NVR storage question

[kelvinhall05]

Hi guys. Working on an NVR based around an Asrock P67 Extreme4 and i5-2400s. Going to be running a 120GB boot SSD and 4x 6TB mechanical drives (likely RAID 1 but maybe there is a better option?), however, I stupidly forgot that this mobo is plagued with the P67 Sata 2 bug that, if the ports are still working at all, makes me uncomfortable using them for any of the drives. There are four Sata 3 ports, however, I have five drives (4x HDD, 1x SSD).

 

Would the best approach here be to get a PCIe hardware RAID card, run all four of the hard drives on that, and then plug the SSD into the motherboard's Sata ports? If so, anyone have any suggestions for one under 50 CAD, preferably on Amazon.ca? Or is there an alternative option? Also, not sure if it matters, but the machine will be running Ubuntu Server and the last verison of Unifi Video. Thanks!

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, kelvinhall05 said:

4x 6TB mechanical drives (likely RAID 1 but maybe there is a better option?)

raid 1 with 4 drives makes no sense and doesn't really work. Id go either raid 5 or 10 here.

 

How much space do you need?

 

Id probalby just use 3 hdds instead of 4 and run them in a raid 5.

 

Or use use one sata port, and get the card if needed.

 

Since your using linux, id use software raid, so no reason to get a raid card, just use mdadm or zfs here.

[kelvinhall05]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

raid 1 with 4 drives makes no sense and doesn't really work. Id go either raid 5 or 10 here.

 

Good to know.

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much space do you need?

 

Not all 24TB, I'd hope. Only four cameras.

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id probalby just use 3 hdds instead of 4 and run them in a raid 5.

 

That's what I was thinking as my (only) alternative to the PCIe card.

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Since your using linux, id use software raid, so no reason to get a raid card, just use mdadm or zfs here.

Good to know. Part of my reason for choosing a hardware RAID card is that I could have enough Sata ports for all four HDDs and the SSD, and I guess hardware RAID has its advantages? Don't know too much about RAID lol

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, kelvinhall05 said:

Not all 24TB, I'd hope. Only four cameras.

Do you need that much space, 12tb should be plenty for 4 cams. How long do you need to keep footage?

 

1 minute ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Good to know. Part of my reason for choosing a hardware RAID card is that I could have enough Sata ports for all four HDDs and the SSD, and I guess hardware RAID has its advantages? Don't know too much about RAID lol

linux does software raid well, and a good harware raid card isn't cheap, so that seems to be the best solution here.

[kelvinhall05]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How long do you need to keep footage?

Not sure, haven't thought about it yet. Most of my reasoning for getting four drives was how cheap they were, lol

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

and a good harware raid card isn't cheap

Out of curiosity, what makes a RAID card good? Reliability? Performance? Both? Something else?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, kelvinhall05 said:

Not sure, haven't thought about it yet. Most of my reasoning for getting four drives was how cheap they were, lol

Out of curiosity, what makes a RAID card good? Reliability? Performance? Both? Something else?

The super cheap raid card aren't great, as the use the main cpu for all the work and don't have cache onboard. The nice ones from broadcom and simmilar have a cache to speed up raid, and a pretty powerful processor.

[kelvinhall05]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

The super cheap raid card aren't great, as the use the main cpu for all the work and don't have cache onboard. The nice ones from broadcom and simmilar have a cache to speed up raid, and a pretty powerful processor.

Interesting, thanks.