That's how I started! :) But the desire for ease of use for my family (if it's not in plain sight, they can't find the drive, folder or location of a desired movie or TV show) and it just got "out of control!" A couple of drives here. A Sans Digital tower there. A new HTPC in the family room. Gigabit network hooking upstairs bedroom to the main computer downstairs. You name it, it got added. I ended up spending lots of time "cataloging," especially when adding drives. The pooling aspect of FlexRAID allows me to have one BIG drive with a folder for Blu-rays, one for DVDs, and another for recorded TV shows. Previously, a desired file might have been on one of 4 computers and any one of the approximately 30 drives. I did compromise awhile back and create 8 and 10 TB JBODs on the Sans Digital towers and internal in the main HTPC. This made it slightly easier to catalog.
Of course, all of this ignores the "building computers, etc." is fun factor of this hobby. :) If nothing else, I have learned lots about SAS (which had intimidated me before), building my own NAS, and a little about Server software. Always a fun (if not occasionally, frustrating) experience. To Brian: I am doing exactly that-One big drive with 3 shared folders. The multiple pool idea was to facilitate doing smaller Updates/validates that could be done overnight rather than over 3 or 4 days. Once I get the drive set up as desired, I will give the parity backup another try and see if once it is set if the periodic updates of a static pool are quick. Thanks for the input and feedback. Jim > -----Original Message----- > From: hardware-boun...@lists.hardwaregroup.com [mailto:hardware- > boun...@lists.hardwaregroup.com] On Behalf Of Anthony Q. Martin > You guys are so sophisticated! I'm just stringing all my drives off a PC with > external enclosures (10 drives inside the box, 8 more in two four-bay > enclosures). Using 3 and 4 TB drives (greens, mostly, from WD and seagate). > Mine or just NTFS mount volumes all shared over my GB network. That way, > I can just navigate to any drive and any folder to play my rips from my other > HTPCs. Easy setup. If a drive goes down, I just re-rip as I have all the optical > discs as backup. Poor man's setup. Lazy man's setup. :) Raid is too > complicated for my brain and I don't see my use as super critical. Ripping to > mkv is mostly done in the background while working on other stuff. > > On 2/24/2014 8:30 AM, Brian Weeden wrote: > > Jim, have you thought about setting up multiple shares instead of > > multiple pools? For example, you could have one big drive pool with > > all your data but share out any folder on that pool as a separate network > share. > > > > > > > > --------- > > Brian > > > > > > > > On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 2:46 PM, Brian Weeden > <brian.wee...@gmail.com>wrote: > > > >> If you're doing an initialization and building parity for 23 TB of > >> data, I can expect that to take quite a while. The update I'm not so > >> sure about. It should only need up update parity for whatever files > >> were changed. So if the update needs just as long, that indicates maybe > all your data changed. > >> But if it's just video files then it shouldn't. > >> > >> I do know people have talked about exempting things like nfo files > >> and thumbnails from the RAID so the parity process will skip them. > >> > >> > >> > >> --------- > >> Brian > >> > >> > >> > >> On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 2:17 PM, James Maki > <jwm_maill...@comcast.net>wrote: > >> > >>> Hi Brian, > >>> > >>> I switched to FlexRAID to combine a total of 23 2tb drives spread > >>> over 5 Sans Digital port multiplier towers plus extra drives on > >>> several PCs used as HTPCs. I have ripped all my Blu-ray, DVDs and > >>> recorded TV to the various arrays and over time had just gotten too > >>> large to easily manage. I wanted to centralize everything on one > >>> system. The system I started with utilized a AMD FM2 motherboard > >>> with 8 onboard SATA ports, 2 SAS ports on an add-on card (for a > >>> total of 8 additional SATA ports, and 3 of the Sans Digital towers > >>> (5 > >>> disks each) for a total of 31 drives distributed as 1 OS drive, 4 > >>> parity drives and 26 data drives (several were empty). When this > >>> continued to fail on creation, I moved the Sans Digital based drives > >>> to a 6 port SAS controller card. > >>> > >>> When I still had problems, I found that several drives were bad > >>> (scan disk), including the 1st parity drive. Replacing the drives > >>> gave me a successful creation but it took 4 days. The Update took > >>> another 4 days. That's when I started having second thoughts on > >>> using the Parity backup option. I guess I am just expected too much > >>> from the software. That's when I thought creating several pools > >>> would reduce the strain for each update/validate. > >>> > >>> I am using a modestly powered AMD dual core 3.2 GHz processor and > >>> mostly consumer drives (mixed with a few WD reds). I went with > >>> Windows