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Not sure about lsi, but as far as adaptec is concerned, yes any drives hooked up to the controller card whether it be direct or through an expander can be allocated to raid or jbod. if you had adaptec i could guide you but i have no clue as of the interface for lsi.
My Movie CollectionRegistered My Movies InstallerI Have all Adaptec and Chenbro SAS parts in stock, contact me if you need any of them!Server- Intel D5400XS Skull Trail, 2x Intel Quad Core E5340, 32GB Kingston FB-DIMM, PNY GT520, Norco RPC-4116 4U Chasis, Adaptec 6405 SAS Card, Chenbro CK22803 6.0Gbps Expander, 16 1TB Western Digital Drives, WHS2011 Expander 1 - Norco RPC-4220 20SAS Hot-Swap Case, Enermax Galaxy DXX, Chenbro UEK-23601 6.0Gbps Expander 20 2TB Western Digital Drives. Expander 2 - Norco RPC-4220 20SAS Hot-Swap Case, Enermax Galaxy DXX, Chenbro UEK-23601 6.0Gbps Expander 20 2TB Western Digital Drives. Clients 1-6 **NEW** -Intel DP67DE Mobo, Corei5 2300 Cpu, 4GB Hyper X Ram, 64Gb SSD Hard Drive, PNY GT520 3D, Windows 7 Home Premium, Arcsoft TMT3 w/ SimHD, Sim3D.
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do you know any distributors in australia for this type of gear ?
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WOW!!
I'm just beginning a server setup for my movie collection and thaught I had it all figured out, but not any more!
Without asking for some hand holding (maybe more like a piggy back), If I take the system I have in my signature, what would I need to rearrange what I have and need to buy to house (at present) almost 4K movies?
I keep a rip of the disc (incase I need to replace the original) as well as a conversion for mobile devices (xBox and Droid phones).
I would like to keep the drives in a mirrored configuration due to the volume I have, the loss of a drive with that much information would be very painful for me.
Thanks in advance for all advice offered.
System info: Custom Build by ME
Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply
Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard
AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM
Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive
Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS
Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup
Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents
Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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Mirroring almost 4k movies with both the original source material and a conversino for mobile devices is going to need a LOT of storage. I have about half that many movies and went the SAS expander route with Norco 24-drive cases. It works really, really well. I am not mirroring though. I am using FlexRaid with a couple of parity drives in case of disc failure. It isn't too resource intensive for me since I don't make too many modifications each day. I just update the parity each night. It also has a real-time RAID mode, but I haven't tried that. I prefer FlexRaid over hardware/software RAID 5 since it operates at the file level. So, the discs remain normal NTFS volumes. If something terrible happens and I can't recover a lost drive, the worst case is that I have only lost the data on that drive and not the entire array. For that same reason, I make sure that I rip entire movies to individual drives and don't let files get spread all over like demigrator on WHS v1 used to do. Good luck with your build!
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I am figuring, with a mirrored setup, I can get 370ish 'titles' on each mirrored setup. With that in mind, as of right NOW, I looking at 11 sets of 2TB drives.
I was thinking of going SAS/SATA via a tower or two with an extender card in the server and daisy-chaining each case from there. If I could get my hands on more info on "how to do' this as well as the extender cards, interface cards, software, etc. I could begin to put together a wish list.
So far I'm thinking something like:
A couple (or three depending on price) "drive" cases with a capacity of like 10-20 drives
A Host card (to be put into the server) to connect to each of the additional drive cases
5 Host cards in each drive case with 3 secondary expanders in each drive case (to connect up to 20 drives in each case)
As many 2TB hard drives as I can afford (buying them in multiples of 2)
LOTS of cable (not sure which ones yet)
Setup to look something like configuration #2 in post #1
Whew, I think I got my work cut out for me!
System info: Custom Build by ME
Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply
Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard
AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM
Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive
Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS
Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup
Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents
Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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You only need 1 host card in the server. Then each external box only needs a power supply, SAS expander, and drives. If you go with the Chenbro expanders, they come in 16 (CK22803) and 24 (CK23601) drive varieties. If the box is only for hosting drives (i.e., no motherboard), I recommend going with the Chenbro Universal Expander Kit (http://www.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=76). It can hold either 1 or 2 expanders (16, 24, 32, 40, or 48 drives) and has connections for the power supply and case power button. It also fits perfectly in the motherboard I/O port opening at the back of the case. It is really slick for this exact application and eliminates the need to hack the ATA power supply to turn on without a motherboard connection. The Chenbro expanders use SFF-8087 ports (1 cable per 4 drives; aka MiniSAS). If you use a regular case without a compatible backplane, you will need breakout cables to convert 1 end of each SFF-8087 cable to 4 standard SATA plugs. If you go with one of the Norco cases, they come with SFF-8087 backplanes already installed. So, for a 24 drive setup, you just need 6 SFF-8087 cables instead of 24 SATA cables and a ton of molex power splitters. Again, very convenient but the cases are not small... There may be other cases that do the same but I doubt they are as inexpensive (http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=252). I also recommend that you swap out the standard Norco fans with quieter 120mm ones. You need the 120mm fan bracket if you do that (http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=258). Summary of what you need if you go with my suggestions... Server = SATA host controller with SFF-8088 port (external MiniSAS) that is SAS expander compatible + whatever else you want Each external drive box = Chenbro SAS expander w/ UEK (usually sold together) + 1 SFF-8087 cable per 4 drives + case w/ MiniSAS backplane + power supply + 1 SFF-8088 port + molex power splitters Here are links to almost everything: SATA controller (just a suggestion as it has 4 internal SATA ports plus the external miniSAS; I know others prefer Adaptec): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118133Case: http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=252Fan bracket: http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=258Fans (3x): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103061Power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171054SFF-8088 cable: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133048Power splitter (2x): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133040SFF-8087 cables (6x): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168161330342TB drives (24x): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148681Chenbro SAS expander (36 ports = 24 drives + ability to daisy chain) w/ UEK: http://www.provantage.com/chenbro-micom-uek-23601~7CHEN122.htm (special order) I just built a system using the above components for a friend and he is loving it.
