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Hard Drives for Home Servers

If only he would post it in the 10TB topic :(

I already changed the criteria to allow Linus Media Group servers :P

Could maybe mention the topic to him and ask if he would like to post?

I mentioned it to him a few days ago - he's getting around to it. :)

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I mentioned it to him a few days ago - he's getting around to it. :)

AWESOME, to bad I can't like your comment 5 times, because if I could I would!

o0, wait, I can give you a present:

schnitzel.jpg

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I feel sorry for going of-topic now, I personally use barracudas in my server, so far they are very nice and cheaper then the WD counterparts. (in the Netherlands at least)

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well I was set on 5x Seagate 2TB drives until I read this thread and about nas drives.

9900K  / Noctua NH-D15S / Z390 Aorus Master / 32GB DDR4 Vengeance Pro 3200Mhz / eVGA 2080 Ti Black Ed / Morpheus II Core / Meshify C / LG 27UK650-W / PS4 Pro / XBox One X

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well I was set on 5x Seagate 2TB drives until I read this thread and about nas drives.

Good call. While realistically the chances of a RAID array rebuild failing and causing data loss with a non TLER/ERC drive are very slim, it's not really a chance that I think is worth taking...

Workstation: 3930k @ 4.3GHz under an H100 - 4x8GB ram - infiniband HCA  - xonar essence stx - gtx 680 - sabretooth x79 - corsair C70 Server: i7 3770k (don't ask) - lsi-9260-4i used as an HBA - 6x3TB WD red (raidz2) - crucia m4's (60gb (ZIL, L2ARC), 120gb (OS)) - 4X8GB ram - infiniband HCA - define mini  Goodies: Røde podcaster w/ boom & shock mount - 3x1080p ips panels (NEC monitors for life) - k90 - g9x - sp2500's - HD598's - kvm switch

ZFS tutorial

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If you didn't have raid and you had something saved on a drive that was in between backups, that file would be lost. For example say you back up every night, and say that one day you write a 10 page paper for school and then the drive that has that paper on it fails before that nights backup. There goes a whole day of work. With raid that wouldn't happen.

 

And you could use an external drive to backup, but that becomes very inefficient very quickly as your array gets bigger. I have a 12TB array that's a little over 1/3 full. I don't do backups because external drives aren't big enough. External drives are just kind of a messy solution to me but that's just my opinion

 

The only other thing holding me back from setting up raid, is that idk how to set it up. Plus idk anyone who does know how. Also, if I don't use raid, then how would TLER and ERC tech in the WD Reds help me out? And why shouldn't I just go with Seagates barracudas instead of the TLER and ERC, due to possibly them both not helping me here.

I7-6700k, Asus Maximus VIII Formula, 2 x 8GB Corsair Dominator Plantinum ram, ASUS GTX 960 STRIX, sound blaster zx, 1TB boot drive ssd, 128GB/256GB storage ssd, 1TB storage HDD, 4TB of storage (backup),Windows 10 Pro,1000w psu

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The only other thing holding me back from setting up raid, is that idk how to set it up. Plus idk anyone who does know how. Also, if I don't use raid, then how would TLER and ERC tech in the WD Reds help me out? And why shouldn't I just go with Seagates barracudas instead of the TLER and ERC, due to possibly them both not helping me here.

RAID is plenty easy to set up and there are a dozen ways of doing it. I just set up a ZFS server about three weeks ago, and before that I did't even know how to use the command line, much less linux. Point is I learned something because I knew it was the best option for what I was doing, and you can too. There are so many forum resources here and around the web to help you, just ask.

Workstation: 3930k @ 4.3GHz under an H100 - 4x8GB ram - infiniband HCA  - xonar essence stx - gtx 680 - sabretooth x79 - corsair C70 Server: i7 3770k (don't ask) - lsi-9260-4i used as an HBA - 6x3TB WD red (raidz2) - crucia m4's (60gb (ZIL, L2ARC), 120gb (OS)) - 4X8GB ram - infiniband HCA - define mini  Goodies: Røde podcaster w/ boom & shock mount - 3x1080p ips panels (NEC monitors for life) - k90 - g9x - sp2500's - HD598's - kvm switch

ZFS tutorial

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Having gone through the thread, there's something that I either missed or that really

hasn't been mentioned yet:

RAID != BACKUP

Ideally, you would have a multi-tiered fail-safe structure for your data:

  • Have a RAID (either hardware or software) in your server. That will offer some

    resistance against data loss (either through RAID1, RAID5 etc.), but in and of

    itself is not a viable and secure backup strategy. If something kills your

    computer, your data will still be lost. Frequent causes are power surges (against

    which you can also protect yourself to some degree), but it's also

    entirely possible that the disk controller to which your HDDs are connected goes

    bust and fries all the disks connected to it (that did actually happen

    to me once).

  • Therefore, it is vital to have another backup. If you can afford it, that

    will be another PC with which you syncronize your main server as often as makes

    sense. How often that is depends on how much data is added/changed on the server

    in what timeframe. If you only change and add little data you may easily get

    by with weekly backups. If you change and add a lot of data, you may want to

    do daily backups or even more frequent.

