Ongoing The Milhouse Media Server (1 Viewer)

[Bobb25]

Very nice choices. What is the total damage for the setup, excluding all drives?

 

[milhouse]

dubyajah-
It's not the total capacity I am really looking at - it's the number of drives I can support. Right now, I've got 8*500GB. My assumption is that drives keep getting bigger, so the best way to expand will be to add 5*500, then another 5*500, then start swapping out the 500GB for whatever the best $/GB is at that time.

Basically, I think the "value" approach is to be able to incrementally upgrade, so that means cramming as many disks into a box as I can. I realize this is exactly what unRaid is intended to support. I would go for it if only the drive limit was 20 instead of 16. (Actually I would prefer a drive limit of 22 or 24 in case I needed to hook up an external drive temporarily some time.


bobb25-
Excluding the drives (already have the 8*500, and the 2*160 system drives are dirt cheap) the whole hardware setup is around $1300 at newegg, including shipping. Drives right now, were I to get another 10 * 500 GB, would be $100 each. That's why I prefered to split the cost over two purchases spaced months apart.

 

[Dubyahjay]

Gotcha,

So for me, only starting out with 3x500 drives, it makes more sense to add increasingly larger HDs as I go.

See, two different needs

 

[milhouse]

Well, so much for putting it together this weekend. The UPS delivery got screwed up:

THE SHIPMENT WAS MISROUTED BY RAIL TRANSPORTATION

No motherboard, system hard drives, or memory.

Can really even START assembly with the motherboard. Don't even have an expected delivery date right now.

 

[sensman]

hey Milhouse,

check out this product.

 

[milhouse]

Unfortunately, I don't read German. Can I get a quick summary of what this link is, sensman?

I see a port multiplier and a storage module, but am not sure what either of these boxes actually do. It seems odd to have a controller card (which is what these look like) in an external enclosure without drives.

Thanks-
Milhouse

Never mind- used Google translate.

These cards look interesting. What I can't figure out, though, is why I would use this instead of an internal PCI-express of PCI-x card. I do like the status lights, but would have to give up drive space for the controllers.

I also couldn't tell if these are hardware RAID, and how the price compares to a good Areca internal card.

 

[sensman]

hey Milhouse,

sorry my englisch is not very good. :sorry:
With this external Raid-Module you can handle five (5) SATA-II-Drives on one S-ATA II Host-Connector. I use 5 x Raid-Module with 25 HDD Drives a 500GB on 5 OnBoard SATA Connectors.
Costs for 1 Module round 80,- EURO (??? ~100 Dollar ???)

Ciao Sensman

 

[SwingSultan]

ive heared that two seperate atx psus can result in a big screw up due to the uneven power consumption. i dont really know why but that might be an issue worth googling before setting up ur system.

 

[milhouse]

sensman - got it. It's a port multiplier. I think the problem these boxes leave are enclosures for the drives. When I need to expand externally, I think I'd prefer going with a drive enclosure with a multiplier built in. Something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816855009

SwingSultan - I googled, but didn't find any references to inherent problems using two power supplies. I found lots of references to DOING it, but few warnings.



Update: The rest of the shipment finally arrived yesterday. I spent about 6.5 hours putting things together yesterday. Current status is that the hardware is installed (including two system drives), Windows has been installed, security updates downloaded, and set up for remote administration. So I've got it moved down to the basement, and the system drives (RAID 1) were syncing up when I went to bed.

Remaining work to do:
1) move 4 data drives from mediaserve2 over and validate. Easy to do, and mediaserve2 can be retired.
2) move 4 data drives from mediaserve over and validate. Easy to do.
3) copy user directories, set up permissions, schedule backups, shadow copies, etc. Basically, make the new server behave like the old one. More difficult.
4) Install PHP and bulletine board software; move web pages over.
5) Retire mediaserve.

This will take a few more days.

Pictures will follow in a day or two with the "before" and "after" shots.

 

[Dubyahjay]

FYI the new issue of CPU magazine has a four page spread on a twin PSU mod.

Edit: BTW, I am anxiously awaiting the results before I step off on my project