I cannot decide on an OS for my new server

[tonysathre]

I've been doing a lot of research lately trying to find all the solutions to my last problem, which OS to use on my new server. Currently I have 3 750GB drives in RAID0 using Windows software RAID. I just ordered 3 new 2 TB drives, and a Rosewill SATA 4 port SATA II card. My needs are as follow:

Some data redundancy
Some way to expand my array as I need
Media streaming to 1 Extender (speed is not a big deal)
Preferably easy to manage and configure
A way to run Windows to host SageTV
I don't use tuner cards so write speed isn't a big deal
Efficient use of drive space.

The possible solutions I've come across:

NexentaStor
unRAID
FlexRAID
disParity
Windows Server 2008 RC2
ESXi running a Windows VM, and a NAS OS
OpenFiler
FreeNAS
A ZFS compatible OS (OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, Nexenta, etc...)

To me, FlexRAID seems to do everything I want, but doesn't every drive show as it's own volume (own drive letter)? What if I use Windows software RAID0, and use FlexRAID for parity on the full volume? Is that possible? I don't exactly need 24/7 protection because I only add new content about once per week.

unRAID sounds really nice, but I would need to pay for it, and virtualize. I like the idea of being able to expand the array easily, and the live protection.

Windows Server 2008 software RAID5 would be perfect, except there is no way to expand the array.

ZFS sounds really nice as well, but I would have to virtualize, and I don't like the idea of losing 1/3 of my space to parity, each time I upgrade. I also read that each time you upgrade, you have to upgrade three drives, correct me if I'm wrong.

disParity sounded a lot like FlexRAID to me.

ESXi sounds like it has a lot of hardware compatibility issues.

FreeNAS supports ZFS which is nice, but I hear it's a bad implementation.

What it really comes down to is, I need a way to expand my array at some point, and data loss in the last 24-48 hours really isn't going to hurt me, because I can just re-rip the movies I lost in the case of a drive failure. I really do want just one volume though, or at least it to appear that way.

What would you guys suggest given my needs?

Thanks,

Tony

[drewg]

Originally Posted by tonysathre

A ZFS compatible OS (OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, Nexenta, etc...)

<...>

ZFS sounds really nice as well, but I would have to virtualize

If you don't have any hardware tuners (purely HDHR for example), you can run FreeBSD and use their linux ABI compat module. There is a guy in the linux forum doing this. The same would (probably) hold true for running SageTV in a Linux zone on an OpenSolaris / Nexenta server. These approaches are much more light weight than vmware / virtualbox style virtualization.

I've also heard rumours of a closed source ZFS port coming to linux.

Drew

[Fuzzy]

Honestly, as cumbersome as it is, with the needs you've listed, FlexRAID may be enough. The downside of FlexRAID is that they aren't shown as a common volume, but - that's not really a problem for a SageTV system. You'd gain the advantages of separate disks (Spindown, SageTV 'Performance' mode load levelling, etc), but gain the parity protection of RAID5. As you said, the protection doesn't need to be real-time, so a nightly resync wouldn't be all that terrible in your situation.

And FlexRAID is supposedly working on an 'Online' mode, where it does real-time parity, but it's not released yet, and who knows when it will be (this is really just a hobby for the developer of it).

[farscapesg1]

The only thing on your list that Windows Home Server doesn't meet is the "efficient use of drive space". Otherwise, it pretty much covers everything else...

expandable storage - check
some redundance - check (the folders you set to duplicate)
Windows OS to run SageTV - check (WHS install even)
media streaming - check (since you are running SageTV)
easy management - check

As for the "efficient use of space", with drives as cheap as they are now, even losing the space to the duplication (similar to RAID1) on your folders it isn't bad.

[davephan]

I use unRAID, and recommend unRAID if you need to be able to expand your storage space easily. If you use the 3 drive unRAID version, it is free, no trial period. The 6 and 20 data drive versions are relatively inexpensive. You would need a newer system board that can boot to a USB flash drive for unRAID to work. UnRAID is hardware independent, so you do not need an identical system board or RAID controllers if you have a hardware failure.

It may be possible to use unRAID in a VM environment to try to consolidate SageTV to one computer. I prefer to use two computers, one for SageTV and the recording drives, the unRAID server for the video file storage. You can expand your unRAID storage out to about 35 TB if you use 2 TB drives. UnRAID is slower than RAID, but fast enough for the video library playback. With UnRAID, you might be able to purchase cheaper drive controller cards that don't have RAID, if your system board does not have enough drive connections. UnRAID currently allows 1 drive failure with no data loss. If two drives are lost, only one drive is lost, not the whole array. A future unRAID version will allow up to two drive failures with no data loss. I believe the third drive loss would be only one data drive loss, not the whole array, which is an improvement from RAID 6.

