Looking for a RAID Card

[Hugs12343]

Hi all,

 

I am looking to build a custom NAS to add to my current QNAp TS-439 Pro ii. It only has 4 drive bays and is currently running in RAID 5. The NAS (I believe also has a 4TB per drive limit) and only has 1 GB of ram which is getting a little limiting especially for my plex server. The CPU is a little old being an intel atom n270 and also struggles with Plex indexing.

 

I would like to add to this with a 6 drive PC enclosure as QNAp's are very expensive. I would also like to be able to expand this to 8 drives.

 

For the case I am looking at the Corsair 750D because it has many 3.5 inch drive mounts as well as ssd mounts for the boot drive. I could also implement cache drives.

 

TL:DR

 

So my problem is that I need a RAID card that can do at least 8 drives and preferably can do raids 0, 1, 5, 6, 10. But all I need is raid 5 and 6.

 

What would you recommend (company and model). I'm looking to spend $600 AUD max but cheaper would be ok. I am flexible on prices though.

 

Thanks in advance.

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

is that qnap product expandable?

is this what you want a raid card for? https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822107020

[Hugs12343]

Just now, SCHISCHKA said:

is that qnap product expandable?

is this what you want a raid card for? https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822107020

no. I'm looking to build a system to add to my current qnap. Not a combined system. I will still keep the old one

[Oshino Shinobu]

Almost all NAS OSes will use software RAID or something similar through software, rendering RAID cards useless. I'd advise looking into how the OS you choose handles RAID. If it's something like FreeNAS which uses ZFS, using a RAID card is just needlessly adding another layer between the OS and the drives, which isn't what you want with ZFS. 

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

1 minute ago, Hugs12343 said:

no. I'm looking to build a system to add to my current qnap. Not a combined system. I will still keep the old one

ok so you want hardware for nas use that has 8 sata ports

[Hugs12343]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

Almost all NAS OSes will use software RAID or something similar through software, rendering RAID cards useless. I'd advise looking into how the OS you choose handles RAID. If it's something like FreeNAS which uses ZFS, using a RAID card is just needlessly adding another layer between the OS and the drives, which isn't what you want with ZFS. 

I know but raid card are much faster. Especially for raid 5 and 6 which is what I'm looking to do

[Helly]

I dont have much experience with RAID cards, i've only ever used 1 brand. I am really happy with them though, in my experience they are really fast and good cards.

Im using Areca cards, the 1880i and a 1225-8i. Both are capable of using 8 drives and they have cards which support more. Through the use of SAS expanders the 1880i can use up to 128 drives. No idea how to use those in a normal PC case or even where to get them.

I've always used the cards without a battery but you probably should get one with the card.

[Hugs12343]

On 12/09/2017 at 8:59 PM, SCHISCHKA said:

ok so you want hardware for nas use that has 8 sata ports

yep. 

[Hugs12343]

On 12/09/2017 at 8:59 PM, Oshino Shinobu said:

Almost all NAS OSes will use software RAID or something similar through software, rendering RAID cards useless. I'd advise looking into how the OS you choose handles RAID. If it's something like FreeNAS which uses ZFS, using a RAID card is just needlessly adding another layer between the OS and the drives, which isn't what you want with ZFS. 

I was looking at using zfs

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

4 minutes ago, Hugs12343 said:

I was looking at using zfs

Have look at the hardware requirements. the full features of ZFS might need more than 600 kangaroos, but you dont need a RAID card to accelerate it like you do with RAID5/6.

When I looked at the cost of RAID cards and the features of ZFS, Id rather build a system with ECC ram and ZFS