Someone to help me build Storage Server

[takagari]

I'm wanting to build a storage server from a Norco 4224 4U server case.

These can hold 24 Sata hard drive's.
I would run a small SSD for the OS drive on the inside.

Considering running this in a cloned raid setup. Raid 1 I believe? But want something I can expand on the fly, I.E. drop two more 4TB hard drive's in and it expands.

Sadly I need help with the most economical way to do this, HW raid would be best, know of a card that will do this on 24 cards?

Would be willing to give someone a $20 donation or such to help me out with this, I'm sure many of you can just make a prt's list up on the fly.

Preferably newegg.ca, ncix.com, tigerdirect.com for part's as I am Canadian.


Expansion is key Thank You

[infinitybo]

My suggestion : newegg.ca but out of stock or available here in Canada.

You are welcome Takagari

[Bitsky]

Hook up all your drives and use an OS with ZFS support, like FreeNAS. Depending on how important your data is, use a Z3 instead of a Z2 raid. ZFS likes RAM, so stick in 8GB or more.

[Rannasha]

With so many drives the chance of bitrot is very high. I would definitely use a ZFS-based setup.

[takagari]

My suggestion : newegg.ca but out of stock or available here in Canada.

You are welcome Takagari

Thanks for that. Hmmm. Will that just jbod? And use the file system and does a card like that allow hot expansion?

[infinitybo]

Depending on your RAID setup so as you asked something like RAID 1 therefore it does or JBOD for maximum configuration, and yes you can hot swap.

[nachius]

Another +1 for FreeNAS here!

[takagari]

Hot swap yes, but I'm more concerned about expandability?

Right now I need about 20TB of storage, but am aware this will expand rapidly. So I'd like the ability to slap in new HDD's, something like Raid 5 is fine. Just need to know I won't dump the whole server over 1 drive.

Eventually I'll have a second identical box in an out building via LAN to ghost the main.

[infinitybo]

Everything is going to be alright with your existing Raid 5 so don't worry, you can ghost the main without any problem.

[crankmonkey]

you might wanna check out several reddits
http://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/
or
http://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/
or even more specifically this post here
http://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1tfepd/52tb_raw_64tb_of_hard_disks_file_server_build/

good luck, i just wish the wife would let me build one myself

[takagari]

I'll look that over thanks

Trick with the wife.. She like's movie's, a majority of this server host's HD movies accessible from any TV in the house. I actually have a  "Wife" folder... All shit she like's and I avoid lol

The rest if mine lol

[Bitsky]

Hot swap yes, but I'm more concerned about expandability?

After you have replaced all drives in a zfs pool, you can expand it to the new size.

or even more specifically this post here
http://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1tfepd/52tb_raw_64tb_of_hard_disks_file_server_build/

Windows? Seriously?

And just because it has not been mentioned yet: hardware raid does not guarantee data integrity by default.
Furthermore, your controller is a single point of failure. In case it goes down, there's a chance that it will take down all your data too.
You can't just stuff in another controller and expect everything to work again. Some suggest to keep an identical spare controller, even with the same firmware version.

[infinitybo]

Sure by default nothing is guarantee in life such a job, money, BTC and else anyways he wanted to be certain about his RAID 5 setup so about this, he can transfer data stuff using the Areca ARC-1880ix-24-4G controller without any data failures.  

[Atruk]

With so many drives the chance of bitrot is very high. I would definitely use a ZFS-based setup.

This, so much this.

I could not imagine handling multi-terabyte datastores without ZFS these past several years. Some types of RAID may have performance cases supporting them, but RAID is a fickle technology that requires a lot of attention to detail. If you just need to mainatin a big archive and protect it from corruption though ZFS is the way to go.

[infinitybo]

DDR3 for areca ARC-1882ix-24-4G is available with latest version of firmware 1.52 2013/12/11 1.52 2013/8/29 for the ARC-1880 series by the way @Takagiri here what you wanted on newegg.ca.

[Bitsky]

Sure by default nothing is guarantee in life such a job, money, BTC and else anyways he wanted to be certain about his RAID 5 setup so about this, he can transfer data stuff using the Areca ARC-1880ix-24-4G controller without any data failures.  

I hope you're not serious. A raid5 array with 24 drives? You're just asking for data loss.

[takagari]

Sure by default nothing is guarantee in life such a job, money, BTC and else anyways he wanted to be certain about his RAID 5 setup so about this, he can transfer data stuff using the Areca ARC-1880ix-24-4G controller without any data failures.  

I hope you're not serious. A raid5 array with 24 drives? You're just asking for data loss.

Zfs for sure. But should Ingo with a single card. Like mentioned above. If I ever want more than 24 I could just add another card.

Or should I got with 3 8 porters to spread risk?

[Bitsky]

Zfs for sure. But should Ingo with a single card. Like mentioned above. If I ever want more than 24 I could just add another card.

Or should I got with 3 8 porters to spread risk?

3x 8 ports should be cheaper than 1x 24 ports. I'd buy a spare controller and disk too.
Maybe port multipliers would be worth a try, but they split up the bandwidth of the port.