Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions
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In my opinion your considerations should really be these (in order of importance):
- What is the absolute best software or product for my situation?
- What is the cost? Can I pay it? Etc.
Your knowledge shouldn't enter the equation as you would benefit from learning new technologies. Linux specifically is extremely cost effective in a myriad of ways often times with a performance increase. I myself am a newer Linux user and have learned quite a lot from tinkering with some of the guides here. My home server and all PC's with the exception of my gaming PC are all on Linux now.
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Certainly at least one familiar face, thanks indeed for linking to my original thread;) I am here due to recommendation from SAM (since I couldn't post without moderation over at spiceworks).
I got a free Win10 via an upgrade from 7, hence no Windows tax (well, you know, having paid for it at some point of course but not now).
Your guess regarding SMB is correct, that is indeed how I have been accessing the files via Kodi so far.I do not insinst on Windows if there is a good reason for not using it, at all. I know it's not the best OS by far, although for my normal usage it kind of is (Office Suite, few decoding tools, some Games); but that's not on the server, of course. I wouldn't have bought a licence though.
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@Dashrender said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I would only grow it once, but frankly, not a fan of growing it at all - and a question, can you add 6-8 disks to a pre existing RAID 6 array all at once? ages ago I could add disks to a RAID 5, but only one at a time. So if I was adding 6 disks, that was 6 different rebuild processes - that's a no go in my book. backup your data and rebuild the array and start over.
As far as growth goes it really depends on the technology used. ZFS uses pooling which handles throughput on a pool level. This was my considering when building my media server/test environment. I invested in 32 TB of space right off the top for that reason.
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@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
With that size I would seriously consider using software raid. Something like CentOS w/ ZFS using Striped Mirrored Vdev’s (essentially Raid 10).
Why when there is a hardware raid controller would you effectively downgrade to software raid? Unless there are limitations on the card (like a number of supported drives or something)
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
Certainly at least one familiar face, thanks indeed for linking to my original thread;) I am here due to recommendation from SAM (since I couldn't post without moderation over at spiceworks).
I got a free Win10 via an upgrade from 7, hence no Windows tax (well, you know, having paid for it at some point of course but not now).
Your guess regarding SMB is correct, that is indeed how I have been accessing the files via Kodi so far.I do not insinst on Windows if there is a good reason for not using it, at all. I know it's not the best OS by far, although for my normal usage it kind of is (Office Suite, few decoding tools, some Games); but that's not on the server, of course. I wouldn't have bought a licence though.
Would you be willing to switch to Plex server instead of Kodi? I haven't used Kodi personally, I have Kodi client box at home with Plex plugin, to access Plex server. Plex opens up a lot more possibilities, both client side and server side. The only possible downside is server side transcoding, stronger CPU is required to handle that smoothly.
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The growth question is not that important at the moment though. I will start with 6x3TB, but if I could build another array later on the same controller (with, say, 6-8 x 4-6TB drives) that would also be fine.
That it is not a backup, I am aware of. My plan is to, should one drive fail, buy more drives, backup the data and then attempt a rebuild. I haven't seen a drive failure yet (my oldest HDD that I still use is probably around 7 years and 13yrs for an external), but I am only a home user, so I am sure it will happen eventually. -
I was thinking to eventually add Plex somewhere down the line. Right now both my media pc and work pc are much more powerful than the server.
The server is based on the AM1 platform, I just switched out the terrible 2650 (2x1.45) for a slighlty better 5150 (4x1.60). Should be ok for x264, yet I don't know about x265 and whatever may come.
Building my Kodi library has taken a while do, I'd assume the same process would wait for me with Plex (with foreign language movies not being scrubbed correctly from databases, etc...) -
Welcome to the community!
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@DustinB3403 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
With that size I would seriously consider using software raid. Something like CentOS w/ ZFS using Striped Mirrored Vdev’s (essentially Raid 10).
Why when there is a hardware raid controller would you effectively downgrade to software raid? Unless there are limitations on the card (like a number of supported drives or some
I think Raid Controllers are a waste of money unless you absolutely have to use windows in which case you have no other good choice. They don't make the raid controller listed anymore so if that thing breaks hes going to lose all of his data. You have to install the exact same raid controller with the exact same firmware for that to work too. With software raid you don't have to deal with that headache and the overhead on the processor is almost non-existent in the modern day.
