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It's time to build a new file server. This time around I am getting a 20 bay SATA case.

And judging by prices ill stick with 2 8 port cards and a single 4 port.

don't know what size drives yet... been hung up on the RAID cards.

I remember hearing something about a 2gig limit on size that XP/2k can recognize? If so does that mean my raid 5 arrays can not be larger then that.

The plan was to get about 4-6 drives now, the cards support online expansion, so ill add more later. But as it is now it should easly get over 2gig.

Running RAID 5 the more disc you get in the array the less space you lose. And the cards I am looking at (rocket raid 2320's) can some how be bridged so I can have a 16 disc array and a separate 4 disc on the 4 port card.

I don't care what happens to the 4 disc array, that i can figure out.

So I guess my main question is about the size that I can make the single 16 disc partition and will it be a problem where ill have to split it up into smaller partitions?

gig = TB? just curious

eGo

For the love of god run a 64bit OS!

the controller should handle the larger partitions, but you will need server 2003 sp1 or newer to utilize the larger sizes. use GPT and you're all set. 2003 sp1 won't boot from a GPT partition though (but i doubt you're wanting to do that anyway).

freenas or openfiler* would probably handle it fine as well. just make sure there are drivers for the raid controller.




*openfiler is mindlessly easy...i set up a dev environment at work using openfiler and an old server. connected a 14 drive x 72GB external scsi shelf to it and it recognized it without issue. from inserting the installation cd for openfiler to connecting ESXi to the shared iscsi luns was less than an hour.

eGoCeNTRoNiX wrote:gig = TB? just curious

Yes. Ok so as long as I use 03 it will work? 2k wont support over 2TB?

Also.. when it gets to the point of having 20 drives total i assume I will need somewhere in the area of a 850 watt PS to keep it going?

I'd go with something in the 850W-1000W range. Make sure you get one with a high amperage on the +5V rail. I am sure you are going to need quite a few splitter adapters too. I don't think I have seen a PSU with more than 8 SATA connectors.

Pugsley wrote:Yes. Ok so as long as I use 03 it will work? 2k wont support over 2TB?

sorry...it's sort of a confusing topic. the OS should not care, but i would still go with a newer OS if you can. it will come down to a NTFS vs GPT comparison...with GPT winning. NTFS technically supports up to 16 Exobytes or something. GPT will do that or more, just in a newer fashion, assuming it is more efficient, and won't waste as much space with sector and block size allocation.

another example is we have a NAS at work (12 x 1TB SATA) for non-critical storage. a 2003 server accesses this and has one large 10TB partition. it is GPT format, however.

Got my hands on a Lacie Ethernet Big Disk 2TB NAS in a trade. Best thing I ever had. No fans or power supplies to go out. I even added another Lacie 1TB via USB, for a total of 3TB. I'm good for awhile.

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10938

Well after getting unexcited about this because it would need to be a whole new computer... I remembered that my current file server MB burnt up and my old main MB ended up in there... and it has 3 PCI-E slots. So now that I dont have to buy a "whole" new server I am now going to buy the parts and just get rid of my current server and use parts from it to build the new one.

I plan at the end to have 24 disc in it... but to start 5. I was wondering around what wattage power supply I would need to run it. Its going to be a 3000+ so that wont need much. Also the power supply will need to have lots of molex connectors on it to run the backplane. Thanks.