[NTLUG:Discuss] NAS devices

[Preston Hagar]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:37 AM, Ralph <sfreader at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Howdy,
>  I am trying to figure how these backplanes work.  Are SATA drives all
> setup with the same location for power and data connectors?  If not,
> then only certain drives would work in the Chenbro RM21508T2-BH case you
> point to.  I don't find any documentation on that.
>
>  So, it would seem that I would need to order something like the
> following:
>  Chenbro RM21508T2-BH    chassis and sata backplane  $330
>  Zippy R2W-6460P   redundant power supply    $376
>  TYAN S2925G2NR AM2 nForce Prof 3400 ATX Server Motherboard  $200
>  AMD Phenom 9650 2.3GHz  $200
>  4 gig ram (2 2gig DDR2 sticks)  $110
>  3ware 9550SXU-8LP 64bit/133MHz PCI-X SATA II RAID  $463
>
>  I think that is everything except for hard drives and I have not found
> those yet.  I have not looked hard, either.  I figured I needed to know
> if any Enterprise Sata drive would work or just certain ones.
> Does this seem like a good setup?  I have a feeling it may be overkill
> on CPU power, but it is not that expensive and I have been moderate on
> everything else.  Maybe too moderate, but I would like other opinions on
> that.
> Thanks,
> Ralph
>
>

On all SATA drives (at least that I have come across) the power and
data connectors are in the same place, so you can get pretty much any
drives you want.  That being said, I would recommend the Seagate
7200.11 series.  They come with 5 year warranties, and support NCQ
(which the 3ware card supports) which makes a noticeable difference in
throughput (although I know you said it wasn't a huge concern, more
speed is always nice).

Here is a link for the 750 GB model at NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148298

It is $130,

The 500 GB is $85
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288

The 1 TB is $190 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148274

Depending on your space needs and budget, you might consider getting 5
or 6 750 GB or 1TB drives, put 4 in RAID 1+0 and then the other one or
two as hotspares.  If you need all 8 bays to achieve your storage
requirements, you can always just do 8 drives in a RAID 1+0 type of
setup, you just won't have the hotspares.

Also, that chassis has a spot for an internal hard drive.  In the
past, on some machines, I have found it beneficial to stick a 40 GB or
so IDE or SATA drive in there that connects directly to the
Motherboard that I use for the OS disk.  Although I have been able to
boot some flavors of Linux from the 3ware array, it is sometimes
quicker and easier to just have a "standard" disk to boot from, and
then keep all your important data on the redundant disk array.

Hope this helps.

Preston