Re: OTT: OpenFiler vs Thecus N4200?
Phillipus Gunawan put forth on 8/6/2010 1:18 AM:
> Hi There,
>
> Sorry if this is a bit 'Off The Topic' discussion. I am planning to get
> fileserver dedicated for iSCSI.
>
> My option is to grab Thecus N4200 or to build OpenFiler with any Duo-Core CPU,
> 1G RAM, RocketRAID 644 controller, and other basic PC stuff.
The RocketRAID 644 is a POS fakeraid card, and it's only for external drives,
which doesn't make sense for your application. It's junk, stay away from it.
Get one of these instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103102&cm_re=SFF-8087-_-16-103-102-_-Product
It's a real hardware RAID card with 128MB of onboard read/write cache. And
it's actually $15 cheaper than that POS HighPoint card. It'll run 4 internal
drives. Buy 5 identical 2TB drives now, for 4 live and one spare on the
shelf, and set the 4 up as RAID 10. You'll have 4TB of usable storage, and
the best performance plus failure protection of any RAID level.
RAID rule #1: always buy at least one spare drive during the initial purchase
so when you replace a failed drive in the future all drives are identical.
This eliminates potential firmware performance and compatibility problems in
the future. A 2TB drive purchased 3 years from now will be a totally
different drive, including spindle speed, firmware revision, etc, no matter
the manufacturer. Technology doesn't sit still; it's always moving forward.
Get this cable to connect the drives to the controller:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116099&cm_re=SFF-8087-_-16-116-099-_-Product
Or if your PSU doesn't have SATA power connectors, get this cable instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118126&cm_re=SFF-8087-_-16-118-126-_-Product
If you'd rather have the additional storage capacity and slight cost
effectiveness increase of RAID5, go with this LSI card that supports RAID5
(the Adaptec card above doesn't, one of the reasons it's only $205):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118106
It's $125 more than the Adaptec, but has more RAID modes and has 512MB of
cache vs 128MB on the Adaptec. If you go with this LSI card, buy 4 x 2TB
drives, configure 3 as RAID5 and the 4th drive as a standby spare, preferably
not powered on until needed when a drive fails two or 5 years down the road.
If the spare has been powered on all those years, why would you expect it to
be a reliable spare at that point? Keep it powered off and it's like new 5
years from now, which is what you want/need.
--
Stan
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