Budget RAID server questions

[Gudawhan]

I'm looking at these https://www.amazon.com/NORCO-Mount-Hot-Swappable-Server-RPC-4020/dp/B001NO7THO 

 

Can I use a variety of sizes & brands of drives in said RAID? 

Can I grow the size of said RAID without having to wipe & reformat the whole RAID each time?

What RAID format would be best to be able to have drives die without loosing data?

Would this be a hardware or software RAID?

What OS would be best? 

 

I have a video production company. I have a studio & office that sync everything between 2 locations using Goodsync. We are pretty low budget. No $ for a Storinator & a case of brand new 10TB HDD's. Currently I use multiple old Mac Pro's as file servers. My whole network is Mac. I'm concerned about security with new system not being Mac. Any advice would be awesome! Thanks!

[Mira Yurizaki]

14 minutes ago, Gudawhan said:

I'm looking at these https://www.amazon.com/NORCO-Mount-Hot-Swappable-Server-RPC-4020/dp/B001NO7THO 

 

Can I use a variety of sizes & brands of drives in said RAID? 

Yes, but it best works if they're the same size. Otherwise the RAID array will only be as large as the smallest drive

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Can I grow the size of said RAID without having to wipe & reformat the whole RAID each time?

Yes. But if you're talking about physical storage size, you have to upgrade the system at once. i.e., you can't have 3 drives in the array and only replace 1 or 2. You have to replace all 3 (or rather, make a RAID of the new 3 and transfer the data over).

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What RAID format would be best to be able to have drives die without loosing data?

RAID 1, 5, or 6. RAID 1 can survive as long as one drive remains. RAID 5 can take only one drive. RAID 6 can take two drives. You can read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels (Note that RAID 2, 3, and 4 aren't really used so you can ignore those)

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Would this be a hardware or software RAID?

I'm not sure about that particular model.

 

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What OS would be best? 

I have a video production company. I have a studio & office that sync everything between 2 locations using Goodsync. We are pretty low budget. No $ for a Storinator & a case of brand new 10TB HDD's. Currently I use multiple old Mac Pro's as file servers. My whole network is Mac. I'm concerned about security with new system not being Mac. Any advice would be awesome! Thanks!

In this case, some flavor of Linux is probably best. But as long as the server is talking to the network with a protocol the other OSes understand, it doesn't matter much what OS you use.

[MrKickkiller]

First off: That's simply the chassis, no cpu, mobo, ram, psu etc

A) Yes you can use any drive in that chassis. Not sure about mixing SAS/Sata drives, but seeing as you're on a budget, you'd be looking at Sata anyway

B) Growing the size of a raid depends on the raid type itself.

 - RAID 0: Yes, but VERY unsafely stored. 1 disk failure and you're done.

 - Raid 1: No. All drives are a mirror of each other

 - Synology Hybrid Raid: Claims it can do so, not sure if it actually works. Is natively only supported on Synology units. Unless you use something like Xpenology, which is pretty much just a fork of the Synology technology

 - Raid 5/6: Not sure. Gonna look into it.

 You can always start off with 1 raid 5/6 (or Raid 1 if going for 2 drives), and later add another RAID X set, and then Raid 0 the Raid X's. The failure rate would then simply be the failure rate of any individual RAID X set.

C) Raid 5/6 - RaidZ1/2/3: 
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID (General RAID explanation)
    Techquickie : 

   RaidZ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS

Just too much info to comprehend in 1 post

D) It's your pick with this chassis. You could go either way

E) OS, depends on your work environment & comfort levels. Some admin's go with Microsoft Storage Spaces/Pools. Some go with mdadm (Linux) and others use filesystems like ZFS or BtrFS on top of any linux install.

 

Further note on security: With a custom setup and the right knowledge, you can have a rock solid stable nas, that is safe as anything. With most store bought nas'es people just get it working and that's it. No thinking about security or protection. That said, with a custom setup you WILL / SHOULD be investing a lot of time learning and doing it all ok.

[MrKickkiller]

3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

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The item he linked is simply a chassis. So software/ hardware raid is too be decided. But tbh: Hardware raid is basically software raid on dedicated antiquated pcb's/chips anyway.

[Gudawhan]

Ug... The garbage can icon can go suck a #@*%%*.... Damn... Shouldn't be able to toss that much work just trying to move a quote.... Anyway... To busy to do all that again. $^*&%#@...... 

 

Thanks guys. Wish I could get all my new answers answered but.... F'n trash can is not something I need to post.... 

 

Just incase I have not been clear. I spent a hour quoting & such. I wanted to move a quote that was at the top & I count not type above it. So I highlighted it & hit the trash button. All my work is gone & I have to go now. I'll do it all again later or tomorrow. 

 

Thanks tons for all the help & Linus can get rid of that pointless trash can any time....