I have two NAS boxes, both at least five years old, that need replacement. They're slow, only 100mb ethernet nd USB 2.0, each one holds four drives, currently using 1TB drives in each box. Total capacity across both boxes is 5.4TB. I have already replaced two drives due to hardware failure, so I know the things are aging, and not gracefully. Both arrays are used for constant online access via secure FTP and other secure file transfer protocols, so they're constantly getting beaten up on. I want to replace both these units with a single RAID 5 array of four 3TB drives, giving me approximatley 9TB of storage. I won't use anything larger than a 3TB drive because I don't yet trust the new drive technology that squeezes more platters, closer together, in the same physical cabinet with a 3.5-inch form factor. The higher you go in storage capacity, the more platters, or the more cylinders and tracks, you know the drill. OK. I just looked into four-port RAID controllers and found exactly none. Quite surprising really. I thought even the Vantek 622 would be a good choice, but it has two internal and two external connectors, and in this big case I have five bays available, four of which will hold my 3TB drives with possible expansion to a final fifth drive in the RAID array. So, what do folks like in RAID controllers, or am I barking up the wrong tree and should do this outboard?
Hi, What software are you using? You could use ZFS or another comprobable filesystem and forgo the use of a RAID controller, on Windows you could use storage spaces. I don't ever go upwards of 2TB on RAID-5 arrays but that is for work situations. I am really happy with the Synology NAS hardware as well, but the user interface is very difficult using a screen reader. Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Steve Matzura Sent: 22 November 2014 16:35 To: sysadmin Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] RAID Controller recommendations I have two NAS boxes, both at least five years old, that need replacement. They're slow, only 100mb ethernet nd USB 2.0, each one holds four drives, currently using 1TB drives in each box. Total capacity across both boxes is 5.4TB. I have already replaced two drives due to hardware failure, so I know the things are aging, and not gracefully. Both arrays are used for constant online access via secure FTP and other secure file transfer protocols, so they're constantly getting beaten up on. I want to replace both these units with a single RAID 5 array of four 3TB drives, giving me approximatley 9TB of storage. I won't use anything larger than a 3TB drive because I don't yet trust the new drive technology that squeezes more platters, closer together, in the same physical cabinet with a 3.5-inch form factor. The higher you go in storage capacity, the more platters, or the more cylinders and tracks, you know the drill. OK. I just looked into four-port RAID controllers and found exactly none. Quite surprising really. I thought even the Vantek 622 would be a good choice, but it has two internal and two external connectors, and in this big case I have five bays available, four of which will hold my 3TB drives with possible expansion to a final fifth drive in the RAID array. So, what do folks like in RAID controllers, or am I barking up the wrong tree and should do this outboard? _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins
Hi, What software are you using? You could use ZFS or another comprobable filesystem and forgo the use of a RAID controller, on Windows you could use storage spaces. I don't ever go upwards of 2TB on RAID-5 arrays but that is for work situations. I am really happy with the Synology NAS hardware as well, but the user interface is very difficult using a screen reader. Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Steve Matzura Sent: 22 November 2014 16:35 To: sysadmin Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] RAID Controller recommendations I have two NAS boxes, both at least five years old, that need replacement. They're slow, only 100mb ethernet nd USB 2.0, each one holds four drives, currently using 1TB drives in each box. Total capacity across both boxes is 5.4TB. I have already replaced two drives due to hardware failure, so I know the things are aging, and not gracefully. Both arrays are used for constant online access via secure FTP and other secure file transfer protocols, so they're constantly getting beaten up on. I want to replace both these units with a single RAID 5 array of four 3TB drives, giving me approximatley 9TB of storage. I won't use anything larger than a 3TB drive because I don't yet trust the new drive technology that squeezes more platters, closer together, in the same physical cabinet with a 3.5-inch form factor. The higher you go in storage capacity, the more platters, or the more cylinders and tracks, you know the drill. OK. I just looked into four-port RAID controllers and found exactly none. Quite surprising really. I thought even the Vantek 622 would be a good choice, but it has two internal and two external connectors, and in this big case I have five bays available, four of which will hold my 3TB drives with possible expansion to a final fifth drive in the RAID array. So, what do folks like in RAID controllers, or am I barking up the wrong tree and should do this outboard? _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 17:37:10 +0000, you wrote:
What software are you using?
Do you mean to do the raiding, or the other file transfer system to which I alluded? Secure FTP and ADCS for the file transfer, don't know what I'd use for the RAID array. You could use ZFS or another comprobable filesystem and forgo the use of a RAID controller, on Windows you could use storage spaces. I was actually thinking of doing that, using ZFS, that is. I don't ever go upwards of 2TB on RAID-5 arrays but that is for work situations. Gee, why even bother then, since you can get more than 2TB on one drive all by itself. Unless you're talking about mirroring. I am really happy with the Synology NAS hardware as well, but the user interface is very difficult using a screen reader. That's why I don't want to buy another one of their boxes, although their DSM version 2 worked so darn well, I hate giving it up because the old DS407e's won't support larger drives, and they're real slow compared to the new models. When you say the new interface is difficult with a screenreader, is it difficult to the point of impossibility, or just annoyingly difficult? In other words, could I make it work, or isn't it worth the trying? I'm actually quite disappointed Synology doesn't document the CLI commands required to do what their HTML-based interface does. If we had access to the CLI, we could just ditch the HTML front-end overlay and rule the world. So, getting back to my original question, if I used ZFS on a Linux system like Fedora 20 (Heisenbug), Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or 13.04 LTS or whatever LTS is out these days, what hardware controllers do you recommend? Or since I have a box with enough SATA ports, should I just use them?
