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Storage 8 port RAID card with ability to add drive

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Picarro, 17 Nov 2012.

  1. Picarro

    Picarro What's a Dremel?

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    Hiya people

    Due to a recent set of break ins in my area I am looking at getting some CCTV for my house. I am already set on cameras and now I have turned my attention to storage.

    In my server I have 2x2tb disks and 2x1tb disks. I will probably buy two additional 2tb disks and for the sake of redundancy I would like to run them in a RAID 5 or 6 configuration. What I would also like to do is add drives as I go along and the RAID fills up, without having to rebuild the entire raid and thereby loosing all of my data.

    The card need not be fast or pretty, but reliability and the ability to spin down the drives is a plus in regards to power management. Also, the computer has an i3 530, but I guess that is quite enough for any raid card.

    Oh, and it has to be PCIe.
     
  2. play_boy_2000

    play_boy_2000 ^It was funny when I was 12

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    1: Don't use RAID on a camera system. It's only worth it for banks/casinos etc.
    2: Don't mix your data: put recordings on one disk(s) and your normal data on others.
    3: You don't need nearly as much storage space as you think:
    With 720p h264 cameras, you can get suprisingly good image quality at as little as 768kbit/s with key frame interval at 4 seconds. Assuming 4 cameras, you could run them @ 1.5mbps and still have a 2 week recording period fit onto a 1TB HDD (assumed to be the longest time you'd normally be away from home).

    Even if you cheap out and get MPEG4 cameras, you'd only need to increase the bit-rate (and storage) by 20-30%
     
  3. maestro0428

    maestro0428 Master Modder

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    Had that happen in my area a couple years back. I thought about a security system, but I bought a shotgun and a Rottweiler instead, lol. Poor soul that breaks into my house. Play boy has some good points there. Maybe you don't really need a RAID system. The only 8 port RAID card I have ever used is the High Point Rocket RAID 2720, but I am using it in RAID 0. The card has been very reliable and does support RAID 6. If you do go that route, make sure you get the cables to go with it.
     
  4. Picarro

    Picarro What's a Dremel?

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    Unfortunately I am based in Denmark, which puts a stop to the whole shotgun + rottweiler thing. Although if it was allowed I would have a weapon in an instant!

    The reason for me wanting to put the camera footage on the same drives as everything else is simply due to laziness. I have wanted to uprade my storage system to a RAID system instead of JBOD for quite som time and as my server is positioned in a hidden cupboard it is unlikely to be stolen in the event of a break in.

    I will have a look at some RocketRaid cards.
     
  5. dullonien

    dullonien Master of the unfinished.

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    I'd recommend a RocketRAID card as well. I recently purchased a RocketRAID 2680SGL second-hand from Speed here on Bit and it fits your needs perfectly. 8 port, PCIe x1 and supports RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10.

    You can expand the RAID array to include new discs, I had to do so myself as I transferred all my data over from my old motherboard RAID set-up. It does take a while though, expanding my RAID5 array from 4 x 1.5TB discs to 7 x 1.5TB discs took a few days to re-build, but it did it without hitch and all my data survived.

    I believe the SAS cables might be sold separately (or at least you might only get one included), so check if you need to purchase a second to run more than 4 drives.
     
  6. play_boy_2000

    play_boy_2000 ^It was funny when I was 12

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    I still reccomend keeping the data seperate.

    If you want, you could go 4x 2TB raid 5 and use your 1TB disks (which you wouldn't be able to use in your array anyways), either JBOD or in RAID 1 for the camera storage.

    +1 for the 2680, which has served me well for the past 2+ years.
     
  7. Picarro

    Picarro What's a Dremel?

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    But why? I don't see a compelling reason for keeping the data separate versus just having a large raided storage solution.

    I would probably keep the 2x1tbs as backup for the most important data on the raid array.
     
  8. play_boy_2000

    play_boy_2000 ^It was funny when I was 12

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    Two reasons: wear and tear + power consumtion

    If you record to a raid array, all 4 disks are always powered up and being constantly written to. You'll almost certinly reduce the life expectancy of all the disks in your array and between the raid controller + HDDs draw upwards of an additional 10W.
     

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