[pjchappy]

Anyone build any large storage for the home?  Whether it be simply for backup, a home server, or whatever.

I am in the planning stages of building a bit of a modular home server.  I say modular, as I plan on having all the storage in one unit (not a rackmount) and the server in another (a small case, with just an optical drive, MB, controllers and 1 hard drive for the OS, Windows Home Server). 

Case/Enclosure

I have extensively searched for a basic external enclosure for hard drive use.  I do not want to use a typical mini CPU tower, as it is not compact enough.   I found plenty of ready-made systems, such as this somewhat reasonably priced one from PC-PitStop, to this slick, pricey one from iStoreagePro.  I know I could build one cheaper.  However, up until a few days ago, I couldn't find a single suitable case.  I finally came across this the other day: Addonics (would get the bare-bones Tower IX and likely replace the PS).   Also, please let me know of any other similar case solutions you are aware of (again, compact, non-rack mountable).  I have a feeling whatever case I end up with, I will probably be swapping out the fans for quieter ones.

Does anyone know of any other cases similar to the Addonics case (the Tower IX)? I want more options!

For anyone interested, I plan on connecting the case via an SAS controller and have an SAS expander in the HD case.  The Addonics case would allow me to have a total of 15 hard drives in three 5-in-3 hot-swappable bays.  That would allow for up to 45 TB of storage. (would start off with probably only 6 to 8 drives, however).

I also am having a hard time finding a case for the server.  The cases that come the closest to what I want/need are all mini-ITX cases; however, I will be using a micro-ATX board.  The case I want basically only has to have one 5.25" bay (could even be for a slimline optical drive) and one 3.5" bay. 

Here are a couple cases for the server that I am leaning towards. . .but they still are bigger than necessary:

Lian Li PC-V351B

Silverstone Grandia GD06B (which I may also use for a fairly soon to be built HTPC, once I upgrade my big multi-purpose PC).

Also, anyone have any access to or knowledge of discounted server equipment?

This build is probably about 3-months away, so no rush.

Thanks!


Paul

[Bizarroterl]

Check out the Antec 300, it may be in the league of what you're looking at.

I used to use a YeungYang cube chassis (now gathering dust).  I now have a custom box I built that holds two MBs, PSUs, switch, 10 HDDs, and a few SSDs.

One MB is for the server - ESXi running a Win 2008 DC, Win 2008 Exchange server, and a Win 7 VM I use for downloading, etc.  The other MB runs unraid w/18TB of storage.

All of this was built for minimum energy usage, low noise, and storage capacity for my ever growing video library.

[JDUBS]

Ever consider using unraid?

-Jim

[Bob in St. Louis]

SHAMELESS PLUG:

I have a buddy selling three NAS units, for $100 each.
If that piques your interest, I'll tell ya more.

If not, sorry I butted in PJ. 

Bob

[ctviggen]

Ever consider using unraid?

-Jim

That's what I was going to use.  I was going to start with 4 1.5 TB drives (I have 4 now; maybe I'll start with 5).  My problem is figuring out how to back these up.   I have one 3TB drive, so up to 3TB, I can back things up.  After that, it's more problematic.

[jtwrace]

Ever consider using unraid?

-Jim

Which brand & model?

[JDUBS]

That's what I was going to use.  I was going to start with 4 1.5 TB drives (I have 4 now; maybe I'll start with 5).  My problem is figuring out how to back these up.   I have one 3TB drive, so up to 3TB, I can back things up.  After that, it's more problematic.

I am a HUGE fan of unraid.  You'll need a clean parity and data disk to start and your parity must be at least as big as your largest data disk.  Once you have this, you can can move your data into the array one disk at a time.  I.e., you move over the contents of one disk then make that disk whose contents you moved, part of the array.  Then move to the next data disk....and so on, until all of your data is migrated and all of your data disks are now part of the array.

I take it your 4x 1.5tb drives are full?  If so, I'd probably use your (clean) 3tb drive as the parity, and then buy another drive that is at least 1.5tb (and up to 3.0tb) as your first data drive.  Then start moving your data, one disk at a time. 

Make sense?

