Server Build HDD Questions

[Poohy14]

So right now I have a server that I use for Plex. My current setup is a WD 4TB Green drive and a HGST 4TB NAS drive. Now I have $1000 to spend for more drives but I dont know what to buy. Was thinking about more HGST drives since I kinda like mine but was also looking at WD Red 4TB since these will be in a RAID 1 setup. Also I would like to know what kind of RAID card setup I should do, 2 RAID cards?? I have a 16 drive case from Rosewill so I can expand later on.
 

[Mr.Tech.Qc]

So right now I have a server that I use for Plex. My current setup is a WD 4TB Green drive and a HGST 4TB NAS drive. Now I have $1000 to spend for more drives but I dont know what to buy. Was thinking about more HGST drives since I kinda like mine but was also looking at WD Red 4TB since these will be in a RAID 1 setup. Also I would like to know what kind of RAID card setup I should do, 2 RAID cards?? I have a 16 drive case from Rosewill so I can expand later on.

 

go for WD NAS RED, in fact what ever choice you go for, make sure they are all the same, bad idea doing a raid array with different drives

[Mr.Tech.Qc]

So right now I have a server that I use for Plex. My current setup is a WD 4TB Green drive and a HGST 4TB NAS drive. Now I have $1000 to spend for more drives but I dont know what to buy. Was thinking about more HGST drives since I kinda like mine but was also looking at WD Red 4TB since these will be in a RAID 1 setup. Also I would like to know what kind of RAID card setup I should do, 2 RAID cards?? I have a 16 drive case from Rosewill so I can expand later on.

 

and no, 1 raid card should be enough for 16 drives ^^

[braneopbru]

So right now I have a server that I use for Plex. My current setup is a WD 4TB Green drive and a HGST 4TB NAS drive. Now I have $1000 to spend for more drives but I dont know what to buy. Was thinking about more HGST drives since I kinda like mine but was also looking at WD Red 4TB since these will be in a RAID 1 setup. Also I would like to know what kind of RAID card setup I should do, 2 RAID cards?? I have a 16 drive case from Rosewill so I can expand later on.

 

RAID 1 can only use two drives. General rule of thumb is that you can not add more drives to any RAID array after it has been created without a total loss of all data on the array. Raid cards with support for up to 8 drives can be had in the neighborhood of $100-$150 with some stealthy e-baying. For a single card that will do 16 drives, you'll be hard pressed to snag anything for less than $400-$500. That's used, off of ebay. Expect at least 4-5 times that price for new.

[braneopbru]

and no, 1 raid card should be enough for 16 drives ^^

What a silly thing to say. 

 

A 16 port card will be enough for 16 drives. Anything other than a 16 port card will NOT be enough for 16 drives. 

[scottyseng]

So right now I have a server that I use for Plex. My current setup is a WD 4TB Green drive and a HGST 4TB NAS drive. Now I have $1000 to spend for more drives but I dont know what to buy. Was thinking about more HGST drives since I kinda like mine but was also looking at WD Red 4TB since these will be in a RAID 1 setup. Also I would like to know what kind of RAID card setup I should do, 2 RAID cards?? I have a 16 drive case from Rosewill so I can expand later on.

 

 

How many drives are you planning on having in total (future included). If you are planning on filling up all 16 bays, you might look at getting Red Pros (They can handle 16 bay enclosures, where the Reds only can handle up to 8). The HGST NAS drives are pretty great from what I hear as well.

 

What model is the Rosewill case? Is it a rackmount server chassis? Depending on the backplane, you will need different connectors to hook up your RAID setup.

 

You only need one RAID card. A two port SAS card is more than enough, though keep in mind a RAID card is not cheap. They usually run $600-800 for a good raid card with the battery backup. Check out the LSI MegaRAID 9361-8i (You will need to buy the battery backup for it). It really depends on what backplane (If there is one) the Rosewill case has. If there's no backplane, you'll have to cough up more money for a SAS expander.

 

If you're going to do RAID1 with more than two drives, I would recommend RAID10 (Min of four drives). You can have a RAID 1 array with more than two drives...but at that point you might as well use RAID10. Also, keep in mind you cannot expand RAID0, 1, or 10 usually. So you need all drives upfront.

 

If this is a FreeNAS build though, you don't need a RAID card, but a HBA card.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there Poohy14,

 

I would also suggest going for a NAS/RAID-class drive as such drives behave better and work safer and more stable in NAS and RAID anvironments due to their extra features. From the WD line WD Red would be the drive to go to for setups with up to 8 drive slots. I would also recommend WD Red Pro for larger drive pools with up to 16 drives as they are designed to sustain heavier vibrations and more heat that is generated in denser pools: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=PW5Gm2

It really depends on how big of a storage pool you'd want to ahve in the long run.

