RAID enclosure recommendations?

[tavshed]

I have many 500GB and 1TB hard drives and would like to put them in RAID enclosures and attach to a Mac Mini (USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt). Any recommendations?

- Mike

[patrick]

I've been pondering doing the same what is your budget? Is is for live data, backup or media server?

[tavshed]

I was think of doing two. One with live data and another for backups.

I picked up a SansDigital 4 drive raid enclosure (~175 on Amazon), but it has already failed. I'd like a thunderbolt enclosure since they will be attached to a Mac mini, but I can't find any that don't already have drives.

I'm not in short suplly of drives. I have 12 1TB drives and 4 500GB 3.5" drives. Plus several 2.5 500GB drives.

- Mike

[patrick]

Whats your budget? There are very few mother boards out right now that support thunderbolt but would be ideal for a RAID 0 for live data and you could get a less powerful board for the backup system of which I would recommend freeNAS. Thunderbolt boards are upward of $200 sans CPU RAM and case.

[Marc M]

Man I wish I had a few of those 12 1TB drives

Back on topic

I would also recommend a second machine with FreeNAS

[tavshed]

My goal was to reduce the number of computers, but FreeNAS does look good.


- Mike

[Kevin Fusselman]

I'm using FreeNAS in a VM environment and have had some trouble getting ACLs working correctly. That said, it's nothing I couldn't fix with the console.

[patrick]

Be warned RAIDZ2 requires one gig of RAM for every TB of HDD space. I'm not how every sure on the processor requirements. There are 3 thunderbolt boards available http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627&IsNodeId=1&Description=thunderbolt&name=Intel%20Motherboards&Order=BESTMATCH

On Friday, October 5, 2012 3:00:38 PM UTC-5, tavshed wrote:

[patrick]

IF you have time check out this RAID mod video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BatakM9iAik also check out his other mod videos they are pretty fun to watch. http://willudesign.com/ModsTop.html

On Friday, October 5, 2012 3:00:38 PM UTC-5, tavshed wrote:

[James Harr]

Also, FreeBSD's [and FreeNAS's] NFS server is pretty crash happy. Kevin -- any comments on this?

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^[:wq^M

[James Harr]

If you are [or anyone else is] looking for a hot-swap cage, I have one of these I've been looking to sell off.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817995001R

--
^[:wq^M

[tavshed]

I'm looking for something that just works.

- Mike

[The_IndustrialPhreak]

What file system are you planning on? 

NTFS, HFS+, EXT~x, or drum roll ZFS.

What hardware and bus drives do you have to bring to the table? 

Do you want something set and forget or something you need to attend regular OLUG meetings to maintain?

On Friday, October 5, 2012 3:00:38 PM UTC-5, tavshed wrote:

[tavshed]

Plan is to connect to Max Mini running OS X Server and share it for other Macs to access.

USB 2.0, FireWire 800, Thunderbolt

I'd like to plug it in and leave it. All our pics, videos, stuff we never want to have disappear will be on it. I will have it backed off to an offsite NAS.

- Mike

[tavshed]

Should be Mac not Max

- Mike

[patrick]

I've got just the build for you. Since you will only be sharing to other Macs Down load the ZEVO community edition http://zevo.getgreenbytes.com/forum.php Install that on the Mac Mini Max out the RAM to 16GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239389 Get the thunderbolt to eSATA adapter http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10574

Then get an eSATA equipped drive enclosure this one has 8 bays isn't too expensive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817576012

Then just set up a RAIDZ2 on it and plug the Mac Mini via gigabit to your router and share it with the rest of the machines.

May still be cheaper to build a custom machine. ZEVO is limited to 16TB based on the limited RAM you can put on most Macs and it doesn't have de-duplication like freeNAS. Though I think it is the best to go with your Mac Mini controller.

[patrick]

Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 would be faster but I can't find that adapter as of yet.

[patrick]

You could also get a couple of cheap 5 bays and mirror those together for redundancy or to segregate different data types.

[tavshed]

Ended up using a four bay RAID USB 3.0 enclosure that attaches to the Mac Mini for local files.

I then loaded up drives in a couple year old computer box and installed Debian. Ran rsync over ssh locally and then dropped the computer off at my parents.

WiFi connection at their house, but the bottleneck is their cable modem bandwidth.

In the end I have plenty of local redundant space and an off-site backup.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

[patrick]

Didn't go for ZEVO?

[tavshed]

No, I decided to stick with what I know. Several of the ideas were compelling, but finding the time to fully explore was not available. I'll review them again if I find the time.

- Mike