Pieter Hulshoff wrote:
Hello all,
I want to set up a home file server, using RAID-5 with 4 or more disks per array (possibly 2 arrays in time). Any suggestions you could give me as far as a choice for a motherboard or a RAID controller? Oh, Gb ethernet might be a nice extra as well.
If you need 4 or more disks per array and 2 arrays, I guess we're talking SCSI. RAID controllers - pick any of the current Adaptec ones. Motherboard - if you were hoping to find one with a builtin SCSI RAID controller and Giga ethernet - I'm not sure they come in a price-range suitable for a home file server. But then again, neither does a multi-channel Adaptec RAID controller. Frankly, I wouldn't bother with RAID5 and the many disks - just do a simple RAID1 setup on 2 large IDE-drives. Obviously it depends on what sort of load you're expecting, but you did say *home* file server. Our office file-server runs a 300Gb RAID1 setup on two Maxtor Enterprise (=longer life) IDE drives. (mind you, it's only used for backing up files during the night.) Everything depends on your actual requirements, but in a lot of cases I chose RAID1 over RAID5. The drives are so cheap anyway that mirroring is just easier. /Per Jessen, Zurich