Need storage array advice. 12+ drives, raid 6?, controller raid cards?

D

dirtrider

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
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135
I am building a new box right now and need some advice on a better storage system for media. I was using a supermicro 8 port sata card and 8 external hard drives on my old system. I was backing them up to another identical system over the network so it was mirrored but not real time. That is a cost prohibitive way of storage though and it is also cumbersome having so many external enclosures. I need to change this now. I don't need the redundancy and cost of 1:1 mirroring.

I cannot afford to spend a lot of money on some enterprise class system. This has to be relatively cheap. It is in a bedroom so it should be relatively quiet (gets turned off at night tho). I want 12+ drive capability. Also raid...probably raid 6 but not sure. I want to build some kind of storage array so this will perhaps use sata muliplexing. It will NOT have its own mobo, cpu, etc. I need to consider the controller/raid cards needed as I don't have tons of room on my new mobo build. I have an available pci express 2.0 x16 slot in x4 mode, x1, and pci. It could be either rack or tower based. If rack it should not be super deep since I will still be storing it under my large desk for now. Needs to fit in 21"H x 10"W x 24"D. I have seen solutions that are cheap and 8 drives in a tower with sata multiplying but that is not big enough. Has to be 12+ drives so I have some room for expansion. I currently have no idea what controller/raid cards to consider nor do I know what case or backplane etc.

I have little experience in this stuff -obviously a newb...who uses 8 external hard drives:). So I'm reading up here but need a solution fast so I wanted to start a thread and ask so I get steered in the right direction quickly.

I don't think it will matter too much but my new system is as follows. I already have it all here so this isn't changing.
Case: COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000
PSU: CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-1000HX 1000W
Motherboard: ASRock X58 Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core
Video Cards (was 2 now 1): MSI N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
Ram: 2 for 12gb - CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
edit - OS HD: Corsair Force CSSD-F120GB2-BRKT 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Hard Drives: I am going to pickup an ocz vertex 2 or corsair force ssd for the OS. Then I'll have a couple more drives in the box that are probably not on the raid array. These will still get backed up 1:1 to another computer on the network. This is safest for stuff like pictures and other things I cannot lose. Of course off site backups too (mine in fireproof safe).
 
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An HP SAS Expander + a cheap compatible SAS controller is probably the best for your needs. See the first post of the HP SAS Expander thread for more detail
 
What do you advise I do for a case? Also, I am new to sas and the hba. So the hba is basically the controller card which can offer raid? Then the expander card you mentioned is just for breakout to the individual drives? With my setup I only have one pcie x4 available. Is it an option to get an hba or expander that is pcie x1 or pci-x? If it is an option will that cripple performance? Recommendation on card?

Also, would I be able to power on this separate box of hard drives only when needed? I may only use this media storage once a week for a couple hours and don't want to run it all the time.
 
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The HBA is just a storage controller. It can offer RAID but not all HBAs do. The expander is exactly what the name means: It expands the HBA's amount of storage support. I.e If a HBA only has one SAS port that offers 4 SATA ports, if you you connect a SAS expander to that HBA and now that HBA will support 32 or so drives.

Again, read the HP SAS Expander thread. Has a list of what you should buy and which cards to get.

No you probably won't be able to power that seperate box only when needed.

Oh and you might want to hit up this link:
http://www.servethehome.com/category/the-big-whs-30-drive-whs/
 
Many people use the Norco 4020/4220 or 4224 cases. The Storage showoff thread has many good examples
 
Can anyone tell me if the dell perc 6/i card will work for me? I configured my case such that I have room for 10 hard drive besides the ocz force ssd OS drive and the 2tb wd black drive I will use outside a raid array. I'm using an istarusa 5 3.5 into 3 5.25 enclosure for the extra 5 drives.
I see in documentation that the perc 6/i supports up to 32 drives however I'm using sata drives and these cable type are unfamiliar to me but I wonder if this only works with 8 sata drives??? I think I need to use SFF-8484 to 4x SATA Serial ATA / SAS cable. I see only 2 connection points on that card for this cable which leads me to thinking I can only use 8 drives. Can someone set me straight here?
I was trying to just put everything in one box for now because I really didn't want the complexity/cost of building another machine yet. I also wanted to use only one card if possible instead of the hp sas expander and an additional raid card.
 
dirtrider said:
I see in documentation that the perc 6/i supports up to 32 drives however I'm using sata drives and these cable type are unfamiliar to me but I wonder if this only works with 8 sata drives??? I think I need to use SFF-8484 to 4x SATA Serial ATA / SAS cable. I see only 2 connection points on that card for this cable which leads me to thinking I can only use 8 drives. Can someone set me straight here?
Click to expand...

Yes that's the correct cable that you want to use to get 8 drives support. However If you connect the Dell Perc 6/i card to a SAS expander, that's how you get the 32 drives. But if you only want 8 drives, two of those SFF-8484 cables to 4 SATA will work.
 
Thanks. I need 10 drives to start so looks like I need an expander unless anyone can recommend a raid card that can handle 10+ drives and $350 or less. Unfortunately as is now I'll have to ditch one video card so I have 2 free pci x16 slots (one running pci x16 and the other pci x4). One for raid and one for expander.
 
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For $350 you can probably get an Adaptec 31605 on ebay (if you look for a week or two). Getting one with a BBU is probably putting you in the $400 range though. That would save you from ditching the video card.

BTW I did something similar to what you are doing now with my main PC about two years ago (Core i7 920, Cosmos, was GTX 285 now GTX 470's, 12GB Dominator GT with a Gigabyte X58-Extreme motherboard).

By the time I started on the multiple RAID controller route, I wanted DAS... which turned into NAS which turned into a 4U NAS + a 4U DAS box for extra storage. Just some thoughts.
 
ha well perhaps I should just buy all your old stuff when you off load it. I'm just 2 years behind!

Looks like I am best off going with the hp sas expander and compatible raid card as suggested. I guess that way I can run my 10 raid drives in my cosmos box and then have the option of hooking up a secondary box with more drives which I guess is considered a DAS. Seems Norco has some cases on the horizon for DAS.

I still had one video card I left NIB since I wasn't sure if I'd have to resort to using one card. I really am not a gamer so no reason I need two video cards. The 3d vision stuff isn't too impressive to me yet anyway since it requires 3 identical displays that I don't care for too much. Right now I'm happy with dual monitors. Primary is a sony kdl40z4100 40" lcd and secondary is a dell u2311h 23". Both running 1920x1080. The dell is used for media (tv, music, movies in background) while working on the 40". Desk is big and I sit 3.5' back from the 40" so I like it.

3.8ghz overclock was easy and with the corsair force ssd this thing flies.
 
@OP

I read somewhere recently that the PERC 6/i only supports 8 SATA drives and does NOT fully support expanders, i.e. it will only see a maximum of 8 drives whether they are connected to the expander or not.. The way around this is to get a PERC 6/e, and connect its external port to the external port on the HP SAS Expander.

Then you just use the SAS->SATA SFF-8484 cables to connect to your SAS drives.

EDIT:

Attach a PERC 6/e to an expander, and it will address more than 8 drives (not sure how many, I have only seen 16 tested). Hook up a 6/i, and it will only see the first 8 drives regardless of how many you connect.
Click to expand...

From here. Second post down.
 
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