Dream/Reality RAID Fileserver/HD Sage Server

[ToxMox]

I'm going to be moving into a house in the next few months and once I do I plan on building a rackmount RAID fileserver which will be used for the following:

1) Huge RAID filestorage capability with excellent throughput
2) Supplemental SageTV server with 4 ATSC HD tuners to be network encoders for primary existing SageTV server
3) Probably do Showanalyzer commercial detection of all HD recordings
4) Compress all HD recordings automatically to Xvid/divx with AC3/5.1

My current SageTV setup is as follows:
Server:
-------
Lian Li PC 70 Case
550 Watt Powersupply
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard
Athlon 64 3500+
6800gt
1GB Ram
Several individual drives totalling over 1TB
7 Encoders:
Two Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500s
One Nvidia DualTV MCE
One Hauppauge WinTV PVR-USB2 (I have two more that I don't use)


I have a crummy client machine but I will be building a new one to hook up via HDMI to most likely a 1080p 52" LCD Flat panel TV

Now here is the current config I'm toying with getting for the RAID/Sage Slave server:

Case: (Ordered 10/06/2006)
Chenbro RM41416T2-B with 16 Hotswap bays and SAS/SATA II Backplane
http://serversdirect.com/productdetail?product=104536

Motherboard:
Tyan Thunder n6650W (S2915) Dual Socket F Opteron without SAS

Processors:
(TWO) AMD Opteron 2214 HE

RAM:
Undecided

Video Card:
Not important

RAID Controller: ARC-1261ML PCI-Express x8 SATA II Controller Card

Hard Drives for RAID: (will start with 4 drives)
Four - Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

HD Tuners:
Two - Dual Tuner SiliconDust HDHomeRuns

Power Supply: ordered 10/10/2006
Coolmax CTG-1000 (1000 watt)

-----------------------------
Anyone have any suggestions or comments regarding this configuration I'd love to hear them. I'm very open to suggestions at this point.

[briands]

You might want to test the write speed for the raid card/ drives you plan to use. Mine is a 5 drive hardware raid 3 card with SATA150 drives and it has trouble keeping up and I only have 4 SD and 1 HD card with only one client typically reading at a time. Keep in mind too that each SA instance is reading the file as well and I assume transcoding would be a simultanious read and write. I think you'll run into array speed limitations.

I will be blowing up the raid for my tv recording in my next rebuild (for V6 update). I plan to keep 3 drives in the raid 3 for music, movies, photos and other files to be protected. I will use the two other drives as independent drives and directing my HD card to one drive and the SD cards to the other.

[ToxMox]

What RAID card do you have? I plan on running RAID 5. Based on the numbers in this review of the card I'm planning on getting it looks like it would be more than adequate to handle the IO I would be putting the disks through. Tell me if I'm not reading the data correctly.

[briands]

XFX revolution.

[lobosrul]

Only thing I can add:

I avoid WD drives like the plague. I had one go bad, and a friend (whose system i build) had one go bad a few years later.

I stick to Seagate.


Oh and I've figure dout a nice way to do this: 4) Compress all HD recordings automatically to Xvid/divx with AC3/5.1

I just started using Dr Divx (http://labs.divx.com/DrDivX) to do this. It has a feature called a watch list, it will encode any files it sees there. I use windows scheduler to run Dr Divx every weeknight at 1 AM.

2.5 mbps, Hi Def profile, resized to 1024x576 outputs a nice looking file. It encodes at about 1 third real time.

I was using Nero AVC for this but its just god-awful slow for HD.

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Only thing I can add:

I avoid WD drives like the plague. I had one go bad, and a friend (whose system i build) had one go bad a few years later.

I stick to Seagate.

I've had drives of all brands die over the years and don't have any brand preference over another. I chose the Raid Edition WD drives due to their extended MTBF amongst other things.

Oh and I've figure dout a nice way to do this: 4) Compress all HD recordings automatically to Xvid/divx with AC3/5.1

I just started using Dr Divx (http://labs.divx.com/DrDivX) to do this. It has a feature called a watch list, it will encode any files it sees there. I use windows scheduler to run Dr Divx every weeknight at 1 AM.

2.5 mbps, Hi Def profile, resized to 1024x576 outputs a nice looking file. It encodes at about 1 third real time.

I was using Nero AVC for this but its just god-awful slow for HD.

Thanks. I'll look into Dr Divx when the time comes.

[lobosrul]

I should clarify Dr Divx will encode any files it see in a specified folder.

[DocDrydenn]

ToxMox,

I've gone down the road you are looking to. It has been very good to me.

My sig has a bunch of links to what my main server is made of. I've got pics of it setup and running, yet I've been slacking on a write up of it (including a webpage)

Oh and just to add my two cents..... go with a 9000 series 3ware RAID controler. They have a way better rep for being good cards. Never had a problem with mine even though its an 8000 series.

Also, I'm guessing you are talking RAID-5. Right?

