NAS, or another PC?

[iSTELTHYi]

Hey.

Have reached a point where not all of my data is backed up, and looking to increase what i can store.

My only want, is the possiblity to 'find' the backed up stuff in normal windows explorer. Is there any NASs that have this, or do they all run their own software?

Would need capacity for 24TB

I was hoping that i wouldn't have to run 2 PCs to do this.
An recomendations?

[Spiredore]

budget, power use, accessibility ?

[Dayzfan]

Budget?

24tb formatted i take it? will need minimum 9x 3tb's = 24.48 Formatted(JBOD) or 14x2tb 25.34tb (JBOD) or 7x4tb 25.41tb(JBOD) (Formatted size)

Costs for example

2tb = 115 per drive (Seagate ST2000) 1610
3tb = 185 per drive (Seagate ST3000) 1665
4tb = 279 per drive (Hitachi 7K4000) 1953

Assuming we go for 2tb drives, you would need to go custom build, so cpu + ram + board + case + psu + some kind of sata or raid card.

[iSTELTHYi]

budget - 2500ish
power use - doesn't matter
accessibility - doesn't need to be accessed all the time, its just to do a weekly backup of the stuff on my main machine (doesn't have to be an auto backup either, i do most of my stuff manually)

Originally Posted by Dayzfan

Budget?

24tb formatted i take it? will need minimum 9x 3tb's = 24.48 Formatted(JBOD) or 14x2tb 25.34tb (JBOD) or 7x4tb 25.41tb(JBOD) (Formatted size)

Costs for example

2tb = 115 per drive (Seagate ST2000) 1610
3tb = 185 per drive (Seagate ST3000) 1665
4tb = 279 per drive (Hitachi 7K4000) 1953

Assuming we go for 2tb drives, you would need to go custom build, so cpu + ram + board + case + psu + some kind of sata or raid card.

Meant 24TB unformatted (which is my data limit atm)

I was hoping i'd be able to use 2x 4bay NASs, with 3TB drives (2x 12TB unformatted), but was unsure how ealisy i'd be able to transfer files across (and back across should i happen to delete the wrong thing, or drive failure on the main machine)

[Dayzfan]

If it was myself personally i would go.

i3-2120
Asrock H77 Pro
8gb ram
Corsair HX-850
Norco 4224
A boot drive (30gb ssd more then enough)
Then something like an adaptec 5805 or Areca 1680 or Areca 1880/1882
HP SAS expander

Gives you
Expandability (upto 24 hotswap drives)
Almost all kinds of raid levels (reccomend Raid 6, gives you two redundancies)
Low power usage
Ability to expand even further with expanders
Ability to run any OS

Depending on how good your ebay skills are, you should be able to pick everything up except the drives for under 1200 if you shop around. Works out rather cost effective against numerous drive NAS's such as the QNAP etc.

[iSTELTHYi]

Originally Posted by Dayzfan

If it was myself personally i would go.

i3-2120
Asrock H77 Pro
8gb ram
Corsair HX-850
Norco 4224
A boot drive (30gb ssd more then enough)
Then something like an adaptec 5805 or Areca 1680 or Areca 1880/1882
HP SAS expander

Gives you
Expandability (upto 24 hotswap drives)
Almost all kinds of raid levels (reccomend Raid 6, gives you two redundancies)
Low power usage
Ability to expand even further with expanders
Ability to run any OS

Depending on how good your ebay skills are, you should be able to pick everything up except the drives for under 1200 if you shop around. Works out rather cost effective against numerous drive NAS's such as the QNAP etc.

My ebay skills are quite useless, i try and stay away from there as much as possible.

Building a second machine was my last resort, was hoping there would be an easier way to do this (easier doesn't have to mean cheaper, just prefer not to have two PCs)

Keep in mind i already have my main machine, so this will be backup only.

[Dayzfan]

So you want it to hook up directly to your main PC for backup? and not a stand alone unit?

