40TB+ unraid server options?

Darren Heal

Both at my wife's business and at home we are using Mediasonic ProRAID 4-slot RAID enclosures.  At the wife's business they're connected to a HP ProLiant microserver and At home to my Bitsa (bits a dis bits a dat) home built server.   2 at home 1 at the business.

Currently $150 ish on Amazon US so figure £150 on Amazon UK.

The 4-bay enclosure will take up to 4 x 12 terabyte 3-1/2 inch SATA discs which just push connect to the back board, no cables needed.  The 4 slot units do all classes of RAID up to RAID10.  There are also 2 and 8 slot models as well I believe.

The enclosures format the hard disks when the enclosures are set up so you would need to back up your data first (always a good idea anyway), fit the hard discs, press a couple of buttons, let the enclosure assemble the RAID array, then transfer the data.

After that Windows sees them as external single discs, no problems, no reformatting for Windows needed.

The oldest one in use by us is 5 years old, so quite reliable too.

Darren Heal

PS HP ProLiant microserver can still be bought new old stock on eBay for under US$400 here, no OS included.  Used around $100.  Factor swapping dollar sign for Pound sign and keeping the same numbers for UK prices and another 100 in either currency for a copy of Windows Home Server 2011.

I think, however, the microserver have quite a low threshold on individual disc capacities, which from memory is 4 x 3 terabytes in RAID10.

MY DIY server has 4 x 3 terabyte (6 TB formatted) and a 4 x 2 TB (4 TB formatted) Mediasonic enclosures plus 4 x 3 TB drives shoehorned into the box giving a 9 TB RAID5 drive as WHS doesn't do RAID10 (or at least WHS plus my motherboard doesn't).  The OS is on a cheap 220 GB SSD to speed things up.  AMD 8 core CPU, 8 gigs of RAM and a wired gigabit Ethernet home network keep things moving along nicely.

One of those external RAID boxes is completely full of ripped DVDs and blurays, the other 50% full and counting.  The internal array is currently about 20% full of work stuff too!

All of my prices exclude the hard discs themselves of course.

Darren Heal

Problem with a one PSU system is that if you loose that PSU you loose everything.  At least with USB connected devices if your server craps out you can move the drives to another PC or server and the drives are one step removed from the main PSU.

The whole idea of a properly set up RAID is to avoid catastrophic data loss if one disk unit goes belly up, and I have had more trouble with hard disks crammed into inadequately cooled PC cases.  At least with properly designed fan cooled enclosures if the electronics detect overheating they shut down.

Horses for courses I guess...

Darren Heal

PS number of solutions equals number if participants cubed is a good rule to go by....

ChuckMountain

Who said it being anything about a one PSU system.  Many rack servers are multi-power supplies anyway.  Even if you didn't you wouldn't necessarily loose data as the raid controllers can have battery back up.  If you power supply breaks just replace and access back to the data again.

The words "crammed into" suggest what was wrong, in any decent system it is designed to have adequate cooling.

USB drives are not designed to be plugged in and run 24/7, there are too many points to go wrong...

Darren Heal

^ A full rack server is a whole different kettle of fish to the average home or small office single box server and you know it.  Most of us don't have the spare broom cupboard or cupboard under the stairs for a rack mounted server, and even if we did, cooling that room becomes another problem.

Whilst I agree your average 2-1/2 inch portable USB drive, powered off the USB socket isn't a solution, I don't see why a properly designed external enclosure that just happens to use USB for communication, not power, should be a problem.  The ones I use also have eSATa comms, just so you know, but the USB seems faster, plugged directly into USB3 sockets on the motherboard.

ChuckMountain

Sorry the way your post read into reply to mine sounded like just a bunch of external USB hard drives plugged into a machine.  A dedicated DAS as you describe is different again and more designed for this purpose.  However you still have the issue if you lose its power supply you are back to the same issue

Darren Heal

If Corbyn gets to be PM it won't matter whether it's one power supply or sixteen.  If there's no juice in the big wires into your house...

ChuckMountain

I've already gone off grid

springtide

I’ve had various custom NAS builds over the years, but completely sold on the Synology after using XPEnology for a year or so.

I have an 8 bay Intel based unit and has been fit and forget; self updating for security, relatively low power and quiet.

There is a decent selection of apps, including the ability to backup your most critical data to the cloud etc

Probably not the best for transcoding, but powerful enough to also run a lightweight VM

If you are determined on  unraid then maybe an ITX build with..

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