WD Red's? Raid 6?

[Moondrelor]

Hey guys, I wanting to make a raid 6 array with WD Red's. Are reds the best choice for raid setups?

Also, how do I make my 10TB Raid setup available to other people outside of my home? I'd like to be able for me and a group of friends to kind of use the storage collectively. 

 

Also, can the Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX handle 5 HDD's? I seen a picture with 3 trays and 2 more spots open, does it come with 5 mounting trays?

[Tech N Gamer]

First off, does the motherboard support RAID in the first place? Second off, I don't think you can, I've never done it. 3rd, I don't know how many mounting trays it comes with, and I even did a quick google search.

[ShadowCaptain]

Hey guys, I wanting to make a raid 6 array with WD Red's. Are reds the best choice for raid setups?

Also, how do I make my 10TB Raid setup available to other people outside of my home? I'd like to be able for me and a group of friends to kind of use the storage collectively. 

 

Also, can the Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX handle 5 HDD's? I seen a picture with 3 trays and 2 more spots open, does it come with 5 mounting trays?

 

Reds are perfect and designed for raid arrays ( i prefer raid 10)

 

for sharing I have a dedicated pc set up with windows server for that purpose 

 

idk >D

[Moondrelor]

Well this is what I'm hoping.
I already have a GPU and a 2.5" SSD as well...

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor  ($372.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler  ($74.90 @ Newegg) 

Motherboard: MSI X99A SLI PLUS ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($229.89 @ OutletPC) 

Memory: Kingston FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($338.99 @ NCIX US) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($89.88 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($89.88 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($89.88 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($89.88 @ OutletPC) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($89.88 @ OutletPC) 

Case: Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX Mid Tower Case  ($159.99 @ Amazon) 

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 

Total: $1816.14

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-10 09:01 EST-0500

[Tech N Gamer]

I just went to PCPartPicker and it has 2 2.5" bays and 5 3.5" bays. So it can hold 5 3.5" HDDs.

[Moondrelor]

I just went to PCPartPicker and it has 2 2.5" bays and 5 3.5" bays. So it can hold 5 3.5" HDDs.

 

Yes it can hold 5... But I'm not sure if it comes with 5 trays is my issue. I only see a picture with 3 trays.

[Tech N Gamer]

PCPartPicker says that the motherboard supports RAID.

[Moondrelor]

Yes it can hold 5... But I'm not sure if it comes with 5 trays is my issue. I only see a picture with 3 trays.

 

I just answered my own question, it comes with 3 trays, says so in the Owners Manual PDF...

[Tech N Gamer]

Yes it can hold 5... But I'm not sure if it comes with 5 trays is my issue. I only see a picture with 3 trays.

Most likely, if not then you can always order 2 more.

[Moondrelor]

Most likely, if not then you can always order 2 more.

 

Yeah

http://www.phanteksusa.com/collections/accessories/products/phanteks-3-5-hdd-modular-bracket

 

Found it.

[yippy3000]

A few things:

 

1.  Yes, Reds are designed for this a pretty much the best consumer level drives for RAID.

2.  Using Raid 6 you will have 6TB usable from the 5x2TB drives, just an FYI.

3.  Are you using this computer for anything other than file storage?  If not, that computer is WAY WAY WAY overpowered.  An Intel Atom is all that is needed for simple RAID file storage. EDIT: It sounds like this is a gaming PC with a big RAID array, in this case hardware is fine.

4. Getting it externally available is going to be tricky and the best way to do it will depend on what your friends want out of file storage.  At the minimum you will need to set up port forwarding in your router to forward the protocol they will be using as well as setting up some kind of dynamic DNS service so they don't have to call to ask you for your IP address all the time.

 

A little more detail on what you want to use it for and store on it will help with recommendations on 4.

[Moondrelor]

A few things:

 

1.  Yes, Reds are designed for this a pretty much the best consumer level drives for RAID.

2.  Using Raid 6 you will have 6TB usable from the 5x2TB drives, just an FYI.

3.  Are you using this computer for anything other than file storage?  If not, that computer is WAY WAY WAY overpowered.  An Intel Atom is all that is needed for simple RAID file storage. EDIT: It sounds like this is a gaming PC with a big RAID array, in this case hardware is fine.

