Reliable, yet affordable RAID setup?

[JackAxe]

I need an external RAID setup, that's fast of course and more importatnly reliable? And I only use Maxtor drives. :o

I've had nothing but bad experiences with RAID in the past when trying to go on the cheap.

<]=)

[Cyker]

Currently I have a 486 Linux box acting as a RAID 1+0 4xIDE NAS array over 100Base-TX Ethernet.

If I wasn't so cheap I'd get a RAID 5 card for it... but then again I think finding a VESA RAID card would be pretty f'ing hard these days... ;)

Good points are that it's quiet (486 needs no fan! And the HD's are all 5400RPM MaxLine II's!), it has a REAL POWER SWITCH (Screw those ATX PSUs! :D), and it was really f'ing cheap to build (The most expensive part was the four MaxLine II's - Everything else was free or cannibalised from old parts!)

Downsides are that it can get overloaded if more than 1 person tries to drag files off it (It's only a DX-33!), the drives can't be hot-swapped, and it can be hacked (I have to update it as regularly as my main box now, esp. SSH and Samba!). I may tried compiling in software RAID, but the time required to migrate my current setup makes it very unlikely.

If you want reliable, I'd suggest buying a proper NAS with RAID support. They ain't cheap 'tho - A **** lot more expensive than my little 486...!

[zackepceo]

http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/ :D
Actually, it's cheaper than dedicated external RAID controllers.. at least the good controllers.

[zackepceo]

If you don't want to go quite that high end, Mac OS X's software RAID isn't actually that bad. Buy an external enclosure, get 6 SCSI-360 HDs, the appropriate Oxford Firewire 800 911 controller, and softraid them.

[JackAxe]

Currently I have a 486 Linux box acting as a RAID 1+0 4xIDE NAS array over 100Base-TX Ethernet.

If I wasn't so cheap I'd get a RAID 5 card for it... but then again I think finding a VESA RAID card would be pretty f'ing hard these days... ;)

Good points are that it's quiet (486 needs no fan! And the HD's are all 5400RPM MaxLine II's!), it has a REAL POWER SWITCH (Screw those ATX PSUs! :D), and it was really f'ing cheap to build (The most expensive part was the four MaxLine II's - Everything else was free or cannibalised from old parts!)

Downsides are that it can get overloaded if more than 1 person tries to drag files off it (It's only a DX-33!), the drives can't be hot-swapped, and it can be hacked (I have to update it as regularly as my main box now, esp. SSH and Samba!). I may tried compiling in software RAID, but the time required to migrate my current setup makes it very unlikely.

If you want reliable, I'd suggest buying a proper NAS with RAID support. They ain't cheap 'tho - A **** lot more expensive than my little 486...!

*LOL* :D A 486 RAID. My average jobs are about 40 - 60 gigs now days, I think it might be just a tad bit too slow. :D But thanks for the suggestion. :)

I be look into these NAS though. :)

<]=)

[JackAxe]

If you don't want to go quite that high end, Mac OS X's software RAID isn't actually that bad. Buy an external enclosure, get 6 SCSI-360 HDs, the appropriate Oxford Firewire 800 911 controller, and softraid them.

I've heard of some peeps using it, but was scared to try it my self. I originally wanted to set my internals up this way, but then thought back to my Photoshop files being corrupted on my old PC133 RAID setup. But it's definately a good way to save some money.

SCSI scares me now days. :eek: But it was Quantum and Segate drives that failed on me, so I would consider a Maxtor SCSI setup. But wouldn't SATA be a faster option for RAID?

If I can get a business loan, then the XServe is definately on my list, but right now I'm hoping ot get something for well under a thousand that would provide a great performance boost over my current SATA drives.

<]=)

[zackepceo]

If you can find an enclosure, SATA is great. I'm running 160GB and 2 200GB Seagate SATA drives right now in various computers, and the everything is phenominally improved from when they did IDE. The drives are very fast, quite cool, and low noise.

[SamuraiCatJB]

SATA is nice as it is mult-channel. SCSI, sure you can daisy chain 6 drives on one channel and raid them together, but you share the same 160/320 channel.

SATA gives you a 150 channel for each drive. RAID fast drives together and you are limited by your PC more than the IO.

My questions would be similar to what I do for computers. Are you looking for high speed working drive space? or online storage for finished movies/images?

I tend to do both at work, multi-terabyte arrays for slower but online storage of finished or raw-images. And a highspeed 320 fully maxed out RAID (4 or 5 disks) at work only, remember... I can't afford that at home. I have 4 sata drives of which two can be raided. I am debating on backing up my data to my large USB offline drives and finally raiding two 200gig 7200rpm drives for faster performance in a stripe configuration.

[SamuraiCatJB]

These are firewire 800 external enclosures... :) http://www.coolgear.com/Firewire_Multi-Bay.cfm

[zackepceo]

A RAID 0+1 is a good config if you have 4 drives. Stripe two and have two more mirror the stripe.