-Jim

[JDUBS]

Which brand & model?

unraid is an os.

http://lime-technology.com/

-Jim

[jtwrace]

unraid is an os.

http://lime-technology.com/

-Jim

Looks impressive.  I don't think my 2TB of music would make sense to have on something that big though. 

[JDUBS]

Looks impressive.  I don't think my 2TB of music would make sense to have on something that big though.

Yeah, no, probably not.  1'd just do a one to one back-up in your case.

If you need something to handle multiple hdds, unraid is a good solution.

-Jim

[jtwrace]

Yeah, no, probably not.  1'd just do a one to one back-up in your case.

Yes, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.  I use SuperDuper! and it works really well.  I'm hoping that SSD's will come way down in price and then I can just use 1TB SSD's. 

If you need something to handle multiple hdds, unraid is a good solution.

-Jim

Looks really neat!   

[jtwrace]

If you need something to handle multiple hdds, unraid is a good solution.

-Jim

What do you think of ZFS compared to unraid?

[JDUBS]

What do you think of ZFS compared to unraid?

Isn't ZFS a file system type not an os?

-Jim

[Bizarroterl]

What do you think of ZFS compared to unraid?

ZFS is a good solution, though it isn't as efficient in drive space when you're expanding the array (at least that's how I understand it).

Where unraid really shines is in expandability.  Have a 2TB parity and 3 1TB drives?  Want to add a 2TB?  No problem.

Here's a approximate chronology of my unraid evolution.

Start with a 4TB array (2TB parity + 2 - 2TB data.).
Buy the Plus version and add another 2TB drive
Replace MB CPU with a lower power one.
upgrade to the latest release
Add another 2TB drive
Add 2 more 2TB drives, a controller for them, and buy the Pro version
Add a SSD cache drive
Upgrade to latest release.
Replace MB, add 3 more 2TB HDDs and a SSD drive.

All the changes went without a hitch.  Upgrades and version changes consist of copying a few files onto the boot PIN drive and rebooting.  Adding a drive can take a while, but using a script available on their forum reduces down time significantly.

Would I go with unraid again?  For a media system the answer is a unqualified yes!  For a server file system?  That's more complicated.  No, if I were using HDDs.  Under unraid they're slow for general OS use (plenty fast for media).  Using a SSD works really well for OS use where the data isn't written very often (IE spreadsheets).  That's why I have one in the array. 

[pjchappy]

My questions were basically only asking about cases/enclosures. . . 


Paul

[kimchee411]

I am using a Thermaltake LANBOX Lite for my server with a micro ATX mobo.  Depth and width are pretty much standard tower size but very short (like a NAS) and light.  I boot VMWare ESXi off a USB drive so no local disks.  All storage is in a Thermaltake Armor with 4x1.5T + 4x2T SATA RAID 5 for file server + 4x146GB SAS RAID 10 for VM datastore running OpenFiler iSCSI Target.  Gives me almost 10T usable space.  Think i'm good for a while. 

[NoOne]

My 2 cents.

I prefer OpenFiler.  I use it currently with a 3TB(6x1) array as an iSCSI target on a Win2K8R2 server.

IMO there is no technical reason to go with a SAS RAID controller specifically.  You an find 8/16 port SATA RAID cards that work with OpenFiler no problem.

With those 6 1TB drives in RAID10 and a decent cache I saturate the gigabit port. 

Even for virtualization, IOPS are more important than raw speed.  SATA in the long run wins the cost/space price war over SAS.  SAS IOPS are way higher than SATA but you can put in almost 4:1 SATA vs SAS giving you more IOPS for virtualization.

Why OpenFiler or some kind of SAN system is important is those drives will make a LOT of heat.  You generally end up with some higher end cooling that makes a lot of noise.  Much easier to put the host box someplace near you and stuff the SAN where you can't hear it.

My SAN is hot to the touch on the rails of the drives till I put some fans in front of the cages.

[kimchee411]

I have 4 2.5" SFF 10k SAS drives in one 5.25" drive bay with easily hot swappable caddies, that's one reason, and with 4 VMs IOPS do matter, like you said.