G5 Server with external Raid 5

[TopCatMac]

hey this is my first post so here goes,

I'm just building a small home server to backup my media and office documents. I want a "Semi-foolproof" solution. I have chosen to buy a Powermac G5 WITH DUAL 2.5GHZ PROCESSORS and 16GB OF RAM (i got it cheap on ebay) and i think i'll whack in a seagate barracuda 1tb drive for the OS drive to top it off.

As for my bulk storage i need atleast 4terabytes Minimum (preferably upwards of 6). So far I'm thinking an external raid enclosure (like this ) with 4 x 2tb Seagate Barracuda green drives in RAID 5 (which is supported by the enclosure mentioned previously)

The final vision for this setup is a neat home media server, backup location and home network gateway for remote login etc. I would also like to use the G5 for some Logic work and other "mac only" programs. This will be in edition to by main P.c. as well as my wife's business laptop (macbook pro) and my business laptop (toshiba).

I intend to run Lion Server on the finished rig.

My simple question is: Will It work?

Any feedback, suggestions or criticisms welcome.

Some other things that are bugging me are

Will raid 5 be enough protection for my data?
Will my external raid array be as seamlessly accessible as an internal one?
Will the G5 be able to handle all this?
Will this server be windows compatible?
Do I have to make any special considerations when selecting an external raid enclosure (i.e. is the enclsoure i listed above mac compatible)?

Thankyou for any help!

 

[Nameci]

I intend to run Lion Server on the finished rig.

No lion on G5's that is 100% sure.

 

[TopCatMac]

No lion on G5's that is 100% sure.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Apple removed support for an older product to make you buy a newer one, whodathunkit?

Thankyou for your help anyway i only paid about 100 dolalrs for the computer, i expect i'll find a use for it.

In that case can anyone else think of a cost effective way to build a 4tbserver with osx lion server?

 

[chrfr]

Due to issues with the cooling system, this model G5 is one of the least reliable computers Apple has made.
You can't run anything newer than 10.5.8 on G5s, so Lion and Snow Leopard are out.
Also consider that G5s are quite power hungry, and the heat output isn't trivial, so there is a tangible cost to running one of these as a server.

Aside from those issues, it will work. You'd probably want to add an eSATA card, otherwise USB performance to the RAID will be dismal.

 

[SuperJudge]

As has already been pointed out, you can't run Lion Server. The latest you can run is Leopard Server. Let me answer you point by point.

will raid 5 be enough protection for my data?

No. RAID is not a backup solution. RAID is for increased performance and uptime. You still need some means of backing up your data.

Will my external raid array be as seamlessly accessible as an internal one?

If you go the eSATA route, yes.

Will the G5 be able to handle all this?

Yes, but reliability is certainly a concern.

Will this server be windows compatible?

If you add a utility like SharepPoints, then absolutely.

Do I have to make any special considerations when selecting an external raid enclosure (i.e. is the enclsoure i listed above mac compatible)?

Not that I'm aware of, but I don't have any specific experience with fully-integrate external RAID enclosure other than Drobos. You might want to checkout OtherWorld Computing to see what they've got for sale on that front.

 

[MacHamster68]

why external raid ??? its a G5 so no external neccesary i have a 2.3 dual core
and have now after fitting a sata raid controler and a jive both from sonnet space for 7 HDD inside now 4 x 600gb WD velociraptors (makes 2.4 TB ) and 3 x WD caviar blacks @2 TB each ,makes a total of 8.4 TB plenty enough for a small server /workstation
and all inside no clutter , that was the whole point of getting a G5 as i did not want to have those external things that too eat energy surrounding me , and then a G5 makes sense as space saver
thats what you need
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4i.html

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/g5_jive.html

sorted

 

[zen.state]

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Apple removed support for an older product to make you buy a newer one, whodathunkit?

Thankyou for your help anyway i only paid about 100 dolalrs for the computer, i expect i'll find a use for it.

In that case can anyone else think of a cost effective way to build a 4tbserver with osx lion server?

Apple dropped PowerPC OS support 2 years ago when 10.6 was released as Intel only. I guess you have been in a cave or something.

One question.. why must it be a "Lion server"? Leopard makes a great server OS and you can actually run that it on your G5. I as a professional computer consultant get all I need and then some using a G4 tower and Leopard as the OS as my server.

 

[MacSince1990]

Apple dropped PowerPC OS support 2 years ago when 10.6 was released as Intel only. I guess you have been in a cave or something.

One question.. why must it be a "Lion server"? Leopard makes a great server OS and you can actually run that it on your G5. I as a professional computer consultant get all I need and then some using a G4 tower and Leopard as the OS as my server.

Agreed. Even 10.4.11 would run with likely few problems.

You bought a Dual 2.5 GHz G5, or a Quad Core? $100 seems awfully low for either, especially loaded with 16 GB of RAM...

Actually, I suppose it has to be a Quad, since the DP 2.5s supported up to 8.