[SamuraiCatJB]

A RAID 0+1 is a good config if you have 4 drives. Stripe two and have two more mirror the stripe.

we did that for our big servers. :)

[JackAxe]

Those enclosures are nice. I'm hoping to find something similar that utilizes SATA drives, but through FW 800. Would rather invest in those, insted of more ATA133 drives.

I only have one FW port, would it be best to buy a PCI FW 800 card to add additions if getting a 4 drives setup? And if this is the case, then a hardware FW card would still be a better option then software now days?

I need temp back up, more space and more speed. My 2 internals are SATA and do pretty well. My external FW 400 is also doing great, but it's down to 29 gigs now and when I'm requesting multiples of video for it to export into one vid, it takes a hit. And I alwasy export and encode from one drive to another.

<]=)

[Cyker]

SATA is nice as it is mult-channel. SCSI, sure you can daisy chain 6 drives on one channel and raid them together, but you share the same 160/320 channel.

SATA gives you a 150 channel for each drive. RAID fast drives together and you are limited by your PC more than the IO.
Ahh, but all those channels are shared by the PCI bus so they ain't as seperate as you might think :)

When they bring out PCI-X SATA controllers (Instead of the silly ones that are on the wrong side of the PCI bridge in current PCI-X systems) then it'll really kick ***!

SCSI I couldn't bother with - RAID stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks, and SCSI is anything but expensive!
That said, they're usually very reliable if you take care of them (Active cooling!!!), although I wish they still sold slower ones instead of chasing numbers.

IDE is deffo the way to go for RAID...

[SamuraiCatJB]

True, however no matter what raid setup you have you bottleneck at the IO bus. The point is to pull 100% of that or as near as you can reach "realistically". Some motherboards tweak the IO performance of the bus to get a bit extra speed (sometimes at the cost of a few errors/incompatibilities, so watch reviews). PCIx and PCIe are definately faster extensions of the PCI, right now are still too expensive to replace everything just for that boost. It will come, but until then we just have to RAID IDE/SATA or SCSI to pull the full speed of the bus.

[Cyker]

Ooh! Oooh! SATA RAID comparison, courtesy of /.

http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/557

Mmmm... so many cables!

[JackAxe]

ArRrRrr, they be available now. :) I was actually searching for PCI-X FW, but found SATA instead. I'm personally not a fan of 4 cables coming out of the back. I'm figuring that it would be the same for FW if I wanted each drive to have max available bandwidth, or SCSI and its fat cables that never seemed long enough. :)

Here be a card:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo-x_sata44.html


Ooooh, a 8X drive set up sustains over 500 megs on a read. :eek:

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

Performance to leave you SATAsfied? ouch.... :eek: and I thought I was punny. :)

[JackAxe]

What the freak, are you making a pun. :p

How would I do an external 8 drive setup? Would I need to use the 4 internal slots and pull them through another PCI-X bay, or add another card? Or is there a way to do it with only 4 cables?

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

What the freak, are you making a pun. :p

How would I do an external 8 drive setup? Would I need to use the 4 internal slots and pull them through another PCI-X bay, or add another card? Or is there a way to do it with only 4 cables?

<]=)

not me, them! they said it.

no way to do it with 4 cables that I know of, no daisy chains. but you could pull the cables through, or instead of buying the 8 port card, buy two 4 port external cards. although that limits you to groups of 4 you could do raid 1+0 with hardware striping to 4 disks and software mirroring within OS. :) :eek:

[JackAxe]

I relize now, if I pull the card cables through, or get 2 cards, then I wouldn't be able to add a ARTVPC. :( The 6800 stole one of me PCI-X slots

I'll just go with 4 or 2 for now, since 8 drives will put me in the 2k range and I want the last slot free. Worse case scenario, I would need to sell my 6800 and goto ATI, or file away an opening. :eek:


<]=)

[JackAxe]

I can get a PCI-X 4 port RAID FW 800 card:

http://www.indigita.com/products/hostadapters/idt804pci.html#Order

This is probably a more expensive route though.

My RAID 133 that had issues in RAID mode was a Sonnets, so I'm a little bit paranoid about getting the above SATA card I posted a link for.

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

RAID stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks, and SCSI is anything but expensive!
IDE is deffo the way to go for RAID...


I always thought RAID was Redundant array of insignificant disks.... Its the only way to get my 2.5 terabyte fix.... aaaahhhhh

[JackAxe]

I have 2.6 Terabytes. :p Ok, I don't. :(

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

That's okay... I really only have 2.1 I was exaggerating a bit.... 15x300gig with 1 hot swap spare, so 14 x 300 at RAID 1+0

[zackepceo]

Pppsh, only 300 gigs? Those new 500 gig drives are the only thing to have nowadays. :p

[JackAxe]

I was thinking about swaping my two internal 250 gigs for 2 500 gigs. :o

Then again, naaaaa. I'm just going to get 4 external 250s, unless 500s aren't that much more.

