Looking to build a pool of drives whats hardware should i get?

[WickedLlama]

So right now i have a WDC 12TB Mirror drive.  I am looking to upgrade my storage but not looking to have a bunch of USB drives.

 

Is there any hardware that works great with Drivepool so i can maybe install a few drivers and pool them with the software? 

 

I was looking at pre config hardware like WDC devices or Qnap but i would rather maybe have a software raid/pool then a hardware.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, that's a super loaded question.  

 

I mean, I would recommend server grade hardware.  but it's definitely not for everyone! 

 

 

First, what is your budget? Ballpark, at least.

 

Also, do you have existing hardware that you want to use and just expand that? 

Do you want to build a new system, or buy used "like new" systems? 

 

What else do you plan on running on the server (Plex/Emby/kodi, etc)?

 

 

 

 

Otherwise, StableBit DrivePool will run on just about anything you throw it on.  It's designed to be very light weight, using as little processing power or memory, as possible.  And for the most part, we accomplish that. 

 

There other thing, is that we do highly recommend against using USB storage for your pool.   

There are a number of issues with USB, both the enclosures and the controllers.   They can be flaky, and cause data corruption, over the long term.   They're fine for backups and offloading/transferring data, but we don't recommend them for long term usage.  

 

Instead, SAS (expensive, enterprise grade) or eSATA are better options, as these are designed to work better for long term storage. 

 

 

 

And if you want enclosures, there are plenty of enclosures that would work.  And the question at that time would be budget, and desired capacity. 

[WickedLlama]

So it will be for Media/Plex/Data

 

I have a small little desktop doing everything right now with an i7 2600K with 16Gb ram with an Asus ROG board. More details if needed.

 

I just need more space and need to keep an eye on my drives to make sure they don't die.  I have my system running 24/7 and the drives are ALWAYS going!

 

If i was to keep my current setup as nothing is wrong with it and works just fine with my setup i have just need a bigger case should i just get some kind of raid card or just plug all my drives into the board and use Drivepool to set them all up?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Ah, okay.

 

Well the hardware should be more than fine then.

 

 

As for the drive storage, that gets complicated fast.  There are a number of larger cases that can fit a lot of drives. And if they support 5.25" drive bays, you can buy "backplanes" to add hot swappable drive bays. 

 

But generally, if you want more than 10, you need to either go external or go with a server chassis. 

 

 

 

And if you do want to add a lot of drives, then my recommendation: spend the money on a GOOD controller card.

While they're expensive, an LSI 9207-8i or 9211-8i cards are about $100, but support 8 drives (with two "breakout" cables).  

(You can connect a lot more than that, with "SAS Expander" cards, and these cards can handle 60+ drives). 

[WickedLlama]

So i have about 1000$ to spend.

 

So i wanted to upgrade my current system.

 

I am looking for a nice case that would be great to hold a few hard drives in. My current case is REALLY small lol so i need a bit more room.

 

Case - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133188  or https://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-LEVEL-White-Gaming-Computer/dp/B007LB07HM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1508420412&sr=8-4&keywords=Thermaltake+Level+10+GT 

 

Hard Drives - Looking for around 4-5 6TB drives

 

Should i get a raid card??? Or just plug them all into the systemboard and just use Pool to set them up?  I want to make it so i dont have to depend on hardware...

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, something like this would give you a lot more internal drive bays:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133361

 

And as for the RAID card, if your motherboard has enough ports, then no.  Using the onboard is fine. 

[Umfriend]

Tanks for finding https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133188%C2%A0, I like that one on the face of it as it has five hot swap external already and another backplane/HDD converion kit can get me another 5 using three 5.25" external slots. And then another kit would up that by 1 more 3.5" and 1 2.5"

 

There's "only" 8 in the https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133361and if you need to change/replace one it is opening the case.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

You're very welcome.  

 

And yeah, I'm not a fan of opening the cases, if it can be avoided.  And hot swapping is the best.

 

 

As for the backplanes, the 3x5 5.25" bays would get you 5 more drives. And then for the remaining 5.25" bay, you could get a x4 2.5" drive backplane.  That's ~14 or so drives, vs the 8 of the other one.

 

 

Though, if you want a truly large amount, rackmount cases can get you a lot more. But they're a lot more expensive. 

[Umfriend]

Yeah, although the 3x5.25 and 1x5.25 to 3.5" boxes cost quite a bit as well. I have those already but if I did not I would seriously consider going the rackmount route. Especially as the othjer HW seems OK and the budget appears to be there.

[WickedLlama]

So i went with the following items.

 

SSD - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OAJ412U/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1(OS being installed)

Hard Drives - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CHP20MG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1(Also using the 2 Red drives i have from my WDC Duo Drive) Will have 4 Red 6TB Drives

Case - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZWQ0KV/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1(Really love the 4 bay drives that this case has! It was the last one too!!!)

CPU Cooler - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E0EXYDC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1(I have a little one on there now but wanted something a bit better to keep the CPU cooler)

Sata Cables - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018Y2LEBE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

So i will get everything BUT the case on Sunday!!  It sucks i have to wait till Friday to get the case and get this unit setup!

