RAID controller

[BelgiumCastGijs]

Hey everyone!

 

I'm planning on building a NAS a a fun project to work on, so I need 10 sata connections capable of doing a btrfs RAID 5 (or 6 not sure yet), in order to accomplish that, should I buy a raid controller and use it 50/50 with my motherboard or get 2 raid controllers and let them handle the storage? I'm a total newbie to the whole NAS thing so this is why I'm asking. Also, which RAID controllers do you guys recommend?

 

Thanks in advance!

-Gijs

[JWMutant]

Personally if I had the cash I would get a pair of SAS controllers.

 

Bottlenecking is a bitch at the best of times, and using a pair of SAS controllers gives you better constant high speed which I can promise you, you will not get by using onboard SATA. 

[BelgiumCastGijs]

Personally if I had the cash I would get a pair of SAS controllers.

 

Bottlenecking is a bitch at the best of times, and using a pair of SAS controllers gives you better constant high speed which I can promise you, you will not get by using onboard SATA. 

Thank you for the info, but what should I look out for when searching for the SAS controllers? What pricerange do you think would be best?

[BelgiumCastGijs]

Thank you for the info, but what should I look out for when searching for the SAS controllers? What pricerange do you think would be best?

Also, SAS controllers are compatible with sata 3 cables, no adapters needed right?

[JWMutant]

Any LSI based controller will be fine, just a matter of looking around and finding the right controller for you as long as it supports 6Gb/s speeds.

 

IBM, Dell and a few other companys all use LSI based controllers just with there own firmware. But most LSI controller play nicely with crossflashing firmware.

[unijab]

why btrfs ?

[BelgiumCastGijs]

Any LSI based controller will be fine, just a matter of looking around and finding the right controller for you as long as it supports 6Gb/s speeds.

 

IBM, Dell and a few other companys all use LSI based controllers just with there own firmware. But most LSI controller play nicely with crossflashing firmware.

Thanks a lot for the info! I'll have a look around on amazon and others... thanks again!

[BelgiumCastGijs]

why btrfs ?

Because I can really, and I need really fast speed

[JWMutant]

Also, SAS controllers are compatible with sata 3 cables, no adapters needed right?

Correct.

 

All you need is the cable, which has a mini sas plug on one end and 4 SATA on the other end.

 

So 1 x SAS port gives you 4 x SATA

[JWMutant]

Because I can really, and I need really fast speed

My NAS setup is using JBOD with transfer speeds of around 150MB/s without me stuffing around with settings.

[BelgiumCastGijs]

Correct.

 

All you need is the cable, which has a mini sas plug on one end and 4 SATA on the other end.

 

So 1 x SAS port gives you 4 x SATA

Quick question, I'm "only" using 8 drives max, would 2 of these regular sata controllers with RAID work? http://www.amazon.de/StarTech-com-Port-Controller-Express-Schnittstellenkarte/dp/B00BUC3N74/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1451775808&sr=8-3&keywords=4+port+sata+controller Found these really cheap on amazon so I thought it would be worth asking...

[BelgiumCastGijs]

My NAS setup is using JBOD with transfer speeds of around 150MB/s without me stuffing around with settings.

I'm running 10Gb networking so I want to take advantage of that ;-)

[unijab]

My NAS setup is using JBOD with transfer speeds of around 150MB/s without me stuffing around with settings.

 

What is your connection media?

[unijab]

Because I can really, and I need really fast speed

 

better keep backups.. you know it's still experimental right now.

[BelgiumCastGijs]

better keep backups.. you know it's still experimental right now.

Of couse ;-)

[JWMutant]

What is your connection media?

Unraid

[unijab]

Unraid

 

 

That's the OS, but ok.

[JWMutant]

That's the OS, but ok.

Sorry not sure what you mean by connection media.

[scottyseng]

Hey everyone!

 

I'm planning on building a NAS a a fun project to work on, so I need 10 sata connections capable of doing a btrfs RAID 5 (or 6 not sure yet), in order to accomplish that, should I buy a raid controller and use it 50/50 with my motherboard or get 2 raid controllers and let them handle the storage? I'm a total newbie to the whole NAS thing so this is why I'm asking. Also, which RAID controllers do you guys recommend?

 

Thanks in advance!

-Gijs

 

If you're using BTRFS, you need a HBA card, not a RAID card. BTRFS is like ZFS where it wants direct connection to the drives. Having a hardware RAID card in the mix would only impair the ability of BTRFS or ZFS to work. Not many hardware RAID cards allow JBOD (pass through) mode either.

 

I would recommend two HBA cards if you think you'll hit a bottle neck with your total planned capacity of your system. Also, if you're buying new, a SAS3 (12Gb/s) card is recommended. Something like the LSI 9300-8i would work for you. Do note that with SAS ports, you will need to buy the appropriate SAS breakout cables for SATA drives (I'm assuming you're using SATA drives...SAS drives would be complete overkill for you).

[BelgiumCastGijs]

If you're using BTRFS, you need a HBA card, not a RAID card. BTRFS is like ZFS where it wants direct connection to the drives. Having a hardware RAID card in the mix would only impair the ability of BTRFS or ZFS to work. Not many hardware RAID cards allow JBOD (pass through) mode either.

 

I would recommend two HBA cards if you think you'll hit a bottle neck with your total planned capacity of your system. Also, if you're buying new, a SAS3 (12Gb/s) card is recommended. Something like the LSI 9300-8i would work for you. Do note that with SAS ports, you will need to buy the appropriate SAS breakout cables for SATA drives (I'm assuming you're using SATA drives...SAS drives would be complete overkill for you).

So, I should get the SAS card to control the drives and then get the breakout cables to connect the drives to the sas card... That should give me some headroom for bandwith, if I ever move to all 10 drives, that's what you're sayig right? (just asking because english isn't my first language and I'm trying to make sure I get you right ;-) ) Anway, I guess I can fit that in my budget, second question: Let's say I get 5 4tb drives now and get 3 additional ones later. Will the raid 5 volume be able to expand to the full 8 drives or do I have to make an external backup to get everything cleared, then reset the raid and then rewriting all of the data? Or does it do it automatically? Already thanks a lot!

[scottyseng]

So, I should get the SAS card to control the drives and then get the breakout cables to connect the drives to the sas card... That should give me some headroom for bandwith, if I ever move to all 10 drives, that's what you're sayig right? (just asking because english isn't my first language and I'm trying to make sure I get you right ;-) ) Anway, I guess I can fit that in my budget, second question: Let's say I get 5 4tb drives now and get 3 additional ones later. Will the raid 5 volume be able to expand to the full 8 drives or do I have to make an external backup to get everything cleared, then reset the raid and then rewriting all of the data? Or does it do it automatically? Already thanks a lot!

 

Yeah, if you get that SAS3 (12Gb/s) HBA card from LSI, that will easily handle all ten drives. Even just one SAS3 port will easily handle all 10 drives without bottlenecking.

 

I have six 4TB WD Reds in RAID10, and they push out 550MB/s. I also have two 4TB WD Re SAS drives in RAID1, and they push out 350MB/s. I run both on my LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i without any issues in speed.

 

Curious, what OS are you using? Please make sure you are using BTRFS or ZFS as the file system. You keep writing RAID 5, which makes me think you mean normal RAID 5 and not the BTRFS version of it.

 

I don't know much about BTRFS as I've never used it personally. I know how it works / the technical details of it, but I don't think BTRFS RAID5 supports online expansion.

 

I would recommend destroying the array and rebuilding it from scratch though, if you can afford the external drives to back up the system and the downtime.