1 TerraByte Server - how should i do this?

[Mr.Guvernment]

Hey all,

Yes, i need the room!..lol

i am aiming by the end of the year to have a 1 terrabyte server (dont ask why..lol)

now, since WD has the 250g out - i was simply considering 4 of these in a single computer (leave one out so i can format with a cdrom drive, then put in the forth) - i don't want raid really, as it is one more thing that can go wrong.

now i know the 250g drives are not actually 250g, so i will not have 1,000g with just them - but i already have 3 120g drives :)

Can anyone suggest the best way of going about making, if possible - 1 system with 4 HD's in it? IDE or SATA - since the 250g drives from WD are SATA i beleive....


what mobo? - do any mobos support more then 4 hard drives....(that dont use Xeon's - or could i could just get a lower 1.* something xeon....)
Ram amount? (512 should do it)
CPU - i will likey just throw in a low P4 (has some recent issues with an AMD so going intel) or a low end xeon if now p4 mobos support more then 4 HD's.

[GT2000]

You could just get an IDE card, which would allow you to house 8 IDE devices in your system rather than just 4, but that's just one of the many ways of doing it.

[Mr.Guvernment]

did not even think of that! - how good are the IDE cards? decent transfer speeds between the ide's and PCI?

[Skiing Squirrel]

100 or 133. The PCI bus should be able to handle those speeds I think.

[speedy4500]

3ware makes RAID cards with 4, 8, and 12 channels. I'd think that you can surpass the RAID function and have it act simply as a hard drive controller, but I'm not sure, you'd want to contact 3ware first.

[Mr.Guvernment]

shall check them out!

some one elsewhere suggest an old "th or td"? array with a p3 xeon or something..

[orion25]

Two Promise IDE cards (Non-RAID) and you are set. Might want to get a small (<20gb HDD) for your OS so you can reformat and swap OS's at will. It would be on the MOBO IDE Bus. Just a thought.

**EDIT** Hey I got me three stars now!!!

[Diggrr]

My Abit Max motherboard can support 8 harddrives on the ATA133 bus (4 master, 4 slave) and doesn't necessarily have to use the raid function.
I'm not sure however if the Max boards come in Pee4 trim.

I was thinking of 8 20Gig drives for my terabyte. The more massive the individual drive, the tougher it is to get some programs (and OS's) to read them. I'm not sure of the limit however, 20Gig drives are cheap enough to buy one or two a week.

The Promise cards are a great solution too, as my Max only has 3 PCI slots to make room for the controller. :p

[pip]

well I'm sorry but I have to ask why?

[bubba gump]

I would run it in RAID 0 just because that seems the logical way....and hte cpu seems fine but for a server that is using a terabyte of data storage i imagine it would need 1gig of ram for the massive things it would be doing ;) 768 would be doable, so woule 512 but if it was my server (which i know it isnt) 1g would be the way to go

[Neo Demi]

id get two pci ide cards thatl give me 8 ide slots on each card, and use the onboard ide for my cd and os hd. then get cheap 80 gig samsungs or other makes at ata133 and just add until i had 16 hds = 1280 gb, though itll look like less, probably about 1200 in windows, itll BE 1280 gb. id use a cheap board like an 810lmr, or a cheap p4 board with a few pci slots (dont know any good p4 boards, im all amd at the mo) as long as it comes with good onboard networking, and a built in modem (for additional networking i belive the modem can be used) and id definitely max out on ram, ddr if possible, because the machine would need to do a LOT of swapping between files on seperate drives. wouldnt overclock it though, keep it at stock, because once running it would be rock solid, but i the machine is even slightly oc'd it may 'upset' the pci and if one drive aint to hot at higher speeds it could bring down half the drives at once.

[AMD'er]

8 20's are a waste of money....but I agree with the person who said use 1 20 for the OS andprogram drive...that way if you ever have any problems you can just format that drive

[aftermath]

3ware cards work well. look for a 64 bit pci board if u can and u will see beter transphers.

[bafbrian]

That's a whole lot of space.

[Mr.Guvernment]

Originally posted by pip
well I'm sorry but I have to ask why?


i have alot of files - between 2 computers i already have almost 500g full :)



i am likely gonna do the PCI card route -

P.S 8 x 20g does not = 1 terrabyte..lol

[FunkDaMonkMan]

either get a pci card, or a board with onboard RAID.

My brother's mobo has 2 regular ide channels (4 devices) and a 4 channel raid card built in (8 devices). Raid cards don't have to run raid, so you could use 12 regular devices if you wanted to.


btw.... that's a lot of something you are storing.

[Cereal Killa]

Originally posted by Mr.Guvernment

i have alot of files - between 2 computers i already have almost 500g full :)


WOW :eek: :eek:

[Neco]

Heh, I could easily eat up a TB or more... and it would still be 100% pr0n/game cd-image free :p

[JigPu]

You guys are insane... I could only hit a TB if I made legal backups (:D) of all my CDs...

My suggestion would be to find drives that will end up being the cheapest $/GB. When getting that much space, you'll want to be sure you don't spend more than you have to! Also, the fewer drives, the better IMO. Better orginization with folders, and you won't have to mess with drive size restrictions as much.

Definatly get 1 extra HD for the OS and whatever else needs to be set up to get the box running.

JigPu

[Diggrr]

Originally posted by Mr.Guvernment
P.S 8 x 20g does not = 1 terrabyte..lol

No kidding. But look how many people it took to do the math.. :D

And 20 Gig drives are worth it. One goes down, so what. That's only a small loss compared to 250 Gig drives.
I also like being able to buy one per week versus saving for weeks to get the one drive that isn't sold locally unless you want to throw money away at worst buy.
You also don't have to dink around with partitions to get windoze to see it (depends on your version) and boot disks won't have any problem seeing them either.

