Data Storage Solutions

So I'm at a point where my 2TB internal drive is near it's limit and I want to look into a more secure data storage solution. Using a 2+ TB external drive is out of the question so that leaves me with something more drastic.

The solutions I'm considering are a standard off the shelf RAID based storage device like a Drobo or building my own server. Note that I have almost the bare essentials to build said server. (Core 2 Quad + Motherboard with 8gb of ram). I'll just need a case, power supply and my drives.

In terms of reliability, dependability, and ease of use. Which would be the ideal solution?

 

Off the shelf is easy but not cheap, and if your hardware dies you'll have to get the same hardware, chipset and other stuff, again just to get your data - a dead Drobo is not cheap to replace. If you build your own server/NAS the same cost replacement issues will apply to hardware RAID controllers - a good hardware RAID card will cost you at least as much as a NAS. Also, there are restrictions on the type of drives you can use. NAS boxes and RAID controllers have tight restrictions on approved drives and you will be looking at Western Digital Black or maybe even SAS drives to comply. If you want absolute ease of use and don't mind paying for it, go for a NAS.

But if you don't mind doing a bit of tinkering.... I would suggest using your hardware and software RAIDing it. You won't get the same performance but you will not be tied to hardware and the associated cost. As long as you can get the drives up and running again, and this doesn't necessarily have to be on the same OS, you'll have access to your data - in theory, depends on what type of RAID you go for. You could also expand and grow your data set with relatively minor headaches, or even wallet-ache. Another bonus, if you were seriously considering a Drobo, is you can network it easy - you can't network a Drobo without additional expensive hardware.

There's too much to get into here, but I'd go for a RAID-Z setup with your hardware. Performance won't be as good, but reliability is better. RAID-Z on a basic level is like RAID-5 where you don't get things like the dreaded write hole for instance. As long as enough of your RAID-Z drives are OK you'll be able to switch hardware, and even OS, as you please.

If you have enough SATA ports on your motherboard I'd run Nas4Free, installed onto a USB stick, and setup the array as a 5 drive RAID-Z2. You'd get the capacity of 3 drives with the safety of 2 as parity drives so you could afford for a drive or 2 to die and not lose data. You might need to go for more RAM as RAID-Z is very very RAM hungry, people suggest 1GB per TB of space you have on your array, but your going to have to buy the drives anyway so you may as well give this a shot

One other thing to bear in mind is the type of drives you are going to use. Be very careful as drives like Western Digital Green drives are not approved for the type of use a NAS/server will require of them and they will die very quickly. Western Digital Red's are the cheapest approved way to go.

 

Thank you for the great info, guys.

Since I do have Dreamspark, it sounds like the best choice for me is to go with a software based RAID setup with Windows Server. Only thing I have to do now is decide between Server 2008 and 2012, buy my drives and get building!

Thanks again for making my decision an easy one.

 

Will do! I'll post up a build thread once parts start trickling in.