Internal or External RAID Setup??

[jedihobbit]

Okay here I am again trying to figure out what would be the most effective use of hardware as I continually re-arrange things.

I currently have 4 x WD 1TB WD1002FAEX SATA 6GB/S hard drives that need a home for server / storage duties. As stated in several places the idea is to run RAID1 (mirrored?) which I guess would be using two drives for each. Now I need to know if there is any advantage to doing a stand alone box such as a Sans Digital TowerRAID TR4M-B - 4 Bay (http://www.sansdigital.com/towerraid/tr4mb.html) or some thing like a “ICY DOCK MB454SPF-B 4 in 3 SATA I, II & III Hot-Swap Internal Backplane Raid Cage” (http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=50) or even their 5 in 4 unit.

With the big switcharoo that I’ve done with which WC’ed box is doing what, if I go with the internal option if would be in the old full tower build I’m calling Celtic Spirit. The basic specs for that would be:

MOBO: MSI 890GXM-E65
CPU: 1055T w/ EK-Supreme HF High Flow – Nickel-Plex
GPUs: 2 x XFX GTX 285 w/ EK-FC285 GTX - Nickel / Plexi
MEMORY: G.SKILL F3-16000CL9D-4GBPIS 4GB 2X2GB

So some things to consider are:

1. The external box I’m looking at is only rated at a SATA II (3Gb/s) transfer rate while the WDs are SATAIII (6Gb/s).
2. I believe the mobo’s RAID controller is rated at 6Gb/s.
3. However as it now stands there would be 1 x optical drive, 1 x 32GB SSD, and one other SATA HDD of some sort. The mobo has six SATA ports.
4. The external box has a “Host interface: eSATA with Port Multiplier” to allow for eSATA or usb 2.0 interface.
So there you have it, any suggestions?

[jedihobbit]

Oh boy just remembered a very important part of this deal……as a server would the HDDs in the external be accessible on a network through the computer it is attached to??

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

External is nice as you can easily access drives (be it, for the price, you can just put a 4 in 3 HDD rack and you have an easy to access solution) and hid it somewhere.

There are options like this that are ethernet, so you can put it in the room where your router or switch is and leave it out of sight, out of mind.

The problems I've seen with esata solutions is that you are using a port multiplier, so all 4 drives share bandwidth from what is equivilently 1 sata port. If you don't stream a LOT of media that's 1080P or have multiple users, external is fine.

If you have room internally and don't plan on swapping out the HDDs a lot, invest in a raid card instead of those two hdd caddies. I think you'll be happier with the speed. If you drop $200 some odd bucks and get an 8 drive raid card, you'd have able to rebuild and expand if you decided to do a raid 5 in the furture.

As to what card, ask the gurus here. I'm still a n00b when it comes to what makes a good raid card.

[jedihobbit]

Variables: Part of a network that consists of 3 PCs………..

Not sure what the drives would be used for except data, photo, drawings/sketches (if I ever get me a CADD program), and music. Maybe back up to my DVD collection but that would be it……that and any potential bragging rights of “hey I’ve got a ………”. Quite possibly have a shot at picking up the external Sans Digital for under a C note.

The “OR” of course is the hot-swap internal backplane raid cage where I would only loose 3 5.25 slots for the 4 HDDs. Is that a useful item?

BTW my late father grew up in New Iberia and Baton Rouge. Also left me 40 acres of "swamp" near DeRidder.