I've had lots of drives fail - some didn't work out of the box. Some just quit after like 2 years. In October I had a 500GB fail, sent it back for a replacement, and a couple of weeks later had a second 500GB fail. I am starting to think I need to put my server somewhere else, because this seems abnormally high.
The hardware raid cards are reasonably priced for a few ports, but if you are looking for lots of ports, you get into the 800+ range. Plus, with hardware RAID if the card fails you must replace it with a similar card. I prefer software RAID. 1) it's cheaper, 2) performance doesn't matter for media storage, since it's generally write once, and 3) when something breaks I can move the entire array to any windows computer - not tied to hardware.
I like Smoke's idea though - I've always liked the Drobo. A little pricey but very flexible. Fill it up, replace the drives with a bigger drive (one at a time). Very nice.
The hardware raid cards are reasonably priced for a few ports, but if you are looking for lots of ports, you get into the 800+ range. Plus, with hardware RAID if the card fails you must replace it with a similar card. I prefer software RAID. 1) it's cheaper, 2) performance doesn't matter for media storage, since it's generally write once, and 3) when something breaks I can move the entire array to any windows computer - not tied to hardware.
I like Smoke's idea though - I've always liked the Drobo. A little pricey but very flexible. Fill it up, replace the drives with a bigger drive (one at a time). Very nice.