 

Captain_WD.

[Mr.Tech.Qc]

What a silly thing to say. 

 

A 16 port card will be enough for 16 drives. Anything other than a 16 port card will NOT be enough for 16 drives. 

i forgot the name, but there is these cards with this large connector, that splits into 4 sata cables, what i merant to say is that, if he does not plan on upgrading, he does not need 2 cards:

 

 Also I would like to know what kind of RAID card setup I should do, 2 RAID cards?? I have a 16 drive case from Rosewill so I can expand later on.

 

[scottyseng]

i forgot the name, but there is these cards with this large connector, that splits into 4 sata cables, what i merant to say is that, if he does not plan on upgrading, he does not need 2 cards:

 

SAS is what you're referring to.

[Poohy14]

How many drives are you planning on having in total (future included). If you are planning on filling up all 16 bays, you might look at getting Red Pros (They can handle 16 bay enclosures, where the Reds only can handle up to 8). The HGST NAS drives are pretty great from what I hear as well.

 

What model is the Rosewill case? Is it a rackmount server chassis? Depending on the backplane, you will need different connectors to hook up your RAID setup.

 

You only need one RAID card. A two port SAS card is more than enough, though keep in mind a RAID card is not cheap. They usually run $600-800 for a good raid card with the battery backup. Check out the LSI MegaRAID 9361-8i (You will need to buy the battery backup for it). It really depends on what backplane (If there is one) the Rosewill case has. If there's no backplane, you'll have to cough up more money for a SAS expander.

 

If you're going to do RAID1 with more than two drives, I would recommend RAID10 (Min of four drives). You can have a RAID 1 array with more than two drives...but at that point you might as well use RAID10. Also, keep in mind you cannot expand RAID0, 1, or 10 usually. So you need all drives upfront.

 

If this is a FreeNAS build though, you don't need a RAID card, but a HBA card.

First off,  I have the Rosewill 4U Rackmount case. Second, when I was typing it was my bed time and had to wake up early in the morning for work but basically what I was thinking about doing is having 2 RAID setups. One RAID will be for storing my things on the drives which wil be setup for a RAID O array (8 Port RAID card for future Expansion) then buy another RAID card to have a backup of all of my data from the first RAID which will be setup in a RAID 0 array. This is a windows server since it is really only used for Plex and to back up some other data as well. The RAID cars I will be using are the LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i cards. My limit on Drives will be $1000 as I know RAID cards will be expensive as I had planned ($400-500)  for 2 RAID cards. I wanted to start this server with 6 drives, 3 drives for my Plex and another 3 drives for Backup. I hope this makes it a little more clear as to what I am doing with this Server build. Eventually I will have a 16 drive server maybe a year from now.

[scottyseng]

First off,  I have the Rosewill 4U Rackmount case. Second, when I was typing it was my bed time and had to wake up early in the morning for work but basically what I was thinking about doing is having 2 RAID setups. One RAID will be for storing my things on the drives which wil be setup for a RAID O array (8 Port RAID card for future Expansion) then buy another RAID card to have a backup of all of my data from the first RAID which will be setup in a RAID 0 array. This is a windows server since it is really only used for Plex and to back up some other data as well. The RAID cars I will be using are the LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i cards. My limit on Drives will be $1000 as I know RAID cards will be expensive as I had planned ($400-500)  for 2 RAID cards. I wanted to start this server with 6 drives, 3 drives for my Plex and another 3 drives for Backup. I hope this makes it a little more clear as to what I am doing with this Server build. Eventually I will have a 16 drive server maybe a year from now.

 

You could just run all of that on one LSI card with a SAS Expander (The Intel Intel RES2SV240NC for example, you feed two SAS from the LSI card and then you now have four SAS ports or a total of 16 SATA drives with SAS breakout cables). Your chassis doesn't have a backplane with a SAS expander on it, so you're stuck buying a SAS expander for future expansion. You probably won't ever hit the limit of a single card even with all of the hard drives in RAID0. I have a 9261-8i myself, but make sure you buy the CacheVault (The battery back up module) for it. Otherwise when the power goes out, you risk losing the data stored on the card's memory cache.

 

If you are buying new though, you might consider the LSI MegaRAID 9361-8i because it has SAS 12Gb/s vs SAS 6Gb/s on the LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i. Since this is just for hard drives though, SAS 6Gb/s should be fine.

 

I think you should either look at Red Pros (Since you seem to want 16 drives in the future...If you bought the Reds, you'd be stuck with a 8 bay limit in the future) or the HGST NAS drives. If you want overkill you can look at the WD RE enterprise drives. Keep in mind the higher RPM drives (HGST NAS, Red Pro, RE) run on the warm side.

 

But yeah, the upfront cost of drives sucks the most...I'm saving up for the 24 RE drives I need to fill up my own 24 bay SuperMicro chassis.