Dave

[Fuzzy]

Agreed, UnRAID really is the best system for storing archived media, however, the inability to run on the windows based sage server (aside from Virtualization - which seems to have serious performance penalties, and may very well disable spin-down capability - unless using expensive VT-d based hardware), that's why on my next rebuild (or maybe before, if I add any drives) I will probably go the FlexRAID approach.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by tonysathre

To me, FlexRAID seems to do everything I want, but doesn't every drive show as it's own volume (own drive letter)?

Correct, though there is FlexRAID View, which can combine multiple drives to appear as one. However from my experience/research, View is almost useless for writing so I'd consider View a Read-only solution.

What if I use Windows software RAID0, and use FlexRAID for parity on the full volume? Is that possible?

Possible but you would need a parity/redundancy "drive" as large as the RAID array.

ESXi sounds like it has a lot of hardware compatibility issues.

It's free, you can find out for yourself. It runs on a lot more hardware than they officially support.

Originally Posted by farscapesg1

As for the "efficient use of space", with drives as cheap as they are now, even losing the space to the duplication (similar to RAID1) on your folders it isn't bad.

If you end up needing a lot of drives, it is pretty bad.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

...that's why on my next rebuild (or maybe before, if I add any drives) I will probably go the FlexRAID approach.

I really wanted to, but the limitations of FlexRAID View (the disaster it creates if you try and write to it) make it really undesirable IMO. That and for some reason I was unable to create an array on my 3 identical WD20EARS drives.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I really wanted to, but the limitations of FlexRAID View (the disaster it creates if you try and write to it) make it really undesirable IMO. That and for some reason I was unable to create an array on my 3 identical WD20EARS drives.

I don't see a need to use FlexRAID view. I run every drive separatly, now, and see no reason that i can't continue to do so. i know people think combining everything to common volume is desirable, but I have yet to see an application in a SageTV setup where it makes a difference (in fact, due to performance reasons, it seems better to keep them separate).

[stanger89]

I want it more so I don't have to think about how much space is on each drive when I go to write something to it. I don't mind different drives in Sage for the reasons you mention.

[tonysathre]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I don't see a need to use UnRAID view. I run every drive separatly, now, and see no reason that i can't continue to do so. i know people think combining everything to common volume is desirable, but I have yet to see an application in a SageTV setup where it makes a difference (in fact, due to performance reasons, it seems better to keep them separate).

Well I will also be running MyMovies on this server. If I have to move my movies to seperate drives (D: , E: , F: , etc...) won't I have to redo my MyMovies database, as the paths will no longer be valid? I really don't want to do this because it took forever to manually go through 1600+ movies, and make sure every bit of metadata was accurate.

After doing more reading, I'm thinking about using Windows Server 2008 RC2, with software RAID5. The only downside I can see is, how will I get my current data off these drives? Build my new array with the new 2 TB drives I ordered, copy the data to the new array, and then add my current drives to the array? It's impossible isn't it? I know a friend who has about 20TB of storage, so if I had to, I could copy all my data over to his array, and then build the new array with all 6 of my drives, and copy it back.

[davephan]

If you use the Western Digital WD20EARS 2 TB green drives with unRAID, then you need to put them in "compatibility mode" before putting them in the unRAID server. This is easy to do by putting a jumper between pins 7 & 8 as shown in this link:

http://www.unraid.net/images/jumper.jpg

I was not aware of unRAID's requirement for "compatibility mode" for Advanced Format drives. I have 1 parity drive and 5 data drives in the unRAID server that were not setup in "compatibility mode". It will take a week to do parity checks and rebuilds for each drive after I switch them to "compatibility mode" one by one.

Here's a link about Advanced Format drives and unRAID:

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/inde..._Format_Drives


Dave

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tonysathre

Well I will also be running MyMovies on this server. If I have to move my movies to seperate drives (D: , E: , F: , etc...) won't I have to redo my MyMovies database, as the paths will no longer be valid? I really don't want to do this because it took forever to manually go through 1600+ movies, and make sure every bit of metadata was accurate.

After doing more reading, I'm thinking about using Windows Server 2008 RC2, with software RAID5. The only downside I can see is, how will I get my current data off these drives? Build my new array with the new 2 TB drives I ordered, copy the data to the new array, and then add my current drives to the array? It's impossible isn't it? I know a friend who has about 20TB of storage, so if I had to, I could copy all my data over to his array, and then build the new array with all 6 of my drives, and copy it back.

The downside I see is the $650 price tag for Server 2008, to store home media.