be fixed but it's just too much of a gamble with that much data/time IMO.

[Bohica]

I use 2 of the 3ware 12 port S-ata acards to support my 24 drive bays on my sage server raid arrays. The motherboard has an onboard promise controller as well. I concur that 3ware driver support is much better than the promise counterparts. Depending on your XP cd date (pre or post SP2) -- this makes a lot of difference during installation. My experience only...

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You might want to check out the other RAID-5 thread:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...ghlight=raid-5

I agree, lots of good RAID discussion that thread. Be sure and check out the link to some controller reviews: http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/557

I also agree go Sata, newer technology with better cabling and faster throughput. Though for Sage purposes and IO demands PATA RAID5 array would work too.

I'm currently using a 3ware Escalade 9500S-8 and Promise FastTrak S150 SX4. Both perform decently. However, if I was building today I'd look VERY strongly at an Areca instead of Escalade.

[jhh]

Hi,

I'll go for 3ware then - as Nielm says drive prices don't make much of a difference these days unfortunately price of the controller does. Areca is PCI-X as far as I understand and I would like to try this on an EPIA board first so that wouldn't work.

I see different opinions on OCE and the 9500 - has anyone tried?

Not sure how I will set it up - originally I thought I'd keep recording on normal system drives - I have 2x 250GB for recording and 80 GB as a boot drive but used half of it for MP3. I would archive DVD, pictures, music and occasionally a TV recording to the RAID array so it would not have to wake up for every single recording.

I'm a bit worried as how Sage would react when the array goes off-line but that will take some experiments.

If I buy drives for the array as my DVD collection expands I can assume that is is less likely that they die at the same time but for this to work I'd need OCE to work.

Case would be Coolermaster CM-stacker.

One more question - how do a raid controller and WindowsXP power management play together? I know it can power down a system hard drive but has the OS the same control over RAID drives?

Again - thank you all for your input.
Jan

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jhh

I see different opinions on OCE and the 9500 - has anyone tried?

It's not possible, that's the problem. Back when the 9000 series was announced OCE was supposed to come "Summer 2004" but 3ware was bought by AMCC and it hasn't happened yet.

Right now, unless you plan to completely fill the card, I'd don't think I would get a 3ware. If I were you, and if I were buying right now, I'd take a long hard look at the LSI or Adaptec cards mentioned above.

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's not possible, that's the problem. Back when the 9000 series was announced OCE was supposed to come "Summer 2004" but 3ware was bought by AMCC and it hasn't happened yet.

Right now, unless you plan to completely fill the card, I'd don't think I would get a 3ware. If I were you, and if I were buying right now, I'd take a long hard look at the LSI or Adaptec cards mentioned above.

I'll second that. I've spoken multiple times with 3ware tech support, they have no idea when or if OCE will ever be implemented. The powers that be at AMCC seemed to have abandoned Escalade development, simply milking the existing 3ware products that now exist. I hope I'm wrong. Again last month I emailed with questions on the OCE and related issues and have received no any reply, of any kind.

[stanger89]

Of course on the bright side, (aside from missing features like OCE) they don't need to do any driver development

[src666]

Originally Posted by jhh

Case would be Coolermaster CM-stacker.

I just moved my core backend system into a CM-Stacker yesterday, and my opinion of the case is good. The only things that were issues at all were the power supply shelf (doesn't fit my PS at all - it just sits in there loosely for now) and the fact that there is no speaker in the case (very minor) for system/POST beeps. Otherwise I am very pleased with it.

Oh, yeah, and the USB2/Firewire front port cables may be a little short, depending on your motherboard layout. On mine they were reachable, but I was worried about them running under the PCI card overhangs without pulling.

[DougTea]

I chose an alternative card: Adaptec 2810SA Controller. My reasons for choosing this card was the price point as well as a great history with Adaptec SCSI controllers for the past 10 years. The 2810SA has excellent driver support and supports OCE out of the box!
I am elated with my choice as there have been NO issues with my media server since going online late last year. I currently have 8 300gb Maxtor SATA drives online running RAID 5 (2.1TB).
If you are looking for an alternative you "may want to consider" the Adaptec Series cards as I highly recommend them.

Good Luck,
Doug

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by src666

I just moved my core backend system into a CM-Stacker yesterday, and my opinion of the case is good.

+1 on that CM-Stacker. Just put one together for a fileserver. Those 4-in-3 HD cages are sweet. That 120mm fan for each cage helps keep the temps down.

[jhh]

+1 on that CM-Stacker. Just put one together for a fileserver. Those 4-in-3 HD cages are sweet. That 120mm fan for each cage helps keep the temps down.

Are these hot-swappable?

I decided to go for the Adaptec card - pricing is ok and it supports OCE. So I'm going in two phases: first 4 drives and then 4 more. I still need to check whether the spare mainboard I have supports PCI 2.2 else I need a new one. I don't think that is going to kill the overall cost picture.

I haven't decided about the 4-in-3 cages - it doesn't look good to me in terms of heat dissipation. So there needs to be a benefit -hot-swap, active cooling, etc.- otherwise I think I'd prefer to give those drives plenty of room.

Jan

[src666]

No, the 4-in-3 cages are not hot swap, just converters to fit 4x3 1/2" drives in 3x5 1/4" bays. As far as heat dissapation, they have a honking big fan attached to the front, that blows air back over the drives. I had a similar setup in my prior case, and it worked really well for 3x250GB Maxtors "stacked" in a cage. They were much cooler than the 40G WD that was the system drive, and wasn't directly cooled.

My only gripe about the 4-in-3 cage is that they used a sleeve bearing in the fan - what were they thinking?

I have my 40G WD in the 4-in-3, and the rest in hot swap trays. But I'm going to have to replace the trays - they are pretty cheap, and don't keep the drives cool enough. I'm considering just giving up hot swap and buying another 4-in-3.

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by jhh

Are these hot-swappable?

I decided to go for the Adaptec card - pricing is ok and it supports OCE. So I'm going in two phases: first 4 drives and then 4 more. I still need to check whether the spare mainboard I have supports PCI 2.2 else I need a new one. I don't think that is going to kill the overall cost picture.

I haven't decided about the 4-in-3 cages - it doesn't look good to me in terms of heat dissipation. So there needs to be a benefit -hot-swap, active cooling, etc.- otherwise I think I'd prefer to give those drives plenty of room.

Jan

I am using these 4in3 cages. Yes, hotswappable, solid construction including trays, and with 3x80mm fans each 4in3 cage for good cooling. Been using two of them fully loaded with 8 SATA HDs since last June.