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

Pppsh, only 300 gigs? Those new 500 gig drives are the only thing to have nowadays. :p

but I would have to buy them, and the project leader is pinching pennies... he won't even buy me that dual 6800u. :) sheeesh.

but he might buy me a PPU to use along side of the GPU and CPU, because he wants to see a PPU. :)

[zackepceo]

You mean the dual-GPU 6800 that uses 4 molex connectors?

[SamuraiCatJB]

yup! :D

[JackAxe]

A PPU would do wonders for dynamics in Maya.

<]=)

[Gizmo]

Hey, I'm just a dumb monkey but, would something like this (http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=737179) be any good? 1.6 TB and Firewire 800.

[JackAxe]

LaCie has always been on my good list, I'm just not sure what HDs they use. I asked my friend's down at the porn shop,( I do not work for them. :D ) and they stated it just said LaCie for the HD make. I'm hoping they'll open one up to double check.

That's very nice though, its just more then I want to spend at the moment, but if it means guarranteed reliability then I will. But that's the price of a Cintiq 21" which I'm drooling over right now. :o

<]=)

[zackepceo]

On the subject of monitors, I just bought a CMV 19" LCD that looked like it had just so-so specs for $300. The actual performance of the monitor is vastly above the listed specifications. EXTREMELY good deal. I also, uh, bought parts to make a whole other computer. It's only a Athlon 64 939 3000+ with a GeForce 6600, 1GB dual channel 2-2-2-5 PC3200, 200GB Maxtor (yes, I took your advice and gave maxtor a second chance) SATA HD, BenQ Dual-Layer DVD+-RW, and a Gigabyte NForce 3 motherboard. It's formatting the hard drive as I type. :D

[JackAxe]

Hey, my PC is slower. :(

Does your LCD have DVI? And what be its refresh rate? Things I need to know. My CRT as mentioned several time is getting old.

Just make sure you have clean power and your drives should last more then the life of your mobo. :)

<]=)

[Gizmo]

It's only a Athlon 64 939 3000+ with a GeForce 6600, 1GB dual channel 2-2-2-5 PC3200, 200GB Maxtor (yes, I took your advice and gave maxtor a second chance) SATA HD, BenQ Dual-Layer DVD+-RW, and a Gigabyte NForce 3 motherboard. :D
It's only....???? :confused:

Sounds dam nice to me. :)

[Gizmo]

Hey, my PC is slower. :(
<]=)
So is your wit! :p

(I don't know why I just did that)

[zackepceo]

Yes, it's DVI of course. You can switch input from VGA to DVI on-the-fly in the monitor's OSD. The specs say the refresh rate is only 21ms, but it seems to me more like 16.

[JackAxe]

So is your wit! :p

(I don't know why I just did that)

:( I'm going to cry. :p Because you're a pirate monkey and they are all evil. :eek:

<]=)

[JackAxe]

Yes, it's DVI of course. You can switch input from VGA to DVI on-the-fly in the monitor's OSD. The specs say the refresh rate is only 21ms, but it seems to me more like 16.

What's the warranty? 21 ms is good it's at least 40 FPS if not more.

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

It's only....???? :confused:

Sounds dam nice to me. :)

I said "only" for mine too. :)

[zackepceo]

3 years warrenty.

[Gizmo]

I said "only" for mine too. :)
I really only have 2.1 I was exaggerating a bit.... 15x300gig with 1 hot swap spare, so 14 x 300 at RAID 1+0
Only 2.1 TB...???

Sounds dam nice to me. ;)

[SamuraiCatJB]

Only 2.1 TB...???

Sounds dam nice to me. ;)

ONLY at work. :) at home I am... well... still hovering around half a terabyte. :)

[zackepceo]

All of my HDs combined that I've ever owned go to about half a terabyte..

[SamuraiCatJB]

all mine I ever owned are over 1 terabyte. :)
3 usb drives: 300gig, 120gig, 120gig.
4 internal drives: 36gig (linux), 74gig (windows), 200gig, 200gig

Disks given away: multiples of 20gig through 80gig

[zackepceo]

How about the smallest HD you ever owned? Mine would be an 80mb SCSI dealie.

[JackAxe]

I have in my office;

G5: 3 250g

G4 Desktop: 3 80g, 1 60g

G4 PB: 1 60g

iPod: 15g

My PC: 1 100g and a 20g. (Not going to count the borrowed MP and P4.)

I gave a way an IBM 60g(Which died destoying my friend's files.. :o ) and there are 2 dead 9g drives in my closet, but I won't count them.

So I have 1.245 TB of working space right now. :)

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

How about the smallest HD you ever owned? Mine would be an 80mb SCSI dealie.

30mb RLL drive (i.e. the first RLL which brought MFM from 20meg to 30mb). :)