4. Getting it externally available is going to be tricky and the best way to do it will depend on what your friends want out of file storage.  At the minimum you will need to set up port forwarding in your router to forward the protocol they will be using as well as setting up some kind of dynamic DNS service so they don't have to call to ask you for your IP address all the time.

 

A little more detail on what you want to use it for and store on it will help with recommendations on 4.

 

It'll be mainly for movie storage, music storage, game storage, and perhaps back ups? We are all very tech savvy people, but none of us have really done anything with Raid arrays. I'm very familiar with port forwarding, however would there be a way for me to give them an IP and set up credentials for them? This way I won't have to worry about unwanted people in. If I'm making any sense.

[scottyseng]

It'll be mainly for movie storage, music storage, game storage, and perhaps back ups? We are all very tech savvy people, but none of us have really done anything with Raid arrays. I'm very familiar with port forwarding, however would there be a way for me to give them an IP and set up credentials for them? This way I won't have to worry about unwanted people in. If I'm making any sense.

 

For that kind of use, the CPU and hardware is overkill. You could run the whole thing on a i3 and have no issues if it all it does is be a NAS

 

RAID isn't too bad to set up. You have to hop onto the motherboard BIOS and set the drives from AHCI to RAID. Then you hop onto Intel's RAID controller and set it up from there.

 

I have to ask though, why not 4TB drives? They have the best GB per dollar still (Though 6TB is coming down)

 

Also, what OS are you planning to use? If you want to use FreeNAS, you need slightly different hardware / shouldn't use RAID. If you're using Windows though, you should be fine. Just use storage spaces and have the computers connect that way if all of the computers are local. If you want pure remote access (Like outside of your house), that's a bit trickier.

[Moondrelor]

For that kind of use, the CPU and hardware is overkill. You could run the whole thing on a i3 and have no issues if it all it does is be a NAS

 

RAID isn't too bad to set up. You have to hop onto the motherboard BIOS and set the drives from AHCI to RAID. Then you hop onto Intel's RAID controller and set it up from there.

 

I have to ask though, why not 4TB drives? They have the best GB per dollar still (Though 6TB is coming down)

 

Also, what OS are you planning to use? If you want to use FreeNAS, you need slightly different hardware / shouldn't use RAID. If you're using Windows though, you should be fine. Just use storage spaces and have the computers connect that way if all of the computers are local. If you want pure remote access (Like outside of your house), that's a bit trickier.

 

This isn't going to be a NAS... It's a gaming rig. But I want a massive storage array for me and some friends.

[scottyseng]

This isn't going to be a NAS... It's a gaming rig. But I want a massive storage array for me and some friends.

 

Oh sorry, then the specs are good then. Yeah, look up storage spaces for sharing out on windows...though remote access outside of your local network is a bit trickier.

[Curufinwe_wins]

No wd reds are not the best option. I would highly recommend hgst deskstar nas drives instead.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8743/hgst-deskstar-nas-4-tb-review

Faster, cheaper, more reliable. Better in every way basically.

[scottyseng]

No wd reds are not the best option. I would highly recommend hgst deskstar nas drives instead.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8743/hgst-deskstar-nas-4-tb-review

Faster, cheaper, more reliable. Better in every way basically.

 

Both WD and HGST are pretty up there in reliability. The only downside to the HGST NAS drives is that they run on the hot side (To be expected with 7200RPM drives) and are a tad on the noisy side (Again, to be expected of 7200RPM). It depends on the person to choose which they prefer. 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there Moondrelor,

 

The build that you are planning looks good and should hold the 5 WD Red drives with no issues. WD Red are NAS/RAID rated drives and should work pretty good so thumbs up for that. 

Regarding the shared storage space, you can look into Windows's shared folder options and see what it can offer. In order for other people to have access to those drives you need to leave your system on and connected to the internet at all times. 

As @yippy3000 pointed out, RAID6 will give you about 6TB of usable space, leaving two drives for redundancy. RAID6 is a really good choice for this. Have in mind that the motherboard supports up to 6 drives in a RAID configuration as SATA7 to 10 ports only support IDE and AHCI modes (as per the motherboard's specs on the manufacturer's website). The motherboard supports RAID0, RAID1, RAID5 and RAID10 so I'd check with their support for RAID6 first unless you are getting a separate RAID controller card.  

