stormhawk31 Posted June 25, 2015 Posted June 25, 2015 (edited) Ok. I have a couple of issues that I'd like to solve, with a single system, if I can, so I could use some advice. I currently have ~ 9 tb of storage space on my main system, divided between: an external 1 tb drive, an external 3 tb drive, an internal 4 tb drive, and an internal 1 tb drive (and an internal 120 gb ssd, but that's just for my OS, so it doesn't count). Unfortunately, because of the way my storage capacity has evolved, I do not have a RAID setup, and my files are scattered all across my various drives. I know where mostly everything is, but it's a pain to go searching through different drives to find things, and I have NO redundancy. Additionally, I have NO way to back anything up, because all of my drives are in use for various things, and I can't back up to any of my drives without losing data stored on the target drive. Plus, all of this is connected to my main PC, which is serving as gaming PC, HTPC, and general purpose PC. It really has become quite the cluster. I'd basically like to keep my main PC with about 1 or 2 tb of onboard storage - enough to play games and such, and that's about it. My computer has plenty of power. It's not "high end", but it's decent - MSI mobo, 6-core AMD processor, 16 gb RAM, GTX 760 graphics. I have no trouble playing pretty much any game I want, watching HD video, doing light video editing... But I want to build a separate device to which I can move the lion's share of my storage. I want that device to be able to stream HD video to anything on my network (2 Galaxy phones, a laptop, my PC, a Chromecast, and anything else my friends and family happen to bring by), have enough space to back up my existing files and the new ones I'm constantly adding, and also to host a website I'm thinking of putting together, should I decide to go that route (it's just a site for a small group of close friends, not something for massive public consumption). I'm not doing any home automation right now, but at some point in the future, I might, so it should be able to do that as well (although, if necessary, I can omit that task and build something else down the road). My current plan is something like this: lay hands on an old system (easy) and yank out anything unnecessary inside it, crack open my external hard drives and pull out my internal 4 tb drive, buy 2 more 4 tb drives, RAID them, and stuff the ~15 tb that'll give me into the old system (the drive from my external 1 tb and my current internal 1 tb will go into a RAID 0 in my current system). I want to set up a RAID that will preserve the bulk of the 15 tb I'll have, and allow me to add more as I need it. I have a gently used GTX 660 I can throw in there if necessary (not sure if I'd need it or not, but it's there), and, for servers, you really don't need anything very fancy for processors or RAM (dual or triple core processor and 4 gb of RAM SHOULD suffice, right?). What I need from y'all is advice on configuration, parts, software. I could also use advice on things to look out for, and I'm definitely open to alternatives. I have a pretty small budget on this, most of which is eaten up by the 2 new drives, but I have a bit of wiggle room if I HAVE to use it. The other thing is, I have to figure out some way to move all my data around while doing all of this, without losing any of it, so suggestions on that would be appreciated as well. Edited June 25, 2015 by stormhawk31 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El_Capitan Posted June 25, 2015 Posted June 25, 2015 Just use an efficient system with 4 disks in RAID 10, and you're mostly good. You can lose up to two disks, and could still have your data intact (as long as they're not in the same subset). I have two systems with 8 disks in RAID 10. One is my server, which has 4TB total, and the other is my video editing system, which as 12TB total. My server is always online, and my video editing system is only on when I'm working, or when I want to back up data from my server. The only thing I keep on my video editing system that my server doesn't, is all my un-edited videos and RAW photos (which I don't need to keep in my main computer or my photo editing system). I also periodically update my data and images with offline disks. I do a lot, so you don't need a setup as crazy as mine. Redundancy and back-ups are key. You could have two systems with 4 disks in RAID 10 each, or just one, and have one offline disk with all your critical data, and another offline disk with all your backup images. As long as you periodically update those offline disks, if you do happen to lose your NAS data, you still have your data backed up offline. I don't hold any critical data. All the photos and videos I wanted to share, has already been shared in the cloud (Facebook, Google, etc.). I just like keeping my own file system and un-edited work in case I want to go back and just take a look at what I had when I go through a cleaning phase. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormhawk31 Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 Guys? Any other suggestions? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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