Hi, If using ZFS you don't need a RAID controller at all, you can do all the work in ZFS itself and just buy a machine with enough SATA ports. Re the Synology, I would say it was seriously annoying with a screen reader but I have tricks to get round the interface. They are mainly using the Jaws find feature to find keywords on the screen etc. I don't use the extended features on the device however. Re the 2TB drive limit, I meant that I don't put higher than 2TB into an array, I typically mean RAID-6 arrays. I don't want the rebuilt time extended. I think I asked you this before but do you use JFW scripts for Forte Agent? I never got versions upwards of 2.x to work with JFW, I am still using 1.93 for newsgroup access. Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Steve Matzura Sent: 23 November 2014 00:06 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] RAID Controller recommendations On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 17:37:10 +0000, you wrote:
What software are you using?
Do you mean to do the raiding, or the other file transfer system to which I alluded? Secure FTP and ADCS for the file transfer, don't know what I'd use for the RAID array. You could use ZFS or another comprobable filesystem and forgo the use of a RAID controller, on Windows you could use storage spaces. I was actually thinking of doing that, using ZFS, that is. I don't ever go upwards of 2TB on RAID-5 arrays but that is for work situations. Gee, why even bother then, since you can get more than 2TB on one drive all by itself. Unless you're talking about mirroring. I am really happy with the Synology NAS hardware as well, but the user interface is very difficult using a screen reader. That's why I don't want to buy another one of their boxes, although their DSM version 2 worked so darn well, I hate giving it up because the old DS407e's won't support larger drives, and they're real slow compared to the new models. When you say the new interface is difficult with a screenreader, is it difficult to the point of impossibility, or just annoyingly difficult? In other words, could I make it work, or isn't it worth the trying? I'm actually quite disappointed Synology doesn't document the CLI commands required to do what their HTML-based interface does. If we had access to the CLI, we could just ditch the HTML front-end overlay and rule the world. So, getting back to my original question, if I used ZFS on a Linux system like Fedora 20 (Heisenbug), Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or 13.04 LTS or whatever LTS is out these days, what hardware controllers do you recommend? Or since I have a box with enough SATA ports, should I just use them? _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins
Hi, If using ZFS you don't need a RAID controller at all, you can do all the work in ZFS itself and just buy a machine with enough SATA ports. Re the Synology, I would say it was seriously annoying with a screen reader but I have tricks to get round the interface. They are mainly using the Jaws find feature to find keywords on the screen etc. I don't use the extended features on the device however. Re the 2TB drive limit, I meant that I don't put higher than 2TB into an array, I typically mean RAID-6 arrays. I don't want the rebuilt time extended. I think I asked you this before but do you use JFW scripts for Forte Agent? I never got versions upwards of 2.x to work with JFW, I am still using 1.93 for newsgroup access. Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Steve Matzura Sent: 23 November 2014 00:06 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] RAID Controller recommendations On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 17:37:10 +0000, you wrote:
What software are you using?
Do you mean to do the raiding, or the other file transfer system to which I alluded? Secure FTP and ADCS for the file transfer, don't know what I'd use for the RAID array. You could use ZFS or another comprobable filesystem and forgo the use of a RAID controller, on Windows you could use storage spaces. I was actually thinking of doing that, using ZFS, that is. I don't ever go upwards of 2TB on RAID-5 arrays but that is for work situations. Gee, why even bother then, since you can get more than 2TB on one drive all by itself. Unless you're talking about mirroring. I am really happy with the Synology NAS hardware as well, but the user interface is very difficult using a screen reader. That's why I don't want to buy another one of their boxes, although their DSM version 2 worked so darn well, I hate giving it up because the old DS407e's won't support larger drives, and they're real slow compared to the new models. When you say the new interface is difficult with a screenreader, is it difficult to the point of impossibility, or just annoyingly difficult? In other words, could I make it work, or isn't it worth the trying? I'm actually quite disappointed Synology doesn't document the CLI commands required to do what their HTML-based interface does. If we had access to the CLI, we could just ditch the HTML front-end overlay and rule the world. So, getting back to my original question, if I used ZFS on a Linux system like Fedora 20 (Heisenbug), Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or 13.04 LTS or whatever LTS is out these days, what hardware controllers do you recommend? Or since I have a box with enough SATA ports, should I just use them? _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins
participants (2)
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Andrew Hodgson -
Steve Matzura