[Poohy14]

You could just run all of that on one LSI card with a SAS Expander (The Intel Intel RES2SV240NC for example, you feed two SAS from the LSI card and then you now have four SAS ports or a total of 16 SATA drives with SAS breakout cables). Your chassis doesn't have a backplane with a SAS expander on it, so you're stuck buying a SAS expander for future expansion. You probably won't ever hit the limit of a single card even with all of the hard drives in RAID0. I have a 9261-8i myself, but make sure you buy the CacheVault (The battery back up module) for it. Otherwise when the power goes out, you risk losing the data stored on the card's memory cache.

 

If you are buying new though, you might consider the LSI MegaRAID 9361-8i because it has SAS 12Gb/s vs SAS 6Gb/s on the LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i. Since this is just for hard drives though, SAS 6Gb/s should be fine.

 

I think you should either look at Red Pros (Since you seem to want 16 drives in the future...If you bought the Reds, you'd be stuck with a 8 bay limit in the future) or the HGST NAS drives. If you want overkill you can look at the WD RE enterprise drives. Keep in mind the higher RPM drives (HGST NAS, Red Pro, RE) run on the warm side.

 

But yeah, the upfront cost of drives sucks the most...I'm saving up for the 24 RE drives I need to fill up my own 24 bay SuperMicro chassis.

Ok so you're saying but the LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i then also buy a SAS expander card which is the Intel RES2SV240 24 port so I will have a lot of freaking ports to use if I ever do expand outside the 16 drive bay?? Just want to clarify that first. Also I forgot about WD RE drives, Not too much more expensive than the HGST drives and the RE should in theory be better hopefully since I do want something that will last awhile. I will mostly be doing constant reads from the drives. (Been using a WD Green in a Server case for 2 years now) Also you can check out my server specs in my signature that says "My computers and other things" so you can see what I might need to change in the future but my CPU does just fine but curious to see what it might do under this kind of RAID.

[scottyseng]

Ok so you're saying but the LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i then also buy a SAS expander card which is the Intel RES2SV240 24 port so I will have a lot of freaking ports to use if I ever do expand outside the 16 drive bay?? Just want to clarify that first. Also I forgot about WD RE drives, Not too much more expensive than the HGST drives and the RE should in theory be better hopefully since I do want something that will last awhile. I will mostly be doing constant reads from the drives. (Been using a WD Green in a Server case for 2 years now) Also you can check out my server specs in my signature that says "My computers and other things" so you can see what I might need to change in the future but my CPU does just fine but curious to see what it might do under this kind of RAID.

 

Yes, the 9261-8i card can drive 128 devices (With expanders and break out cables). If you want to go more overkill, there is a 36 port (Well lanes) version of that Intel Expander (Do keep in mind that two ports (8 lanes) will be used as input from the LSI card). You can even feed a SAS cable outside of the chassis into another chassis to expand out even more. These Enterprise RAID cards are very capable.

 

Just to clarify, when the expander says ports, it really means lanes. So a 24 port expander is really a six port SAS expander, with two being used for input and the other four are output (Max of sixteen drives). The 36 lane version is nine SAS ports with two for input and seven for output (Max of 28 drives). You can also chain SAS expanders as well, as long as you don't hit the drive limit of the LSI card.

 

Yeah, I have two RE drives, and man, they're fast but run hot. Though, usually the HGST NAS drive is way cheaper than the RE drive? I haven't looked at the HGST NAS drives in a while though.

 

Your server is pretty solid. I think the CPU is tad overkill though. You might consider getting used 10Gb/s NICs from ebay because the bottleneck of 1Gb/s Ethernet sucks quite a bit (I'm limited to 80MB/s most of the time..). A proper RAID cards such as the LSI puts no load on the CPU. All load is on the RAID card (I would heavily recommend blowing a fan directly on the RAID card...they run really hot). You're not really running a calculation intense RAID either, such as RAID 5, 6, 50, or 60. RAID 0,1, and 10 are the least hard to run.

 

Definitely make sure to get the CacheVault module for the LSI card though (Or buy the LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i CV bundle). I had my power supply turn defective (Even though it was a Corsair AX860i) and put my PC in a restart loop, and the battery backup on the card saved me from losing data. I've also had several random power outages as well. You really do not want to lose the data on that RAID card's RAM cache.

[Electronics Wizardy]

What a silly thing to say. 

 

A 16 port card will be enough for 16 drives. Anything other than a 16 port card will NOT be enough for 16 drives. 

With sas expanders you can plug as much as you want it.

[scottyseng]

With sas expanders you can plug as much as you want it.

 

As long as you don't exceed the maximum drive limit of the RAID card. Some only support up to 64, some 128, and the higher end ones at 240 devices.