Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

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KnightRid
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Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by KnightRid »

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811147164

I saw that case and my one remaining brain cell started to form an idea for a media server.

All kinds of questions though...

1. RAID card or just a MB that supports RAID?
a. Which card
b. which motherboard

2. Would the power requirements to house all 15 drives defeat the purpose compared to a stand alone NAS?

3. Would I have to have a RAID card to add storage rather than slapping all drives in at once?

4. What OS would you recommend so I can easily find it shared on my network using laptops, tablets, smartphones, boxee, desktops, etc.

5. PSU? 500w? less?

I still think RAID cards are just massively overpriced for the true hardware ones but i really want to get something started (I cant afford to buy the parts all at once so it will be a little here, little there. That is why I said about adding hard drives. I could buy some, pay them off on the credit card, then buy some more). Do you think software RAID would be an option or a RAID card that offsets the computing to the CPU?

If you think that case wont work give me suggestions there too. I was looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811219033 but for the massive price difference I cant see how it would be worth it except it has backplanes and the Rosewill does not.
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
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Re: Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by kenc51 »

KnightRid wrote:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811147164

I saw that case and my one remaining brain cell started to form an idea for a media server.

All kinds of questions though...

1. RAID card or just a MB that supports RAID?
a. Which card
b. which motherboard

2. Would the power requirements to house all 15 drives defeat the purpose compared to a stand alone NAS?

3. Would I have to have a RAID card to add storage rather than slapping all drives in at once?

4. What OS would you recommend so I can easily find it shared on my network using laptops, tablets, smartphones, boxee, desktops, etc.

5. PSU? 500w? less?

I still think RAID cards are just massively overpriced for the true hardware ones but i really want to get something started (I cant afford to buy the parts all at once so it will be a little here, little there. That is why I said about adding hard drives. I could buy some, pay them off on the credit card, then buy some more). Do you think software RAID would be an option or a RAID card that offsets the computing to the CPU?

If you think that case wont work give me suggestions there too. I was looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811219033 but for the massive price difference I cant see how it would be worth it except it has backplanes and the Rosewill does not.
With 15x drives you will need a RAID card or 3, unless you don't need the redundancy / fault tolerance.
Otherwise you could just run JBOD, as in all 15x drives running as a single volume / partition.

If you do want to run RAID5 or better, you'll need to buy enterprise drives or the new Western Digital raid drives.
Otherwise you'll have ongoing issues with drives dropping out and the array having to be rebuilt all the time.
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Re: Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by KnightRid »

I definitely want RAID 5 or above. It takes forever to rip dvds/blurays so I want to make sure I have a safety net ;)

As far as enterprise drives, I use WD Green drives with a smaller RAID card and a MB RAID with no problems at all. I think it depends on the RAID controller more than anything but I will make sure the drives I would get have been tested and work with the card.

I was honestly thinking of using onboard RAID but if the MB dies I would pretty much be screwed unless I could get another one. I dont think MB RAID is able to be swapped between MB's without being rebuilt. I would look into software RAID but my brain is old and tired and gets confused. I am going to search for a Linux distro that is set out fo the box to handle JBOD drives and slap them in a software RAID and share them on my network but I have not had the time to do so. Software RAID would save a ton of money and, I think, should still have enough speed to send a dvd or bluray through my network to multiple tvs in the house. Correct me if I am wrong. Also software RAID would negate the necessity of enterprise drives also, saving even more money.

Doing the above, what card should I look at to hook the drives up to for JBOD? I have an old 4 port RAID card with SATA that I am using for JBOD right now, could I just use those expanders or something to hook all the drives up to that card?
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
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Re: Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by kenc51 »

You could use FreeNAS
http://www.freenas.org/
Based on FreeBSD, so stable and it has an easy to configure web interface. http://www.freenas.org/features/screenshots
You can connect up the HDD's as you wish as it uses software raid.
ZFS filesystem support is also cool as it supports snapshots and has great performance with large file sizes.
http://www.freenas.org/features/feature-overview
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Re: Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by KnightRid »

I was actually looking at freenas yesterday :) Great minds!

Weirdest thing about freenas and its users seems to be that they use RAID cards anyway. If you are using a RAID card, then you dont need a software RAID solution LOL

Might check out an Atom cpu and see if it would be powerful enough to run everything. Still have to find a good controller card (correct term?) to handle up to 24 drives.

Awful thing about freenas is the inability to just add more drives to the array and have it resize the array. Seems you have to add in multiples and in most case it will just create a new volume raid, which sucks.
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Re: Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by kenc51 »

You could also try openfiler
http://www.openfiler.com/openfiler-homepage#
It runs on Linux and thus not using ZFS (ZFS is not available to Linux)


I can't recommend a card, sorry; I don't use them.
A quick google came up with this, it's expensive though.
http://legitreviews.pgpartner.com/searc ... /rd_type=M

16x SATA drives off one card will need a bit of power and you'll have to use port expanders.

First I'd install openfiler in vmware/openbox and see if it suits your needs.
You'll want to be comfortable with it as hopefully you won't be reinstalling the OS.
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Re: Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by KnightRid »

See thats what confuses me. Why are all the sata/sas controller cards also RAID? I just basically need an expansion card to be able to have more SATA ports in the case since the software RAID would do all of the important stuff but I can only find 2 or 4 port cards rather than 20 or 32 port. I am also getting confused because some places i read you can use cables that go 1SAS to 4SATA drives (I think that is the config, brain is confused) so is there a 4,6,8 port SAS expander card that i could pick up for cheap that doesnt have RAID and then use those 1->4 cables to put 16, 24, or 32 drives on one card?

If I have to buy a RAID card to have all the drives hooked up then I might as well use the hardware RAID since i paid for it anyway.
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Re: Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by kenc51 »

Well, you could go with a full blown raid card
MegaRAID SAS 9260-16i - 16x internal SATA or SAS drives - $799.99 (This is LSI's "value range")

Promise make some cheaper models.
The EX16350 is discontinued, but can be got for $150 on eBay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PROMISE-SuperTr ... 0656547515

I don't have any experience with raid controllers, so this is as mush advice as I can give.


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Re: Media server based off of rsv-l4500?

Post by connory387 »

If you buy this case be sure to have an alternate plan for putting hard drives into it. The plastic drive trays are terrible. The little part they use in place of screws don't even line up with drive holes. I don't think they could have made the drive system worse if they tried.

The layout and the rest of the case is fantastic, but the drive trays make it almost not worth buying.
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