The best approach certainly is difficult to answer. I'm running a number of arrays--the newest of which is based on a 16-port Areca 1880ix controller and 12x 2TB Hitachi drives in RAID6. 20T usable, over 1000MB/s reads and writes.
If you really aren't worried about redundancy, then you could go as simple as running on your onboard + cheap basic PCIe SATA controllers and use spanning or striping within Windows, or use NTFS mount points to mount your additional drives as subfolders somewhere else on your filesystem. > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:hardware- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Anthony Q. Martin > Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 7:33 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [H] Lots of hard drives > > Yeah, I have usb3.0 box in here that takes 4 HDs, so in theory I could > go upto 12 TB in that, but only have 4TB in there now, each drive with > its own drive letter. But with current prices, 8TB max seems reasonable > now. But what if I want to go to 50TB? > > On 7/27/2011 8:23 AM, Richard Quilhot wrote: > > I'm using external usb drives myself for a total storage of 3.5tb. > > > > Rick Q > > [email protected] > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 8:18 AM, Anthony Q. > Martin<[email protected]>wrote: > > > >> Windows. Don't need redundancy on the blu-ray folders, I own all the > >> content so if a crash occurs I'll just rebuild (I'd like to rebuild just the > >> crashed out part). I'm going to media browser on top of WMC to get to > the > >> files. I'd like to be able to stream as much as my home network will > >> allow...is disk space/speed a limitation there? I could see myself > >> streaming to two locations at most, presently. > >> > >> On 7/27/2011 6:18 AM, Julian Zottl wrote: > >> > >>> How big do you want the RAID to get (# of drives that is)? I presume > >>> enough performance to stream one bluray... or will you be doing > multiple? > >>> Windows/Linux? Redundancy? > >>> ---- > >>> Julian > >>> > >>> > >>> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 6:04 AM, Anthony Q. > Martin<[email protected]>** > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>> What is the best way to add lots of drives to a computer, with the goal > >>>> being to create a huge space for ripped blu-rays? > >>>> > >>>> I don't think my mobo has sata connectors for more than 4-6. I assume > I > >>>> need a PCI-E card of some sort. What's best? I don't intend to build it > >>>> out > >>>> at once...just over time. > >>>> > >>>>
