HTPC Finshed... Hopfully :D

[Gixxer]

Originally Posted by handya

the connection is just a 100meg cat 5e between front and back end, i can stream 1080p video no problem.

the backend tv server is running on windows xp pro

the file server is a software raid program called "freenas" the only disadvantage with this program is that you cannot grow your raid 5 eg you have to re-format ur drive when you want to add more hdds to the raid, this is y when i upgrade im switching programs but freenas is still realy good.

thanks for that info !!

so what program are you thinking of in the future? cause any hardware raid is too expensive, right?

thanks !!

[Marcusb]

I'd usually just use motherboard built in RAID. It's still software, but seems nicer if the OS isn't even really aware that any RAID is going on.

[handya]

as when i upgrade i will be getting a complete new server i will look into hardware raid , i cant remember the name of the program tho, i will get back 2 u

[drealit]

You should look toward UnRaid as your backend solution.

Lime Technology, LLC

It's software based and has great performance with very minimal hardware requirements. I built mine out of some spare parts I had laying around:

Antec Earthwatts 430 PSU
MSI K8N Neo3-F
AMD Sempron 2800+
2x512MB 3200DDR
1x1TB Seagate SATAII (7200.11)
1x500GB Western Digital SATAII
1x500GB Maxtor SATAII (7200.10)

You can switch out drives as you need... add on more drives whenever you need to (but you have to pay for the software in order to expand past 3 drives). The largest is dedicated as a Parity-drive in order to backup the other drives on the array. You can mix and match SATA/IDE as you want and add up to 16 drives I believe.

The entire OS runs off of a flash drive... 256mb recommended I believe but the OS and files only take up around 30mb's.

You have the ability to setup symbolic links and user-shares to make the drives seem as if there's only 1. You can drop in a cache disk for recording TV shows and speed up file transfers (if you transfer without a cache disk it writes to both the designated drive and parity at the same time so it slows you down a little bit). You can setup a Highwater configuration... meaning same directory structure across drives and if you're transferring data to your main Usershare (single partition but really is a combination of directories across your array) it will fill up a drive to 50% capacity then move to the next until all drives are at 50% then switch to 75% and continue.

It does not stripe data: meaning a file will not be split up across the drives and will also only make the necessary drives spin up when the data needs to be accessed... doesn't waste electricity or over work your drives... less heat too. The drives can be told to spin down manually or after a specific amount of time without being accessed. The Usershare also allows you to browse through your data without the drives needing to spin up.

It took me about 2 hours to scrounge around and build my PC... then literally 20 min. to download the UnRaid software, put it on a flash, and then set it up to how I wanted and begin a Parity-sync (sync the data on my drives to the parity disk so my data would be protected). You must transfer your files to your drives after you setup the array since the drives need to be formatted with the DFS file system.

It's a great software RAID solution and RIDICULOUSLY inexpensive to setup.