esrootes

Thank you a lot. That's everything I could ask for. Could you explain a little bit on why RAID 1 ? I thought mirroring was only required for data security. But in this case, since there is no write to the server involved, I don't understand why RAID 1.

Thanks a lot. The network part looks promising so I'm not worried about that. It was only the server configuration that worried me. I'll probably get back to you with questions after I look into what you've suggested and done a little bit more of reading up. Thanks again.

Just curious, how much of a problem would it be ? Mostly static elements with a few dynamically loaded images ? Assuming there's plenty of cache.

I'll definitely check it out. Thanks. So a few SSDs are a lot better than several SAS disks. Should I use RAID for the SSDs at all ? Also thanks a lot. You single-handedly gave me more insights than all my teachers.

Yeah, to be more specific, I wanna create a portal kind of thing so that the videos (and all the other information) can be accessed from the browser itself. Maybe use Django or something similar to create a web application to handle it. Idk, I'm still researching the options.

Thanks. 500 people simultaneously is the worst case (I'm assuming video streaming is the most intensive task that the server will have to perform). Apart from that, there will be music files and documents that shall be available. What do you recommend? I was under this impression that multiple small disks are better than larger ones and that's the reason why I thought of using 16 disks. I guess I couldn't be more wrong. And RAID 0 (or 00) because there's no writing to the server - only reading for it. Thanks anyways. I'll look into the costs. I prefer using new ones, but in case used one are reliable, I'll consider that.

Thank Tedster. Reliability is not a concern as of now. I mean, it's alright if the server goes down for a while till I get it back up again by swapping the failed disk and rebuilding the data from my backup. (As there is no new data being generated or written to the server that I'll lose in case of a failure). I mean to say that I'm not concerned about 100% uptime. The bitrate would be anywhere from 500 to 1000 kbps. The server will contain other documents, non-high quality music files etc. It's a general infotainment system.

I am trying to build this customized infotainment server from scratch. I need only 2TB total data storage capability. I'm kinda on a budget (about $4500). The server will have data written to it initially and is expected to serve 500 people all trying to stream 480p movies at the worst case. (assuming using Gigabit Ethernet). So far I have researched a lot on the server configurations and figured that I'll use 16x128GB SAS HDDs (15K rpms) in RAID 0 (as I'm not currently concerned about reliability or up time). I'm kinda a n00b when it comes to server management (and no, I don't want to involve professionals. I wanna do it myself). I'm kinda confused regarding the data rates that'll be required for the above requirement to serve so many people. Will setting up a mirror for access help improve the performance ? I'm also confused about the processing capabilities that this server will require. Like will I really need Xeon processors for this (considering the fact all videos are pre-processed and just needs to be served) or will I be able to get away with an ordinary dual core or quad core ? Please advice me in this regards. I'm willing to learn whatever it takes. I'm comfortable with networking but a beginner in storage systems.