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What NAS To Buy?
An anonymous reader writes "Currently, I'm running an old 4u Linux server for my private backup and storage needs. I could add new drives, but it's just way too bulky (and only IDE). For the sake of size and power efficiency I think about replacing it with a NAS solution, but cannot decide which one to get. The only requirements I have are capacity (>1.5TB) and RAID5. Samba/FTP/USB is enough. Since manufacturers always claim their system to be the best, I'd like to hear some suggestions from you Slashdot readers."
yes... those are hundreths of a penny, so take it for what its worth - also that I deal with storage arrays daily.
So unless you are going to go with the magic number of disks (this varies but you'll need quite a few for a raid-5... around 8 or so) your performance is going to be less than stellar. Jump up to an 11 disk raid-5 (or preferrably 6) and you'll be screaming - depending on if you use SAS or SATA drives and your controller card of course.
If you are just wanting a tiny raid to stick in your tower, I would run a 3 drive raid-0, with each drive being around 300 gigs. Then, I would additionally have a 1 TB drive to back up that raid-0. That way, you have extremely fast disk speed via three drives and the redundancy on one drive.
If you want to talk about spending big bucks, Dell has a product called the MD1000 that can't be beat for price. You can stick SATA or SAS in there, you can daisy chain three together, and six if you use both channels (you have to use their PERC5 or PERC6e to be supported but other cards work if you play nice but I wouldn't). And each enclosure holds 15 drives. They will also have an offering for a 24 disk array that is only 2u as well that holds 2.5inch drives... sas only of course...