Storage 5tb+ recommendation

[danny_w]

Could you build a software RAID using an old PowerMac G4 and Leopard? Would this have any advantage besides being officially supported as a TimeMachine drive? What are the pros and cons of such a project?

 

[robzr]

Could you build a software RAID using an old PowerMac G4 and Leopard? Would this have any advantage besides being officially supported as a TimeMachine drive? What are the pros and cons of such a project?

Leopard does not support software RAID-5, you'd be limited to the less space efficient RAID 0, 1, maybe 1+0/0+1 ? If you download zfs write support you should be able to run RAID-Z or RAID-Z2 (comparable to RAID-5 and RAID-6), though I don't know how stable it currently is, and I'm not sure if you would be able to dynamically grow it in the future, as easily as you can with Linux + LVM + software RAID 5/6... fyi, Linux does support software RAID-6, it does not require hardware for that.

You probably could run Linux for PowerPC on your G4.

Rob

 

[nanofrog]

Drives
5 * http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337 - $190

For RAID, I would use the enterprise level (Barracuda ES.2 SATA). Consumer drives are too risky for RAID, IMO. Every time I've seen it done, they fail prematurely.

(Do note that serious RAID freaks will not like the idea of buying drives from one source, you should be using different manufacturers if you have the chance, from different lots, etc)

Preferably the same make/model of drive. Just don't use sequential serial numbers.

 

[Aea]

For RAID, I would use the enterprise level (Barracuda ES.2 SATA). Consumer drives are too risky for RAID, IMO. Every time I've seen it done, they fail prematurely.

Of course reliability will be below an enterprise level, but you're still protected from failure, at a fraction of the cost. At some point it becomes more efficient to have a RAID 0 array for production and a RAID 1 for backups, in consumer/prosumer applications it's more often then not just the data that's valuable, not the data + 100% availability.

Preferably the same make/model of drive. Just don't use sequential serial numbers.

I'm in disagreement here, if there's a flaw in the manufacturing process you just threw all your eggs into one basket.

 

[VoR]

I'm using freenas for my storage, I can get infinitely better performance out of a cheap x86 pc than any commerical appliances I've seen (and any hardware raid cards that arn't serious money).
I think one of the previous posts over estimates the support you get from buying a premade system too. If you build a server yourself, all the parts have warranty and it's much easier (and feasible) to migrate between systems if something does break than it is compared to a premade system/hardware raid.

I've got another box testing zfs on freenas which is 'working great'.

 

[nanofrog]

I'm in disagreement here, if there's a flaw in the manufacturing process you just threw all your eggs into one basket.

I made the assumption that it would be understood the drive is of know quality. Oops. Sorry about that.

Most of the time, I've found mixed drives resulting of financial/practicality issues. Especially when a drive fails, as the existing model is no longer in production.

But starting from scratch, and particularly when speed was an issue, the same make/model was ordered from multiple suppliers. Usually SCSI/SAS drives. For example, I've been looking at Cheetah 15K.6 drives for a small, fast array (RAID5).

 

[VoR]

To add to the spec on the previous page, I wouldn't use a realtek nic chipset on linux/bsd.
From my own experience I'd say it's really worth investing in an intel chipset/card if you're planning on being bandwidth limited by your disk system (and always checking motherboard block diagrams .