Solution for RAID5/6 8 Bay SATA DAS

[diemaker]

Looking for comments or suggestions on the following:

OS would be WinXP or Vista, CPU is 3GHz dual core

Seriously considering doing this: http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/enhance/e8/
1) HighPoint RocketRaid 2322 (mix of software and hardware RAID) - no RAID 6 option
2) Enhance 8 bay enclosure, either ML or eSATA connection (no single card supports eSATA option)
3) 8 500GB SATA drives

- Really don't like the connection options of ML or single eSATA to each drive and having 2 cards, but price, capacity, and performance are reasonable with the ML enclosure
- Worried that software RAID for 2322 will conflict with nForce4 ultra motherboard RAID 0 system drives

Need:
1) more than 4 or 5 drives for better performance and capacity >2 TB in RAID 5
2) must be DAS, not internal option (currently no room internal for more than about 4 additional drives)
3) better than 250 MB/s read/write RAID 5 performance
4) must be PCIe (at least x4), don't have PCI-X slot, x4 PCIe card should also work in x8 or x16 slot

Would like:
1) RAID 6 option, all hardware RAID on host controller/adapter would be great (expensive!)
2) direct connect with eSATA/xSATA from enclosure to controller/adapter, single ports on each
3) controller/adapter <$500

Does anyone have any comments on proposed solution or other suggestions that would work? Thanks!

 

[ddrueding]

As I'm sure you've noticed, going to an external array gives some crappy choices in terms of connection and RAID card (as well as costing quite a bit). Considering the cost of just the enhance enclosure alone, I'd look at getting a larger computer case and doing it internally. Based on my experience, I'd recommend the following:

Case with significant expansion capabilities (Coolermaster Stacker or similar)
Supermicro 5-in-3 SATA hotswap enclosures (cheaper ones are available if you don't need hot-swap)
Hardware RAID with enough ports like this 3Ware RAID Card or, just a bunch of SATA cards and do it in software.
Big-ass power supply from a good company.

So, for the cost of that enclosure you were looking at, you can get a larger case with 10 hot-swap drive bays (and room for more), and a PS capable of driving it all. The hardware RAID card costs a bit, but you do get RAID-6. I would personally just do it in software (running Server 2003).

 

[diemaker]

ddrueding, thanks! Great suggestions, very reasonable. I haven't seen the hotswap enclosures installed, do they just fit into two 5.25" external bays?

My thoughts were to use an external solution mainly to deal with heat issues. I overclock, and I've gone as far as I can with an air cooled system adding extra spot fans to fix the issues I've already had. Otherwise, I would rather do internal as you suggest as well. I've spent months working on this and thinking about what to do, and I agree, external today has few good options, mostly because of enclosure expense and external connection options. From what I've seen, the industry is now moving to provide options, but we're not there yet. I've talked to 3 or 4 enclosure/RAID controller companies, and they've described some things due to arrive later this year, but nothing that has really fit what I'm looking for right now.

 

[diemaker]

OK, make that three 5.25" bays. I actually read the specs!

 

[Bozo]

RE: Supermicro 5-n-3
I replaced the fan on mine with an Antec temperature controlled unit. The stock fan sounds like a B-17 at take-off.

Bozo :joker:

 

[diemaker]

Question on the 5-in-3 enclosure, I could connect the 4 HDs of the enclosure to one x4 interal port on the RAID controller, and leave the 5th HD in the 5-in-3 to act as a mobile dock? It looks like each HD in the enclosure has it's own independent connection? I still want to use a few drives to backup the RAID array offline for critical files. Lastly, I could use the second port on the RAID controller to do RAID 0 to offload the MB software RAID and get hardware RAID?

 

[ddrueding]

The 5-in-3 enclosures have 5 SATA ports on the back, so you can use them any way you want.

The stock fans are loud, but move a crapload of air. If you are the OCing type, your system is probably not quiet to begin with.

Perhaps including a complete system spec would be a good thing, so we can spot any potential conflicts.

 

[diemaker]

Good idea, system specs:
-WinXP Pro with SP2
-ENERMAX Liberty ELT500AWT ATX12V 500W Power Supply
-AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Toledo 2.4GHz running at 3GHz
-DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
-2 Gig PC2700 (4x512GB), Infineon Tech
-BFG Tech BFGR7950512GTOCE GeForce 7950GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 OC Video Card
-x2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3250824AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive in RAID 0 on the motherboard
-x2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive on the other 2 SATA motherboard connections
-x1 old Seagate 300GB ATA drive connected to motherboard ATA, other ATA device is a NEC DVD burner (the HD and burner are on separate ATA connections, using 2 of available 4 ATA devices)
-Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite in PCI slot

 

[diemaker]

Also, can XP see an array >2TB?

 

[Handruin]

Maximum Volume Size
In theory, the maximum NTFS volume size is 264-1 clusters. However, the maximum NTFS volume size as implemented in Windows XP Professional is 232-1 clusters. For example, using 64 KiB clusters, the maximum NTFS volume size is 256 TiB minus 64 KiB. Using the default cluster size of 4 KiB, the maximum NTFS volume size is 16 TiB minus 4 KiB. Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks only support partition sizes up to 2 TiB, you must use dynamic volumes to create NTFS volumes over 2 TiB.

Linky

 

[ddrueding]

Nice. And why are you looking for 250MB/sec+?

 

[diemaker]

Doing drive benchmarks is really difficult; the numbers that follow are rough estimates. Years ago, I had 2 100 GB WD HDs in RAID0 and was only getting about 70MB/s. In the last year I put together a new system, now out of HD space, and I'm getting less than 100 MB/s which is still slow because I move lots of big files - I've really gotten into video editing. Benchmarks I've seen on 8 drive RAID5 are >400MB/s, so I thought >250 MB/s would be reasonable and I wouldn't have to wait 5 to 10 min. to move 30 GB of source and transcoded video files with the DVD image I've created. I don't need the speed right now to capture video faster, but that is also possible in the future.

I've almost changed my mind to do something internal, the price is even more reasonable, and it's a good interim solution since I want to build a quad core in the next 1 to 2 years so my encoding will move along even faster. At that point, I can plan for the 8 drive array.

Regarding the Supermicro 5-in-3 SATA hotswap enclosures, do you have an idea why so many people are having LED problems? I would like to put 4 drives in that enclosure for RAID 5, have the 5th drive as a mobile dock, and 3 or 4 other 250GB internal drives to the second port on the RAID controller to do RAID 0 for my system drive (increase the # drives from the two I use now for faster transfer). Do you see any problems with doing this? Any idea what kind of transfer rates I would get on each? Any other controller suggestions, with only 4 drives, I wouldn't see any need to do RAID6?

 

[Bozo]

The SATA enclosure has a connector for each LED on each drive. The only motherboard that I have seen with 5 hard drive LED connections is a Supermicro. (mine is a P4SCT+II) Plus it has the 'normal' hard drive LED connection. When all is connected properly, the individual LEDs on the individual drive work fine.
If you use the SATA enclosure on any other motherboard, you will have to come up with a '5 into 1' or '4 into 1' wiring scheme.
There is only one wire for each LED instead of two. That wire is the (+) terminal for the LED. The (-) connection for the LED is connected through the 5 pin Molex connector.

Bozo :joker:

 

[ddrueding]

3Ware RAID cards also have LED headers for each drive...