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Thanks a lot for the warm welcome.
And also for the incredibly fast respones. I'm quite amazed, really. I wish I could give something back. -
@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I do not insinst on Windows if there is a good reason for not using it, at all. I know it's not the best OS by far, although for my normal usage it kind of is (Office Suite, few decoding tools, some Games); but that's not on the server, of course. I wouldn't have bought a licence though.
So the thing with Windows is, beyond it being really expensive, is that its software RAID is kinda craptastic. Software RAID on its own is great, as a concept. And there are great implementations of it like MD RAID (from Linux) and ZFS (from Solaris and FreeBSD.) For home use, whatever, Windows is just fine. But it's also not free. Using Linux with MD or FreeBSD with ZFS would give you a really good software RAID option that Windows does not.
Linux or FreeBSD are also generally considered much better for use as a media server.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
Thanks a lot for the warm welcome.
And also for the incredibly fast respones. I'm quite amazed, really. I wish I could give something back.I would have been much faster myself, but have been on the phone with my dad. Haven't talked to him for the last seven countries that i've been in so had to catch him up.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
Thanks a lot for the warm welcome.
And also for the incredibly fast respones. I'm quite amazed, really. I wish I could give something back.Welcome sir!
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I just bought the RAID controller, new not used. I'll have to keep an eye on its availability though, but right now it's still being sold by a couple of shops.
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@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@DustinB3403 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
With that size I would seriously consider using software raid. Something like CentOS w/ ZFS using Striped Mirrored Vdev’s (essentially Raid 10).
Why when there is a hardware raid controller would you effectively downgrade to software raid? Unless there are limitations on the card (like a number of supported drives or some
I think Raid Controllers are a waste of money unless you absolutely have to use windows in which case you have no other good choice. They don't make the raid controller listed anymore so if that thing breaks hes going to lose all of his data. You have to install the exact same raid controller with the exact same firmware for that to work too. With software raid you don't have to deal with that headache and the overhead on the processor is almost non-existent in the modern day.
The key benefit (other than fixing a Windows deficiency of course) is that good hardware RAID offers blind swap. That's not a trivial feature.
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@geertcourmacher said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I just bought the RAID controller, new not used. I'll have to keep an eye on its availability though, but right now it's still being sold by a couple of shops.
Aww - there are ton on ebay for $60'ish ... for a home setup, I don't think I would have gone with new... but that's me.
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@scottalanmiller said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@DustinB3403 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
@wirestyle22 said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
With that size I would seriously consider using software raid. Something like CentOS w/ ZFS using Striped Mirrored Vdev’s (essentially Raid 10).
Why when there is a hardware raid controller would you effectively downgrade to software raid? Unless there are limitations on the card (like a number of supported drives or some
I think Raid Controllers are a waste of money unless you absolutely have to use windows in which case you have no other good choice. They don't make the raid controller listed anymore so if that thing breaks hes going to lose all of his data. You have to install the exact same raid controller with the exact same firmware for that to work too. With software raid you don't have to deal with that headache and the overhead on the processor is almost non-existent in the modern day.
The key benefit (other than fixing a Windows deficiency of course) is that good hardware RAID offers blind swap. That's not a trivial feature.
And Scott beat me to it - exactly, blind and hot swap is awesome, assuming your RAID controller supports it.
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My general rule of thumb (very general, lots of exceptions) is that if you have a real hardware RAID controller* that you use it, when you don't, you use software RAID.
*Real meaning not FakeRAID, has a real cache (128MB or larger, 1GB or larger is best), has a real offload processor and supports blind swapping.
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It was an amazon glitch I think. It was only 250€ instead of the 700€ average price in other shops. Went up straight after I bought it. I could actually still return it and go all the other way to upgrade the rest of the hardware for software raid. But I kind of settled for this route already.
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@marcinozga said in Raid 6 Amateur File Server Setup Questions:
I questioned choice of Windows on spiceworks, and his reply was that he was more familiar with it. However, using client OS for server role is just silly - I doubt $800 windows server license is in play here.
That should be a factor, too. Using Windows desktop here is silly and limiting. Using Windows Server is expensive and impractical (unless you are ultra rich or just looking for excuses to get Windows experience.) Using Linux or a BSD or a Solaris variant would all be "server class" options with zero actual cost and all give lots of good career growth and education opportunities.