 

Feel free to ask if you have questions

 

Captain_WD.

[mluton]

Another vote for raid 10

[TheCaptain53]

I believe most motherboards only support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10. If your motherboard does not support it, you will need an additional RAID card.

I would also be inclined to use those drives to build a separate NAS. For starters, it being in your system means it's vulnerable to viruses. It won't be a problem for movies and such, but if you use it later on for mission critical data, that will suddenly become a much larger issue. 
You also most likely will be using a dynamic WAN IP address, a static IP address usually being reserved for most business that would require off site access, something that isn't a necessity for most homes. On top of the additional cost of having a static IP (something your ISP may not provide), you will need to set up your storage as a network location (admittedly, I've never seen if this is possible, but it probably is). 
Accessing a drive could be done through a port forward, but I feel a more elegant solution would be a VPN. This requires that you have a compatible router (and client, of course) such as a Draytek Vigor 2830n, AND a static WAN IP address. 

A dedicated RAID box may incur additional cost, and requires that you have a half-decent LAN infrastructure for fast and reliable operation, but it should allow for some pretty cool stuff down the road. For example, you can oversize the NAS box for additional drives and then rebuild the NAS when you want more storage space. If you want it to have secondary functions such as a plex server for media streaming clients (such as a plex client on a Raspberry Pi), this is something that could be easily done on a NAS (within reason), but is circumstantial for a daily driver PC. If you're rendering (something I suspect you'll do, considering you'll be using a 5820K), this will massively hinder the performance of a plex server which uses the CPU to encode the video and audio stream into an H.264 codec to send across to clients. As a side note, the plex server can serve multiple clients at once, given that you have enough CPU overhead.

Just my two cents on the matter.

[Moondrelor]

 

-snip-

 

 

-snip-

 

 

Thanks fella's for your inputs, most helpful so far. I'm not sure if it supports Raid 6 now that you bring that up, so essentially I could do a Raid 10 set up with 4 drives correct? Which, allows for one drive to fail? And would give me 4TB of space?

[dalekphalm]

For that kind of use, the CPU and hardware is overkill. You could run the whole thing on a i3 and have no issues if it all it does is be a NAS

 

RAID isn't too bad to set up. You have to hop onto the motherboard BIOS and set the drives from AHCI to RAID. Then you hop onto Intel's RAID controller and set it up from there.

 

I have to ask though, why not 4TB drives? They have the best GB per dollar still (Though 6TB is coming down)

 

Also, what OS are you planning to use? If you want to use FreeNAS, you need slightly different hardware / shouldn't use RAID. If you're using Windows though, you should be fine. Just use storage spaces and have the computers connect that way if all of the computers are local. If you want pure remote access (Like outside of your house), that's a bit trickier.

For Canada, currently the best GB/$ NAS rated drive is actually the 3TB drive, but of course, the specifics will change with each country. I was pricing out NAS drives a week or two ago and discovered that.

 

I believe most motherboards only support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10. If your motherboard does not support it, you will need an additional RAID card.

I would also be inclined to use those drives to build a separate NAS. For starters, it being in your system means it's vulnerable to viruses. It won't be a problem for movies and such, but if you use it later on for mission critical data, that will suddenly become a much larger issue. 

You also most likely will be using a dynamic WAN IP address, a static IP address usually being reserved for most business that would require off site access, something that isn't a necessity for most homes. On top of the additional cost of having a static IP (something your ISP may not provide), you will need to set up your storage as a network location (admittedly, I've never seen if this is possible, but it probably is). 

Accessing a drive could be done through a port forward, but I feel a more elegant solution would be a VPN. This requires that you have a compatible router (and client, of course) such as a Draytek Vigor 2830n, AND a static WAN IP address. 

A dedicated RAID box may incur additional cost, and requires that you have a half-decent LAN infrastructure for fast and reliable operation, but it should allow for some pretty cool stuff down the road. For example, you can oversize the NAS box for additional drives and then rebuild the NAS when you want more storage space. If you want it to have secondary functions such as a plex server for media streaming clients (such as a plex client on a Raspberry Pi), this is something that could be easily done on a NAS (within reason), but is circumstantial for a daily driver PC. If you're rendering (something I suspect you'll do, considering you'll be using a 5820K), this will massively hinder the performance of a plex server which uses the CPU to encode the video and audio stream into an H.264 codec to send across to clients. As a side note, the plex server can serve multiple clients at once, given that you have enough CPU overhead.