 

So Chris,

 

What is the best way to setup pool with 4 drives?  Look to set it up so if one drive fails all data is fine so a Raid 5??  Never played with Pool before so i am new to it and want to get it setup the right way.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Rackmount is crazy expensive though.  Even the cheap stuff (Norco) is pretty pricey. And the good stuff (like Supermicro) ... is even more expensive, even used. 

 

 

And the hardware looks good!  

And yeah, waiting sucks!  It's literally the worst!

 

 

 

What is the best way to setup pool with 4 drives?  Look to set it up so if one drive fails all data is fine so a Raid 5??  Never played with Pool before so i am new to it and want to get it setup the right way.

 

that depends on what you want. We don't actually support "RAID" configurations. It's all file based mirroring. 

 

 

Though, my recommendation would be to add all of the disks to the pool, and then enable "Pool File Duplication". That means that everything gets mirrored (close to a "RAID 10" array). 

 

This way, if a drive fails, the data will reside on another disk.  Just replace the failed drive, add it to the pool and let it do its thing.

[WickedLlama]

Rackmount is crazy expensive though.  Even the cheap stuff (Norco) is pretty pricey. And the good stuff (like Supermicro) ... is even more expensive, even used. 

 

 

And the hardware looks good!  

And yeah, waiting sucks!  It's literally the worst!

 

 

 

 

that depends on what you want. We don't actually support "RAID" configurations. It's all file based mirroring. 

 

 

Though, my recommendation would be to add all of the disks to the pool, and then enable "Pool File Duplication". That means that everything gets mirrored (close to a "RAID 10" array). 

 

This way, if a drive fails, the data will reside on another disk.  Just replace the failed drive, add it to the pool and let it do its thing.

So with Pool file enabled how much space will i have with 4x6TB drives? the full 24TB or little less?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, the drives won't show up as 6TBs.  They'll show up as 5.4TB, each (give or take).  

This is because manufacturers report the capacity in decimal, while Windows (historically, always has) reported drive capacity in binary.  This translates to a roughly 10% difference in capacity. 

 

So, you'll end up with a 21.6TB pool, roughly.  

 

And if you enable "Pool File Duplication", this doesn't change the reported capacity, but doubles how much the data uses on the pool. So you'd end up with 10.8TB of usable space.   

 

if you really want parity, there are options for that, and you'd end up with closer to 16TB of usable space. But that's using snapRAID, and isn't technically supported. 

[WickedLlama]

I just want to get the best out of having all these drives lol. 10TB would suck...I mean I know the data is backed up but I have been dealing with 5.4TB now with the duo drive in mirror and running to close to full and sometimes full. I feel 10tb I would hit that quick. What is I did a pool with all drives and 1 fails...would I lose what ever data is on there?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Oh, I totally understand that.   And once upon a time, I agreed. 

 

But after losing a bunch of drives and data.... I'm perfectly fine with it now.  All of my data is duplicated, and .... I have like 60TBs of data. 

 

 

And yes, free space fills fast. And it seems that the more of it you have, the faster it fills up.  

 

 

 

 What is I did a pool with all drives and 1 fails...would I lose what ever data is on there?

 

That depends on the level of duplication.

 

No duplication would mean that you lose the data that is on that disk. 

 

Duplication... depends.  You'd lose any unduplicated data on that drive, but the duplicated data would be fine.

And after you remove the missing disk, StableBit DrivePool will go and reduplicate the duplicated data, as needed. 

[WickedLlama]

So I got everything and I have it all setup and ready to go. Now I just need to install the OS and go from there.

 

So I am not sure if this will make a big difference but let me know.

 

I am using 2 6TB red drives from the WDC duo and 2 new ones I bought that are WDC red pro. The ones from the duo have a smaller cache size then the new pros would this matter when I put them in the pool?

 

Also does the pool work well with VM?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Nope, that won't really matter.  Well, it may make a bit of performance difference, but not noticeable enough for you. 

 

 

And yes, it does.  In fact, we do a lot of testing in VMs (I use HyperV, and Alex, the dev, uses VMware)

[WickedLlama]

So right now i have it setup as a pool.

 

Got about 21.8TB of space.

 

Have no enabled File Duplication yet.  Running 2.1.1.561.

 

So far everything is running great with the new case and new added stuff i have put in this system.  Just wanted to know if there was a way to hide the drives that are in the pool in the My Computer area?

 

Also am i enabling Pool File or Folder Duplication?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Awesome! 

 

As for hiding the drives, absolutely.  You can use Disk Management to just remove the drives. But to keep them accessible (for you), then I recommend mounting the drives to folder paths.  And we have a guide for that: 

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q4822624

 

As for duplication, Pool File Duplication enables duplication at the root of the Pool (eg, at X:\).  This means that everything will end up duplicated by default, as the setting will get inheritted to all subdirectories. 

 

Folder Duplication lets you specify different levels for each folder. Or disable it for certain folders.