'Sides, if you have that many files on your computer, you need a good burner and 100 pack of blanks, not more harddrive.

[Mr.Guvernment]

it si true 20g is small and easyy to replace - but for the actuial amount of towers you would need to case the drives is it worth it...


most anything that end up on this server will be burned with in time, a short, time, if i lose a drive, oh well, life goes on, there will not be anything that is life ending on it :) that is for sure.

for me it is easier with larger as said, size restrictions can be come a pain, especially since i do not want to use raid, - more things to go wrong.

:D

this probably won't happen for a while, and i have until the end of the year to do this, that is my goal, so by then the 250g drives should be fairly cheaper, but then who knows that will be out by then! :)

[pik4chu]

personally I would recommend doing it with 120gig drives and have 9 of them.. or a combo of 120 and 200 cause the cost difference between 120, 200 and 250 is downright extreme. Im also working towards a terabyte, hopefully by the end of the summer and it will be consisted of 120 and 200gig drives (depending on deals I find and whatnot) currently have 2 120 and a 200 myself, plus a few smaller ones for OS and programs. but the 120 costed me only 100 bucks each (They are WD SE's btw) so thats 200 bucks for 222gigs (using 2^30 multi for true space)where 250gig drives cost over 300 each. just my 2cents though. But as for the other ideas, the PCI card is the best way to go (if you dont have onboard IDE RAID controller that is).

[Mr.Guvernment]

well

got a promice ata100 4 drive pci card and it is doing great and was only $80 canadian - i am now upto 570g's and when i go back in a month i hope to get the other 500g added :)

[donny_paycheck]

Originally posted by orion25
Two Promise IDE cards (Non-RAID) and you are set. Might want to get a small (<20gb HDD) for your OS so you can reformat and swap OS's at will. It would be on the MOBO IDE Bus. Just a thought.
This is a good idea. Keep your OS on a small, seperate drive.

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^^^ yup

got my O/S on a small 40g drive OS/ Programs on a C and D Drive.

:)


so thus far it is

3 x 120g WD 8mb
1 x 200gWD 8mb
1 x 40g Sumsung
1 x 40g Maxtor

[Gnufsh]

With that many drieves, why not go RAID 5? That way you have increased performance and redundancy if one goes down. What are you going to be using this for? IF it's some sort ofdatabase server and you want that much space, you would probably want dual opterons and a couple gigs of ram. If it's just for files... I say, go with some sort of server moterboard with 64-bit PCI slots and use a nice big card for a RAID 5 array (you will have to add an extra drive or two to get the same size), the speed and reliability are worth it (if you have the cash.

[Mr.Guvernment]

:)


i could hve the cash - but i dont havea reason to spend it

it is file server - i dont do file transfer betwene drives often - maybe @ most 50-100g a month if that.

i do a good amount of transfering off the driver over the netwrok so really to spend that much money at the moment is not worth it for me.

in the future if i increase the bandwidth to this *wink* file *wink* server i may consider a better set up, for now though the above is doing just fine :)


On a side note, before the PCi card (no problems yet) that was as of Oct 9th 2003 - the system has been running 24/7 for almost 2 and a 1/2 years now with out any hard drive s failures or any problems - it started running April 2001.

go team windows!
:D

[kaltag]

A guy at work actually is using a sytem with 1.5TB of information :D. It's insane, Mostly pron and HIS OWN MP3 collection from his own cds and ripped DVD movies. he has
1x40GB for OS
4x120GB
3x180GB
2x200GB
It's actually 1460GB but it's close enough :D He's using some generic IDE controller cards from work and all has worked well. The idea of being able ti fill up that much space is sickening to me :D.
3x200

[9mmCensor]

One thing about adding all kinds of little drives (or a large number of larger drives) is that you will run out of powersupply connections, forcing you to use a separate PSU for some of your drives.

[twump]

any mobo with onboard raid can handle 8 ide drives without needing to waste a pci slot. you don't actually have to use the raid function. just install the drivers for the raid channel and plugin your drives. each will be recognized as a single drive unless you decide to go the raid-0 route


I'm on a abit kx7-333r with 4 hd's dvd-+rw and dvd-rom. i could easily add another 2 drives without conflict.

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^^ very true

i know one day i will upgrade to a "real sevrer"

as for the power supply - i got a 520watt vantec which still leaves me with about 3 plugs left after having all those Hd's and a 24x cd burner :)


not to mention i have 4 80mm fans blowing over the HD's and the amount of power comingout of the supply is still steady! it is a wicked power supply.


and i got a server tower - so it is not a hug issue to add a second power supply.

me try to get some pics up of the computer.

[Mr.Guvernment]

okay here it is

it is an old server case my uncle use for his last system - on ym visit to toronto in Nov i am going to replace the case.

also my uncle smokes like mad - hence why it is so nasty and yellow - i cleaned it once last year but backt o normal! - if the server ever dies it will be from cancer from second hand smoke!

this pic i took before i cleaned it this time around.

is a p4 1.4 @ 1.7
512 pc2100
3 x 120g WD 8mb
1 x 200g WD 8mb
1 x 40g Samsung
1 x 409 Maxtor

i have running off the pci ide card the 24x burner / 40g maxtor / 120g drive.

i have running off the main ide channels the 40g samsung - O/S and the other 2 120g drives and the 200g drive.


http://200.12.238.21:6543/server/01.jpg
http://200.12.238.21:6543/server/02.jpg
http://200.12.238.21:6543/server/03.jpg
http://200.12.238.21:6543/server/04.jpg

[Darkseid]

niiiice

[Mr.Guvernment]

will look nicer once i get a purdier case for it for sure - maybe light it up a little :)