Home Server for economy reasons ($50 vs. $90-130 for > Windows > >>> 7 Home Premium/Professional). I utilized a HighPoint RocketRAID > >>> 2760A SAS RAID controller card. I am using RAID over File System > >>> 2.0u12, SnapRAID 1.4 Stable and Storage Pool 1.0 Stable (although > >>> not using the SnapRAID at this point). > >>> > >>> Overall, I am happy with the pooling facility of the software. I > >>> just wish my large setup would not choke the parity option. Thanks > >>> for all the input. > >>> > >>> Not sure if there is an answer to my problem. More powerful hardware? > >>> Reading the forums seems to indicate that hardware should NOT be the > >>> bottleneck. There seems to be the option of Updating/Validating only > >>> portions of the RAID each night. More research is needed on that > >>> front. My current plan at this point is to fill the RAID in the > >>> pooling only mode, make sure all names and organization is correct, > >>> then commit to a stable, unchanging file system that I will then > >>> commit to the SnapRAID parity option. That way I will only need to > Validate/Verify periodically. > >>> > >>> Thanks, > >>> > >>> Jim > >>> > >>>> -----Original Message----- > >>>> From: hardware-boun...@lists.hardwaregroup.com [mailto:hardware- > >>>> boun...@lists.hardwaregroup.com] On Behalf Of Brian Weeden > >>>> Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 6:06 AM > >>>> To: hardware > >>>> Cc: hwg > >>>> Subject: Re: [H] What are we up to (Was-Are we alive?) > >>>> > >>>> Hi Jim. Sorry to hear you're having such troubles, especially since > >>>> I > >>> think I'm > >>>> the one who introduced FlexRAID to the list. > >>>> > >>>> I've been running it on my HTPC for several years now and (knock on > >>> wood) > >>>> it's been running fine. Not sure how big your setup is, I'm running > >>>> 7 > >>> DRUs > >>> and > >>>> 2 PRUs of 2 TB each. I have them mounted as a single pool that is > >>>> shared > >>> on > >>>> my LAN. I run nightly parity updates. > >>>> > >>>> Initilaizing my setup did take several hours, but my updates don't > >>>> take > >>> very > >>>> long. Sometimes when I add several ripped HD movies at once it > >>>> might > >>> take > >>> a > >>>> few hours but that's it. How much data are you calcluating parity > >>>> for at > >>> the > >>>> initialization? Do you have a lot of little files (like thousand of > >>> pictures) or lots > >>>> of files that change often? Either of those could greatly increase > >>>> the > >>> time it > >>>> takes to calcluate parity. > >>>> > >>>> I'm running it under Win7, and unfortunately I don't have any > >>>> experience with Server 2011 or any of the Windows Server builds. > >>>> > >>>> From what I've gathered you can only have one pool per system. I > >>>> think that's a limit of how things work. But I've never needed more > >>>> than one > >>> pool, > >>>> so it hasn't bothered me. > >>>> > >>>> For hardware, I'm running the following based largely on a HTPC > >>>> hardware guide I found online. It's based on a server chipset to > >>>> maximize the bandwidth to the drives. > >>>> > >>>> Intel Xeon E3-1225 > >>>> Asus P8B WS LGA 1155 Intel C206 > >>>> 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM > >>>> Corsair TX750 V2 750W > >>>> 2x Intel RAID Controller Card SATA/SAS PCI-E x8 Antec 1200 V3 Case > >>>> 3x > >>> 5in1 > >>>> hot swap HDD cages > >>>> > >>>> Part of the key is the controller cards. I'm not actually using the > >>> on-board > >>>> RAID, just using it for the ports and the bandwidth. I've got two > >>>> SAS > >>> to > >>> SATA > >>>> cables plugged into each card, which gives me a total of 16 SATA ports. > >>> The > >>>> cards are each on an 8x PCIe bus that gives them a lot of bandwidth. > >>> Boot > >>>> drive is an older SSD that is attached to one of the SATA ports on > >>>> the > >>> mobo. > >>>> Once trick I figured out early on was to initialize your array with > >>>> the > >>> biggest > >>>> number of DRUs you think you'll eventually have, even if you don't > >>> actually > >>>> have that many drives at the start. That way you can add new DRUs > >>>> and > >>> not > >>>> have to reinitialize the array. > >>>> > >>>> When I started using FlexRAID it was basically a part-time project > >>>> being > >>> run > >>>> by Brahim. He's now created a fully-fledged business out of it and > >>>> has > >>> gone > >>>> way beyond just FlexRAID. Apparently he now has two products. I > >>>> think > >>> the > >>>> classic FlexRAID system I'm still using has become RAID-F (RAID > >>>> over > >>>> filesystem) and he's got a new Transparent RAID product as well: > >>>> http://www.flexraid.com/faq/ > >>>> > >>>> I'm still running 2.0u8 (snapshot 1.4 stable) so I guess at some > >>>> point > >>> I'll need > >>>> to move over to the commercial version. But for now it's working > >>>> fine > >>> so I > >>>> don't want to disturb it. > >>>> > >>>> Hope all this helps, and happy to answer any other questions > >>>> however I > >>> can. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> --------- > >>>> Brian > >>>
