a King Kong of media server/NAS units . . .

[weh]

A friend for whom I've built several computers in the past wants a gargantuan media server NAS unit -- something on the order of 20+ terabytes with room to grow. That's considerably larger than anything I've ever built.

I'm supposing that the best solution might be a minimalist motherboard (server board?) with built-in graphics (that might never be used), a low-end Core 2 Duo (low-end Xeon? Opteron?), one (or two) multi-port raid array controllers, and a redundant power supply. I'd use the on-board sata ports and a pair of small drives in a RAID-1 array for the OS. Then I'd hang an ungodly number of 2TB "green" drives off the array controller(s) for mass storage. Since I'd be the one having to service this monster if/when anything goes wrong and I live in a different city (although only about an hour away), I'd probably go for RAID-6 (plus a hot spare?) -- just to be on the safe side.

Based on what I've read, it appears that the Adaptec 5-series array controller is king of the hill at the moment. Question: Am I better off going with a single 24-port 52445 array controller or a pair of 12-port 51245 array controllers? (Yes, I know that each has an extra 4 ports on an external connector - a potential extra 4/8 drives for expanded storage.) Or does it matter?

His house is already wired for gigabit ethernet and 4 wireless access points (2 each, dedicated to "g" and "n"). There are a total of 9 potential clients (5 wired and 4 wireless), including a new HTPC (two dual tuners) for the den to be built along with the media server (to be hidden in the basement). (Kitchen PC, 2 home-office PCs, the children's high-end gaming PC in the basement, the new HTPC, and 4 laptops - all currently running Vista Home Premium - will be migrating to Win.7 when it arrives).

Any comments and/or suggestions welcome.

 

[bookmage]

I would figure out the budget and what he wants to do w/20TB. That would dictate whether I would want pricey dedicated RAID controllers or suffice with dumb controllers.

What OS do you plan to run? Any software requirements? I'm assuming some sort of Video/music server which would be accessed from the HTPC. Running any sort of management software?

If it's straight file sharing over windows share/SMB/CIFS, I would run the thing on cheap 2-3 8 port SATA dumb controllers using Software RAID6 on Ubuntu server. Setup SSH/VPN, configure router for port forwarding and then monitor/administer remotely. I would use a low wattage dual core w/like 2-4GB of ram on a motherboard w/4-6 onboard SATA ports and 2 8x PCIexpress slots. I would house the whole thing in a Norco 4220 20bay rackmount with a 700+w Energy efficient Power supply.

If I have to use windows or prefer the hardware raid card, the Adaptec 5000 series is recommended by those w/Very Large storage arrays. Remember, if you use just the 24 port, that is a single point of failure. If you two cards, you will need at least 2 slots for them instead of one, but you could have two separate arrays and only lose data on one controller. You would also want to see if they are shared bandwidth or two separate buses which would give you better performance. This makes the motherboard choice very important.

If you have a 3rd or 4th PCI-express slot, you could also pick up some Silicon Image Port Multiplier (PM) controllers and expand another 10-20 drives in another Norco case or enclosure. My backup server has 10 drives connected to 2 esata ports in software raid5. Here, I prioritized based on space, reliability, price, and then performance. Esata controller cards supporting PM are cheap and I still obtained good performance across the network. Cheap and available means I can buy an extra controller as a backup or keep tabs on them and make sure they're still in production while I have this server. I have plans to pick up a 4 port sata controller w/PM and have a Norco rack w/20 drives using Port Multipliers.

I would "settle" with 20 1TB drives for now and wait for the 2TB drives to drop below 200$. Then I would slowly migrate the whole thing over to 2TB drives using Online Capacity Expansion on the RAID card or grow the array in linux. RAID card is probably easier, but you still have to swap out 1 drive at a time unless you want to destroy/rebuild the array.

There are several options and it does come down to cost, what software you need to use, and how much time/effort needed to maintain in case of disaster.

 

[thiggins]

It's a bit dated, but this article might be worth a read through:
RAIDzilla: DIY RAID5 NAS with Attitude