IF thats the case, then something like one of the raid cards i mentioned and one of these

Already pre built ready to go, just plug in a SFF-8088 to SFF-8088

[iSTELTHYi]

Originally Posted by Dayzfan

So you want it to hook up directly to your main PC for backup? and not a stand alone unit?

IF thats the case, then something like one of the raid cards i mentioned and one of these

Already pre built ready to go, just plug in a SFF-8088 to SFF-8088

Its preferrable that its hooked up to the main PC, I already have a second PC (which was going to be the backup) but decided that a second pc would be the last option.

I doint have much experience with RAID (other than the simple setup of my drives onto my mobos onboard RAID) so not entirely sure how i should set it up.

Am i guessing right that it would be my main PC > RAID card (assuming with an external port of somesort) into that SFF-8088. Or will it need multiple SFF-8088 cords?
And if i do it this way, will that just show as extra harddrives in my explorer? Or some other software to transfer to/from etc

[Dayzfan]

You install the raid card as if your installing say a GPU or other add on card, you then plug in the 8088 cable into the back of the raid card + other end into the JBOD enclosure, start it, then start the PC, go into windows, install raid card drivers, go into the management, select what drives you want and what raid level you wish (if you want to run raid, JBOD is fine enough, just no redundancy) then initialize and format, away you go, will come up in explorer.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?...highlight=JBOD thread on those JBOD enclosures.

[iSTELTHYi]

Originally Posted by Dayzfan

You install the raid card as if your installing say a GPU or other add on card, you then plug in the 8088 cable into the back of the raid card + other end into the JBOD enclosure, start it, then start the PC, go into windows, install raid card drivers, go into the management, select what drives you want and what raid level you wish (if you want to run raid, JBOD is fine enough, just no redundancy) then initialize and format, away you go, will come up in explorer.

Sweet. That sounds like what i'm after (infact it'll work better because i can just use that server for all my media, and free up some of my current drives for other stuff)

Do you know if they're avaliable locally with that setup already? Or is it something that seller has done? Postage from the US would be, quite alot lol

Also, what raid should i be using (assuming i use all the slots, all with 3TB drives), and i was planning on getting WD Reds, not really a fan of seagate.

Cheers for your help.

[Stanza]

Search is your friend

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh....php?t=1008201



.

[iSTELTHYi]

Originally Posted by Stanza

Search is your friend

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh....php?t=1008201



.

Search would have been useless not knowing what i was looking for

[Soarer GT]

I'd suggest you rethink your reasoning about placing the drives off your main PC. Especially if it's a windows machine.

Too many things can go wrong. It's annoying when you need to rebuild your PC, but when a crash takes out your PC and your data in 1 hit. It's more than just annoying.

[DarkYendor]

Originally Posted by Dayzfan

Budget?

24tb formatted i take it? will need minimum 9x 3tb's = 24.48 Formatted(JBOD) or 14x2tb 25.34tb (JBOD) or 7x4tb 25.41tb(JBOD) (Formatted size)

Costs for example

2tb = 115 per drive (Seagate ST2000) 1610
3tb = 185 per drive (Seagate ST3000) 1665
4tb = 279 per drive (Hitachi 7K4000) 1953

Assuming we go for 2tb drives, you would need to go custom build, so cpu + ram + board + case + psu + some kind of sata or raid card.

Where did you find 4TB drives for $279? I can see the external for $299... Also, the 3TBs can be had for $169.

3tb = $169ea (WD30EZRX Green) *8 = $1352
4tb = $299ea (Seagate external) *6 = $1794

[Dayzfan]

Originally Posted by DarkYendor

Where did you find 4TB drives for $279? I can see the external for $299... Also, the 3TBs can be had for $169.

3tb = $169ea (WD30EZRX Green) *8 = $1352
4tb = $299ea (Seagate external) *6 = $1794

B&H

Also I didnt pick the wd greens because they can be rather flakey in RAID