RFI: specifics REQ'd for RAID 6 media svr

[Kool3reeze]

now that time is marching forward as is the availability of both storage media and use, I am working up what is necessary to build a RAID 6 system... problem is my ignorance in the area of the necessary hardware and software.

for instance:

I know I want a RAID 6 Media Server. now what? do I, should I, spring for an Adaptec Raid 6 card? I would prefer not to as in my IT career of past I have actually had an Adaptec (two actually) card (scsi) fail on me. (one catching fire) and quite frankly I am not overly confident to put all my eggs in one basket in that regards prefering instead to have a software RAID 6 implementation. ok so if possible... now what? I've looked around the internet and there's a lot of talk but little in regards (at least what I've found so far) in actual specifics regarding a home RAID 6 system build.

OS-

hardware- ( is there a motherboard that can have a single hard drive for boot and then another 6 or so in a raid 6 array? or do I need an internal SATA hard drive card with 6 SATA slots. if so, what card and/or chipset should I look for.)

other considerations-

any input on this system build would be greatly appreciated and I expect since there seems to be a bit of actual information regarding the implementation of RAID 6, which is where many will probably need to head, this should benefit MANY people in the future.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

media or any other storage - the design would be almost same
To get best information on the subject your best bet would here:
Data Storage Systems - [H]ard|Forum

p.s: I'm personally would forget raid system and checkout zfs

NexentaStor Project

 

[Kool3reeze]

oh there we go... feel much better now.

whatever happened to "google knows all"? seems lacking in truly pertinent results nowadays. :/ could you link your brain up to google for a bit so I can better research some more quests of mine?

good deal on those links, tks! I'm guessing I will find the answers I am looking for in there somewhere. albeit I will have to dust off my thinking cap... meh, I can use the excercise, my IT allocated gray matter has become a bit soft and I'm really not that kinda guy. (to be so soft

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

oh there we go... feel much better now.

whatever happened to "google knows all"? seems lacking in truly pertinent results nowadays. :/ could you link your brain up to google for a bit so I can better research some more quests of mine?

good deal on those links, tks! I'm guessing I will find the answers I am looking for in there somewhere. albeit I will have to dust off my thinking cap... meh, I can use the excercise, my IT allocated gray matter has become a bit soft and I'm really not that kinda guy. (to be so soft

I appetiate the sarcasm as the next guy , but to give you perspective:
we have about 3-4 people who build somewhat resembling what you are looking for, but folks on HardForums Storage built hundreds and have the knowledge and experience not attainable here, except few nerds like me
I used to be active there, but it's getting frequently too technical even for me

Building a flexible storage system is not cooking eggs. There are many design and technical aspects you need to be aware of and are outside of scope of few forums posts.


p.s: If you really want - I could give you the old Let me google that for you

 

[Kool3reeze]

lol, who's being sarcastic?



I wish those links had popped up when I was googling, I probably wouldn't have originated this thread. I suspect I can digest enough info within there to figure something out... if not, as you pointed out, I expect there's more traffic along the lines I am looking for that I should probably post there asking the question. (if I cant figure it out readily enough)

I also have noticed you have a thread on nfs here with links... the thread mightve taken a turn but the links look viable. so perhaps instead of building a raid 6 box I should alternatively build a zfs box? hey, whatever serves the purpose! (two boxes actually... one in the a/v rack/closet and one as backup in another building on the property performing backup duty)

I'm in the research stage now... so I can get all my ducks in a row so when it's time to execute I will not waste efforts. that means determining what operating system, software and hardware I need for these boxes. seems there are a few articles on similar subjects a few years ago.. but really if there's nothing out there by the time I roll on the project I might have to write one up. what would be a bummer is to find out there is a simpler more effective means to meet the basic requirements after I bother doing all this...

 

[Lordhumungus]

In my opinion, hardware RAID6 is still far too expensive and "enterprise" class for home use. While it does have the benefit of being incredibly fast, it also requires very specific hardware to run, which again, is not cheap.

I highly, highly recommend looking into something like FlexRaid for home use.

Benefits of FlexRaid over hardware RAID6:
-Hardware and OS agnostic
-Free
-Potential for as many redundant drives as you want
-If the redundancy drives die, the remaining data can still be obtained off the functional drives
-Drives can be mixed and matched as you please (in terms of capacity, speed, brand etc)

Benefits of RAID6 over FlexRaid:
-Much faster (drive speed is aggregated instead of individualized)
-Real-time RAID (FlexRaid has implemented real-time RAID as well, but I'm not sure it's ready for prime-time yet). That said, I don't consider this a negative unless you are constantly changing stuff on the server.

I personally use FlexRaid and love it. It does everything I need and has much more flexibility than hardware RAID in addition to being significantly cheaper. As a comparison, my brother-in-law has a media server that is roughly equivalent to mine, except using hardware RAID6 and it cost him somewhere in the neighborhood of $5k, compared to the less than ~$1.5k of the server listed in my sig.