I have been lurking for sometime, but now the time has cometh for me to make some decisions. I want to have 16TB storage capacity, but I'm not sure which is the best way.

I have now 9TB of media, spread between my DROBO and my EX 485, I have just taken delivery of 3 Hitachi 2TB drives, (which are phenomenal by the way), to replace the 1Tb's from the EX485, I wanted to remove the 3 external USB disks from the EX as well, this has been one, and I'm happy to say the speed is now back to what it should be, using USB drives really slows the thing down. Now the problem is, my media is growing every week.

I know I'm going to end up running 2 media servers on the same network, I have no problem with this, but what do I do for the second?

I have specced up a 10 SATA motherboard, but it is a LGA1156 socket, so overkill and more pricey, I have found a great Lian Li case, the whole lot, but this will cost over 1000 USD excluding disks, I could add more disks later using PCI cards as well.

On the other hand, I could buy a new ex 495, a TR5m, for 850 USD, 1.5TB included, because the port multiplier works, on the EX 495, I could get 8 disks in this setup but at what compromise to speed.

What would you do?

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Mac Pro Quad 2009, MBA REV B, DROBO, HP EX 485 6.4TB

HI watteau , welcome to the gang

I would say it really depends, do you think you will run out of storage going with the EX495 + TR5M 18TB max)? I actually set up my dad with this exact setup. If you think you will exceed the storage you could get from this I would recommend going the DIY way. I know you can add a USB enclosure to get more storage, and i know other people have used USB enclosures with their MSSs as well, but I have been hesitant to use USB enclosures and it is just another device hanging off the MSS, taking up a spot on the power strip, etc...

I have an EX470 + TR4M, but once I realized that I needed more storage I went the DIY route (you can see in my signature). This gave me the most amount of flexability and a lot more room to expand. I have 16 bays in my DIY at about 15TB so far. I still have two free bays and once those are filled I will start replacing the 1TB drives with 2TB, so I should be set for a long time.

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Thanks for your input, have you noticed an increase in speed since you ditched the ESATA enclosure, I had to use USB, and so I bought 3 of the WD my studio 1TB's as they were going cheap, equivalent to 85 USD each, my speeds were terrible,

You said in your build post that you only wanted the system and rom on the MB sata ports, I want to have everything on the MB sata, to keep it simple and also I can't find a plain vanilla SATA card with 4 or 8 ports on full speed pci-e. Maybe you can shed some light on this?

How have you handled power to the drives? I have specced a 15 connector power supply, but I'm sure there is a cheaper way, below are the links to my chosen items, if you have the time any comments would be appreciated, I know its massive overkill my spec, but I'm limited by the mobo, I'm sure that the more ports on the mobo the better.

mobo -http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128402
processor - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115215
case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119187
enclosure - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817993002
power supply - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817194039

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Mac Pro Quad 2009, MBA REV B, DROBO, HP EX 485 6.4TB

Hi watteau.

Have you considered a Norco 4220 case? It can accommodate 22 drives (2-2.5" and 20-3.5"). It can be rack mounted, desk mounted or stood on its side using shims behind the rack ears.

As for the PSU; I think the 1050 watt PSU you've spec'd is way overkill for 16 drives. I used a 750 watt PSU in Andromeda and its even overkill for 21 drives. I could have probably gotten away with a 650 watt or even a 550 watt PSU.

As for SATA cards, you should consider the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 or the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

I agree with Cavediver regarding the PSU and Sata controller cards. Also, why are you looking at a core i5, do you plan on doing more (such as encoding or other CPU intensive processes) with this media server? If you are just looking for storage/streaming I would stick with a dual core

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

have you checked out cavedivers build?

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4816

It is a nice setup, and as long as you get a motherboard with multiple PCIe (X4 minimum) connectors, you can use fairly inexpensive SAS 8087 capable controllers, which keeps the cost down.

I am building something similar, with the same case, but it will be using Windows 2008 Server R2, and I will be running a bunch of virtual machines on it, 1 of which will be a virtual WHS system (we'll see how that goes). I bought a fancy dual processor motherboard, but you don't have to go that extreme, for just WHS. I am using an ASUS Z8PE-D12, with 2 Xeon E5520's: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131373
This mobo has 6 SATA connectors, and the option for their "pike" card (about $100), which gets you 8 more SATA connectors for a Raid/Jbod setup on the motherboard, and it also has 4 PCIe connectors as well, for another controller if you want to get all 22 possible drives working in the Norco case.

Mitch