Expandable Raid Storage Enclosure

[Ragsan]

Hey guys and girls,

I've heard that there is an option for raids where you can add more drives without having to reformat the whole array. Is this something hardware related or is this software related?

 

What do I need to look for? 

 

I want to get a Raid (Just big storage, no NAS connectivity) which would have an option to expand the storage in the coming years without having to reformat the whole raid.

 

@Edit: maybe I should've listed more specifically what I'm looking for:

500mb/s (read/write)

20-30TB

1-2 Drive redundancy 

Option to add more drives later (if possible)

Secure
Safe

Secure

Maybe nothing where you need an degree in server IT  

 

[Blue4130]

4 minutes ago, Ragsan said:

Hey guys and girls,

I've heard that there is an option for raids where you can add more drives without having to reformat the whole array. Is this something hardware related or is this software related?

 

What do I need to look for? 

 

I want to get a Raid (Just big storage, no NAS connectivity) which would have an option to expand the storage in the coming years without having to reformat the whole raid.

 

 

No nas connectivity? Do you want this in a stand alone box or will it be inside your PC? Software wise, snap raid or unraid will allow this. Unraid is it's own OS, snapraid layers itself on top of an existing OS such as Windows or Linux.

[ToboRobot]

13 minutes ago, Ragsan said:

Hey guys and girls,

I've heard that there is an option for raids where you can add more drives without having to reformat the whole array. Is this something hardware related or is this software related?

 

What do I need to look for? 

 

I want to get a Raid (Just big storage, no NAS connectivity) which would have an option to expand the storage in the coming years without having to reformat the whole raid.

 

 

Software, such as unraid.

The hardware is just a matter of having enough IO ports for your drives, but that's solvable with add in cards.

[gen_angry]

It depends on the type of file system that you pick. You can do some type of JBOD (usually windows storage spaces which has support for adding new drives), ZFS (recently added support for adding additional drives but no idea how well it works), or something like snapraid + mergerfs which by design allows for easy addition.

 

For what you want to do (simple local disk storage), you can just use Windows Storage Spaces.

 

That said, if you want to share your media across multiple devices, your best bet is to buy/build a dedicated NAS. It doesn't have to be expensive and difficult.

[Inception9269]

53 minutes ago, Ragsan said:

Hey guys and girls,

I've heard that there is an option for raids where you can add more drives without having to reformat the whole array. Is this something hardware related or is this software related?

 

What do I need to look for? 

 

I want to get a Raid (Just big storage, no NAS connectivity) which would have an option to expand the storage in the coming years without having to reformat the whole raid.

 

 

If you're wanting to set up "big storage" you might as well just go all the way and put together a NAS. It's quite as simple as taking any old pc, throwing in some drives, and installing unraid. Unraid is the only one that I've used, but I love how well it works. You can set it up with just one drive or multiple, and add more to the array, without having to reformat the whole array. Unraid also supports using different capacity drives (Something like TrueNAS requires all drives to be the same capacity), the only catch though is if you were to set up a parity drive in unraid, your parity drive needs to be the largest capacity drive in the system.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 hour ago, Inception9269 said:

If you're wanting to set up "big storage" you might as well just go all the way and put together a NAS. It's quite as simple as taking any old pc, throwing in some drives, and installing unraid.

OP did specifically state they did not need NAS capability.

 

That said, after the RAID array is set up and connected to a PC, it wouldn't be hard to make it accessible on the network from there if desired.

[Blue4130]

https://chrisbergeron.com/2020/03/07/diy_das_part1/

 

I'd make something like this. Cheaper than a nas if you only need access from one machine.

[Ragsan]

6 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

OP did specifically state they did not need NAS capability.

correct  I basically just need a HUUUGE Harddrive that is a bit faster than an normal Harddrive (500mb/s and 20-30TB usable storage) 

I was thinking about going with the OWC ThunderBay 4, I already have a few OWC Products and so far they've been solid. I would put some high capacity WD Red's inside. But then I dont know IF or HOW I can format those drives so I can maybe add more drives later. 

I've seen Unraid in LTT Videos (obviously)  but that always looked more like an OS you need to run on full scale server systems. Nothing that you could install on those "Toy Raid Enclosures" am I right? 

 

[ToboRobot]

2 hours ago, Ragsan said:

correct  I basically just need a HUUUGE Harddrive that is a bit faster than an normal Harddrive (500mb/s and 20-30TB usable storage) 

I was thinking about going with the OWC ThunderBay 4, I already have a few OWC Products and so far they've been solid. I would put some high capacity WD Red's inside. But then I dont know IF or HOW I can format those drives so I can maybe add more drives later. 

I've seen Unraid in LTT Videos (obviously)  but that always looked more like an OS you need to run on full scale server systems. Nothing that you could install on those "Toy Raid Enclosures" am I right? 

 

unraid is just a linux distro, you can install it on a "full scale server" or just some computer you are loading up with drives.

But maybe just a Synology NAS would be best for simplicity without a learning curve or lots of time for setup and administration.

[Blue4130]

2 hours ago, Ragsan said:

correct  I basically just need a HUUUGE Harddrive that is a bit faster than an normal Harddrive (500mb/s and 20-30TB usable storage) 

I was thinking about going with the OWC ThunderBay 4, I already have a few OWC Products and so far they've been solid. I would put some high capacity WD Red's inside. But then I dont know IF or HOW I can format those drives so I can maybe add more drives later. 

I've seen Unraid in LTT Videos (obviously)  but that always looked more like an OS you need to run on full scale server systems. Nothing that you could install on those "Toy Raid Enclosures" am I right? 

 

Look into snap raid. It is basically unraid minus the Vm stuff. You can add drives to the "pool" after the fact. It layers on top of windows so you don't need to disrupt your setup. That takes care of the software side, then for hardware, build a disk shelf like I linked to. The only limit is how big you want the box (theoretically, you are limited to something like 1024 drives on the HBA)