  • If you can't (or don't want to) affort a second PC, then you should at least

    have an offline backup for your most important data. The most simple solution

    to this is to have an external HDD which you hook up to your machine and sync

    with it.

  • How large your backup storage should be only you can decide. Ideally, you

    would backup everything, but that will be expensive, and in the case of the

    external HDD, slow, depending on how much data you have. So you need to assess

    which of your data is how important and then decide individually.

  • There's also other stuff you could do: Have the external disk stored in

    another location (apartment, house) than your server, so that you still have

    your data in case of a fire/flooding etc. I know a guy who daily syncs his

    main machine from here in Switzerland to a backup sever in Thailand (if you

    know a guy... :D ). There's also stuff like magnetic tapes or optical backups,

    but that's really going to cost you.

  • To sum it up: A comprehensive backup strategy is multi-tiered and not

    just simply reliant on RAID. It makes more sense to buy cheap disks for your

    primary storage and then have a decent amount of backup storage space than

    to buy very expensive primary disks and be unable to afford enough backup

    space. Two tiers of cheap HDDs will (in most consumer scenarios) be more

    reliable and dependable than one tier of enterprise HDDs.

EDIT:

Just to clarify: I would absolutely recommend having RAID in your server, just

don't rely on it as your only source of safety against data loss. RAID protects

very well against the occasional disk failure, but if something goes wrong

which affects your entire server the chance of many of your disks failing at

the same time rise very significantly. And against that, RAID is not a very

reliable protection.

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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RAID != BACKUP

Very nice post, I'll definitely post a link to this in the FlexRAID topic!

Edit: Last part of this post: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/33510-how-to-install-and-setup-flexraid-on-your-windows-storage-system/?p=429011

PS: Maybe make a separate topic with the same content, its very important info and it should be easy to find and link to IMO

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Very nice post, I'll definitely post a link to this in the FlexRAID topic!

Thanks! :)

I just think it's important to get people to realize RAID is not some sort of magic

which will protect you against data loss, but merely one element in a chain of

measures designed to help you keep your data safe. I can't recall how many times

I've seen articles (even by "professional" IT magazines) whose bottom line was

basically that RAID will keep you safe all by itself, which is simply a horrible

misconception.

It is very useful but as with any technology you need to deploy it with its specific

use case in mind. It was designed to provide some security against occasional disk

failures (and it's extremely good at that), not complete protection against large scale

catastrophes.

Yes, with multi-disk parity (e.g. RAID6, triple-parity RAID-Z) you can survive multiple

disk failures at once, but if 60% of your disks go kaputt (not completely unrealistic

in a home server build; power failures, power surges, defective PSU, defective controller

etc.) you're pretty much screwed if you don't have some other form of backup.

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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This has all been great info. I cannot afford a second server to back up the server I am building...lol. But what I will do is buy an external drive to back up - back ups of my important stuff.

9900K  / Noctua NH-D15S / Z390 Aorus Master / 32GB DDR4 Vengeance Pro 3200Mhz / eVGA 2080 Ti Black Ed / Morpheus II Core / Meshify C / LG 27UK650-W / PS4 Pro / XBox One X

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This has all been great info. I cannot afford a second server to back up the server I am building...lol. But what I will do is buy an external drive to back up - back ups of my important stuff.

No worries, I can't afford a second server either. Most of the data on my server is

not backed up at all (I do use RAIDZ1 though, just to add a little bit of protection),

I just keep inventory so I can re-download as much of it as I can if I loose it (it's

mostly movies and TV shows).

Once HELIOS is up and running I will have three copies of my important data though.

One on my server, one on HELIOS and one on an external drive.

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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Er, so you're going to make a home server without any kind of redundancy or backup? That's gonna cause some problems in the future... you should really thing about some form of raid. Go look at the FlexRAID guide that @looney made, that would be the easiest option: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/33510-how-to-install-and-setup-flexraid-on-your-windows-storage-system/

 

Alternatively you could use ZFS, chipset raid, or hardware raid. (Of these I would recommend ZFS/raidz)

 

That all being said, yes, the seagate NAS drives are perfect for your application. They may actually run at a higher RPM than Reds but I'm not sure.

 

Which Seagate drive would you recommend? (needs to be either 1 or 2tb) and (again) be reliable for 24/7 operation.

I7-6700k, Asus Maximus VIII Formula, 2 x 8GB Corsair Dominator Plantinum ram, ASUS GTX 960 STRIX, sound blaster zx, 1TB boot drive ssd, 128GB/256GB storage ssd, 1TB storage HDD, 4TB of storage (backup),Windows 10 Pro,1000w psu

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This has all been great info. I cannot afford a second server to back up the server I am building...lol. But what I will do is buy an external drive to back up - back ups of my important stuff.

Its just a general warning that RAID is not the same as a backup, like @alpenwasser said, a lot of people praise RAID as this unbreakable never failing wonder, and that's just wrong.

 

I personally have a backup on the cloud and I use external drives for the important stuff.

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>> Feel free to join the unofficial LTT teamspeak 3 server TS3.schnitzel.team <<

>>LTT 10TB+ Topic<< | >>FlexRAID Tutorial<<>>LTT Speed wave<< | >>LTT Communies and Servers<<

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