[ToxMox]

Originally when I envisioned building a RAID-5 I had always intended to use a 3ware product but lately I've been reading very positive reviews for the Areca cards and their performance. Is there something I'm missing information wise that should make me reconsider 3ware?

[briands]

Maybe it turns out that I got the dog of the HW RAID cards...

I originally chose the Netcell based card based on reviews like this one

In most respects, NetCell has actually achieved its declared goal of offering the performance of a RAID 0 simultaneous with the data security of a redundant array mode such as a RAID 5

but now I see others like this

Because RAID 3 arrays generally tap all drives while servicing a single I/O request, they don't deal well with multiple simultaneous I/O requests.

Looks like my experience with RAID may not be typical of the more common raid 5 systems.

Anyone want to buy a nice raid card?

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by briands

You might want to test the write speed for the raid card/ drives you plan to use. Mine is a 5 drive hardware raid 3 card with SATA150 drives and it has trouble keeping up and I only have 4 SD and 1 HD card with only one client typically reading at a time.

Sounds like somethings wrong here. I have just 2 300gb mirrored drives using the built in RAID function on a nForce4 motherboard and it has no issue with recording 4 SD channels while watching 2. Your array should have no problem with HD and 1 client.

[salsbst]

You're going to like the Areca. I have a 1260, and I think I actually sleep better at night. I run the OS on a RAID 1 mirror and the data on a RAID 6 array. I only have 4 drives in the data array at present, so I haven't bothered benchmarking, and with only 4 drives in a RAID 6, I don't think I'd try using it for HD PVR.

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by salsbst

with only 4 drives in a RAID 6, I don't think I'd try using it for HD PVR.

Thanks for the info salsbst. Would you mind elaborating on this statement?

BTW what motherboard are you running the card on?
So with these cards you can configure multiple arrays on one controller?

For example if I wanted to put in 8 x 500gb drives could I run two seperate 4 drive RAID 5s?

[salsbst]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

Thanks for the info salsbst. Would you mind elaborating on this statement?

I'd want more than 4 drives in the array (4 drives in RAID 6 is a lot like 3 drives in RAID 5) before I expected really good speed.

BTW what motherboard are you running the card on?

Intel se7221ba1-e: http://www.intel.com/design/servers/boards/se7221ba1-e/

So with these cards you can configure multiple arrays on one controller?

For example if I wanted to put in 8 x 500gb drives could I run two seperate 4 drive RAID 5s?

You can certainly do that with the Areca.

See this helpful comparison/review http://tweakers.net/reviews/557/1 , which shows a little of the web administration pages and in particular the high-level list of "volume set" operations.

[ToxMox]

Well I went ahead and ordered this Chenbro 4U case with SAS/SATA II backplane:
http://serversdirect.com/productdetail?product=104536
Final cost: $695.05 shipped.

[ToxMox]

Thanks salsbst that link was helpful

[salsbst]

I have a chenbro case, too. It's nice, but I had a heck of a time routing all 16 of the sata cables through the barrier (included in mine) between the drives and the rest of the system. I'm ultimately very happy with the machine and my purchase choices, but wish that I hadn't purchased the jet-engine-sounding redundant power supplies that came with my case.

We live in an apartment. Until we move into a house, I won't be filling my case, because the noise that would be generated by the fans needed to cool our chenbro case would be unbreabable if I filled the case with hard drives.

[jptaz]

I have the 3Ware 9500-12 SATA 150 with 8 Seagate 250GB Drives ( 1 Hot spare ) so basically 7 Drives in RAID 5...I highly recommend the hot spare. I had one drive fail and replaced it a week later after RMAing it as well as beefing of my drive bay cooling...My raid had no problem rebuilding the hot spare drive while still recording 3 HDTV shows and 4 SD recordings....RAID 5 is plenty fast enoguh with a good card.

EDIT: I am counting imparied tonight...I only have 3 HD Tuners....but at the time I did have 6 SD Tuners, but have decreased them as my HD Tuners are being used more.

Right when the drive failed the Playback stuttered for a couple minutes then smoothed out once the Raid Card decided to fail the drive...It basically killed read performance briefly but, when I rewound it was fine and not corrupted on disk.

I also highly recommmend a beefy PSU. I have a 750 Watt PSU, which according my UPS is consistently drawing around 400 Watts at idle....peak drive and CPU actiivty boost that to close to 600 Watts.

John

[ToxMox]

salsbst:
If you don't mind could you tell me how much you bought your 1260 for and when you bought it? I'm trying to get an idea of how the price is decreasing over time on these controllers.

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by jptaz

I have the 3Ware 9500-12 SATA 150 with 8 Seagate 250GB Drives ( 1 Hot spare ) so basically 7 Drives in RAID 5...I highly recommend the hot spare.

I think I'd be more inclined to run RAID 6 without the hot spare instead of RAID 5 with a hot spare. I figured I'd probably be good to go using a good RAID controller and doing all the recording that I plan on doing so it is good to hear you are doing something similar with success.