On Mon, 2008-09-08 at 06:35 -0700, Mike McMullen wrote: > Hi All, > > I am trying to build a NAS server based on Fedora 9. > > I will be using a de-branded HP Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core with 2GB RAM and > two 250GB drives mirrored for the OS stuff and a few apps. Depending on your usage case (random/sequential) I'd consider adding additional memory. > > I would like to add some type of raid storage box to it with about 5 1TB > drives using raid 5 unless there is something better. I'd consider switching the 1TB drives with smaller one. IME big drives are (far) less reliable than small ones. > > I want to use the system for photography work flow and backing up a few > Windows systems. > > My questions are as follows: > > 1. What is an inexpensive external RAID storage box to go with? If you're talking about 5-8 drives, a big tower case will do. Any particular reason why your rather use an external case? (With an additional power supply?) > 2. What is a good inexpensive RAID controller to go with? 3ware has a very good SATA raid controller. Same goes for LSI. > 3. S/W RAID vs HW RAID? Which is the most reliable way to go? Hardware RAIDs are easier to setup and maintain, but cannot be transferred from one machine to the other. Expensive hardware RAID controllers add additional battery back cache that can improve the performance and reliability in case of power outage. Software RAIDs are somewhat harder to manage, but can be moved from one machine to the other with no additional effort. Plus, software RAID has build in RAID6 support. (In case you need better reliability.) > 4. Are there ways to do full backups of windows boxes and restore a > complete bootable drive from the Linux box? Previous versions of Norton Ghost had no problems connecting to my samba shares. > 5. What is the largest file system Fedora 9 can support? ext3 is more than enough. (2TB file, 8TB FS) > 6. Are there performance hits for large file systems? I'm using >1TB FS without a problem. > > Thanks so much in advance! > > Mike In general, I'd consider using ~11x500GB in a software RAID6 and put the OS on the same RAID. (10+1 setup) A CoolerMaster Stacker STC-101 case is more than capable of hosting >11 3.5" drives. - Gilboa -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