Just my two cents on the matter.

Agreed. Most motherboards don't support RAID6. AND even if they did, I would suggest not using the built-in motherboard RAID for RAID 5 or RAID 6.

 

Thanks fella's for your inputs, most helpful so far. I'm not sure if it supports Raid 6 now that you bring that up, so essentially I could do a Raid 10 set up with 4 drives correct? Which, allows for one drive to fail? And would give me 4TB of space?

Personally, I also recommend putting this array in a separate PC. It'll just have less problems going forward - less complications.

 

But, a few things. If you are going to do actual RAID 6, then I recommend either:

1. Buying a hardware RAID card w/ onboard RAM and backup battery unit. You can find super high end LSI cards on ebay for really cheap.

2. Using OS-level software RAID, preferably ZFS RAIDZ2, or Windows Storage Spaces w/ 2x parity drives.

 

You could do a RAID 10 setup. RAID 10 will allow exactly half of the storage to be usable. So if you use 4x 2TB HDD's, you'll get 4TB usable space. This will allow up to 2x HDD fails (although it depends on which drives specifically fail - with RAID 10 it's kind of complicated).

 

If you're going to use 4x HDD's, I recommend RAID 10. If you're going to use 5x or more HDD's, I recommend RAID 6 (or software equivalent, like RAIDZ2).

 

Another software based RAID solution to look at is FlexRAID:

http://www.flexraid.com/download-try-buy-raid-f/

 

It's a software based solution that uses Parity RAID-like setups. You can pool multiple HDD's together, set as many parity drives as you want, etc. It does cost a license fee, but it's pretty good for those who aren't very familiar with RAID setups.

 

The feature I like is that you can mix and match HDD sizes, and combine multiple smaller HDD's into a bigger virtual HDD to use in an array.

[Sunshine1868]

For making it available outside of your home:

 

port forward port 22 to the machine and enable SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol). It is an add-on to the SSH package which is a fairly universal thing. Then use a program like FileZilla to transfer things to and from the machine. SFTP also has the added benefit of encrypting the traffic, so people can't snoop on the files you are transferring. 

If you have any questions about SFTP, port forwarding, or how all that works, feel free to PM me. 

[dalekphalm]

For making it available outside of your home:

 

port forward port 22 to the machine and enable SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol). It is an add-on to the SSH package which is a fairly universal thing. Then use a program like FileZilla to transfer things to and from the machine. SFTP also has the added benefit of encrypting the traffic, so people can't snoop on the files you are transferring. 

If you have any questions about SFTP, port forwarding, or how all that works, feel free to PM me. 

 

@Moondrelor you might want to look at a solution called OwnCloud, which "hypothetically" gives you the ability to create your (as the name suggests) own Cloud Storage. They have a demo here:

https://demo.owncloud.org/index.php/apps/files/

 

However, it doesn't seem to natively run on Windows. You can of course host a VM of it running Linux, but that's getting kind of complicated.

https://owncloud.org/

 

Alternatively, you could use BitTorrent Sync, which will run on just about anything.

There are others, but I've not really heard of them, so cannot say which is good:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/free-tools-to-build-personal-cloud/

[Sunshine1868]

@Moondrelor you might want to look at a solution called OwnCloud, which "hypothetically" gives you the ability to create your (as the name suggests) own Cloud Storage. They have a demo here:

https://demo.owncloud.org/index.php/apps/files/

 

However, it doesn't seem to natively run on Windows. You can of course host a VM of it running Linux, but that's getting kind of complicated.

https://owncloud.org/

 

Alternatively, you could use BitTorrent Sync, which will run on just about anything.

There are others, but I've not really heard of them, so cannot say which is good:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/free-tools-to-build-personal-cloud/

own cloud would get very complicated with tunneling NICs to the VM for the average user...

 

and there is a chance that BitTorrent services will get stomped by your ISP

 

just food for thought