Raid card + new hdds for my HTPC

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Hades16x

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Well my lowly 1TB GP drive is getting a little bit cramped and I need to expand my storage.

Raid 5 seems like one of the best options for me to go.

So here is what Im contemplating and questioning:

Raid card: Highpoint 2320 PCI-E is a must, and 8 ports would be dandy.

Q1: Any raid cards slightly less expensive that will do the job? Im assuming the difference in cards are the amount of ports they have, and their maximum transfer rates.

HDDs: I have a 1TB WD GP drive. I understand that they arn't the fastest drives.

Q2: Can I use the segate 1TB drive with my GP drive or not? Should they be the same drive?

Also with Raid 5, if I need to upgrade size ( Im aiming for 3TB to start), I can just add another drive and the card will reconfigure for 4TB..etc?

Any suggestions? Trying to keep it as low budget as possible. Will only be using as HTPC for movie storage, so I'm assuming maximum transfer rates arn't needed.

Thanks,
Michael
 
1. You could get a Dell Perc5/i for about a $100 off of ebay...its also a hardware based card unlike the highpoint.
2. You shouldn't use heterogeneous arrays, but it can be done.
3. If you need to upgrade the size you will need to have a card that supports Online Capacity Expansion(OCE)
 
well the 2320 does....I cant remember off the top of my head if the Perc5 does or not???Most of your high end hardware cards will. Hopefully some others will chime in with some suggestions but as far as a budget raid5 card goes the Dell Perc5/i is about as cheap as they get and they get expensive real fast.
 
I want the OCE capablity. The 2320 seems like a good card. Ill order that + 3HDDS
 
Cloud15x said:
I want the OCE capablity. The 2320 seems like a good card. Ill order that + 3HDDS
Click to expand...

The highpoint card is software based...meaning that your cpu will be doing the parity calculations and will slow your system down during writes to the drives... Also you should not boot from your raid5 as that will be really slow too.
 
I wont be booting from it. I have a 160gb segate for that. So what is the starting point of true hardware cards?
 
You could find pretty inexpensive Adaptec cards (4-port and 8-ports) for around $200-250 on eBay, they also are true hardware RAID with OCE capabilities as well.
 
Cloud15x said:
I wont be booting from it. I have a 160gb segate for that. So what is the starting point of true hardware cards?
Click to expand...

Around $300 or so for a brand new 4 Port Areca card.

Oh and the Dell Perc 5 does support OCE. If you don't mind buying used hardware, you could buy a Dell Perc 5/i card off eBay for ~$125 or so plus two of these SFF-8484 to 4 x SATA Cables for ~$25. Thus, you get 8 ports and a true hardware RAID controller for around ~$150 or so. Not a bad deal considering that a new true PCI-E hardware RAID controller is around $300 (Areca ARC-1210) for 4 ports. But those Dell Perc 5/i cards are a bit finicky about motherboards. It will take up PCI-E x16 slot

Read these threads for more info:
Finally went to a Hardware Raid5 controller...
Dell Perc 5/i - Mainboard Compatibility List
Solution for Dell Perc 5/i for Intel Chipsets
 
nitrobass24 said:
It will take up a PCI-E x4 slot....and they are finicky "sometimes" but nothing a lil peice of tape cant fix.
Click to expand...

I thought it was x8 card? In any case, not many consumer grade motherboards have a x4 or x8 slot. So you'll end up using a x16 port anyway.
 
nitrobass24 said:
well the 2320 does....I cant remember off the top of my head if the Perc5 does or not???Most of your high end hardware cards will. Hopefully some others will chime in with some suggestions but as far as a budget raid5 card goes the Dell Perc5/i is about as cheap as they get and they get expensive real fast.
Click to expand...

The Perc 5/i does support OCA. From my personal experience it's a nice solid controller. I'd recommend it.
 
Danny Bui said:
I thought it was x8 card? In any case, not many consumer grade motherboards have a x4 or x8 slot. So you'll end up using a x16 port anyway.
Click to expand...

You can easily put a x8 card in a x4 slot, and sometimes even in a x1 slot, depending on the card. And lots of consumer grade motherboards has x4 electrical slots (even if x16 physical)
 
People need to keep in mind just how DANGEROUS Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) is. It's restriping your LIVE data on the fly.
 
dorkbert said:
People need to keep in mind just how DANGEROUS Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) is. It's restriping your LIVE data on the fly.
Click to expand...

Actually it's not that dangerous most raid controllers keep the redundancy level during OCE. So if you expanding raid 5 and 1 drive fails you don't loose anything, simply replace the drive and it will rebuild itself.
 
dorkbert said:
People need to keep in mind just how DANGEROUS Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) is. It's restriping your LIVE data on the fly.
Click to expand...
axan said:
Actually it's not that dangerous most raid controllers keep the redundancy level during OCE. So if you expanding raid 5 and 1 drive fails you don't loose anything, simply replace the drive and it will rebuild itself.
Click to expand...

Depends on the controller. On a true hardware controller with a write back cache, like the PERC 5/i, it's very safe (as long as you have the battery for it!) because if it goes down the data you're re-arranging at that moment is stored in the cache (which the battery is keeping alive), and the rest of it is being kept safe with the redundancy. Software/Linux RAID, though, I wouldn't trust unless I had a seperate backup.
 
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