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Thanks djsecrist, this sounds doable but EXPENSIVE.
Case, 3 fans w/bracket, power supply an SATA controller (for the server), an 8088 cable (to connect the two boxes), power splitters, 8087 cables, and a UEK-12803 expansion kit (can not find a 23601), using 4 drives (I already have) I'm looking at something in the price range of $1250.
Using this as a beggining, by what process (other than just plugging in) would I expand the "drive", keeping in mind I will be mirroring. What I mean is, if I have two drives mirrored as one, it fills up, I add two more in the same configuration, can I than make the now 2 2TB a 4TB mirrored drive?
System info: Custom Build by ME
Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply
Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard
AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM
Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive
Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS
Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup
Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents
Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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You are right. It is not cheap, but it is the most expandable solution that I have found in this price range. For home enthusiasts like us, it is pretty amazing that you could even do this for a couple of thousand dollars. If you had to buy enterprise hardware to do the same thing, it would cost in the 10's of thousands of $.
The Chenbro 23601 is at the link I gave but the forum doesn't like the ~ in the link. If you copy the whole thing and paste into your browser window, it will take you to the special order page for Provantage. "http://www.provantage.com/chenbro-micom-uek-23601~7CHEN122.htm" It took my friend's order about 2 weeks to arrive.
You have several options for drive expansion. You can use either hardware or software RAID mirroring. Personally, I find that software mirroring in Windows is more convenient, just as reliable, and takes almost no additional CPU power. Just make sure your equipment is hooked up to a UPS or two. Remember that adding a 2TB mirror to a 2TB drive gives you 2TB of usable, protected space, not "a 4TB mirrored drive". For the number of movies that I store, I believe that mirroring is a waste though. The data is fairly read-only, plus it can always be reripped from the original media. So, I use Flexraid parity drives (you only need 1 or 2 drives that are as large as your biggest drive) as the 1st level of protection. I have irreplaceable content like family photos on a select set of mirrored drives, and I make offsite backups of that data to the Cloud.
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djsecrist quote: "Remember that adding a 2TB mirror to a 2TB drive gives you 2TB of usable, protected space, not "a 4TB mirrored drive". "
This I'm very aware of, but raised by a CPU that beat redundancy into me, I've made it a practice ever since. In my case with as many videos there will be on each drive, I think the time saved replacing vs reripping the downed drive and have the system re-mirror just makes much more sense.
As for the 'type' of mirroring I also use software it just seems to work much more seamless than hardware especially when mirroring (not so much true with striping).
As for the adding of drives, due you just add two more, mirror one to the other and off you go?
Is there a way to take say 2TB drive 1 (data) and drive 1A (mirror of drive 1) add 2TB drive 2 and 2A which can now become a 4TB mirrored drive?
Do you have a picture of the UEK-23601?
System info: Custom Build by ME
Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply
Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard
AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM
Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive
Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS
Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup
Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents
Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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Windows has the capability using Dynamic disks to do pooling, but you don't know where your data will reside and it greatly increases your risk of data loss should a drive fail. You can no longer take out a single drive and read it like any other NTFS volume because blocks may be on the other drives. If you lose 1 drive, you have now lost the ability to access the data on all of the drives in the pool. Mirroring does buffer you from a single drive failure though... Personally, I like keeping my drives separate and ensuring that each DVD or Blu-ray is entirely contained on a single volume. I used to be a huge fan of WHS v1 drive extender, but my thinking has completely changed since moving to WHS 2011. I don't miss the drive pooling of WHS v1 very much any more because I feel much safer now. If I lost a single drive (or mirrored pair), I would only lose the movies on that drive. With data spread across multiple drives (even at the file level, not talking RAID 5 or similar), if you lose a drive with 1 VOB on it, the movie is now unwatchable even if you still have all of the rest of the files.
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The UEK-23601 looks like this except with only 1 expander card in the kit instead of the 2 stacked ones in this picture. http://usa.chenbro.com/assets/2008/11/14/product4499235074.jpg?PHPSESSID=2435af23cf0ab95a20c1a4a1b28b09bb
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I'm fairly new to building Media Servers. But have been building custom PCs and CCTV DVRs for at least 10 years. I understand this stuff pretty well, but RAID is not something I've had to deal with before. I just finished installing my first MyMovies system and the customer is in love with it. He now wants to have some redundancy in case of hard drive failure after realizing the effort it takes to rip all of those movies. Of course he didn't want to go with the full system from the beginning and now that we have over 9 TB of movies ripped, I have to turn this thing into a RAID system. The systems for now is about like this: SilverStone LC13B CaseASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3Intel Core i3-2105Crucial M4 64GB SSDHitachi Deskstar 7k3000 3TB x4Windows 7 Home Premium Bluray Drive IR Remote I would like to add this to the main server: Adaptec 6405Adaptec AFM 600 (Not exactly sure about this piece, but it seems to offer additional protection in power failure)Chenbro CK22803Build Storage Expansion with this: Fractal Design Array R2 CaseChenbro UEK22803Hitachi UltraStar 7k3000 3TB x6I was thinking of using RAID 6 with 10 drives, 2 as Hot Spares, resulting in less than 24TB usable space. I'll still have room in the main case for two more drives netting a maximum space of less than 30 TBs. Then I could add another expansion box if he somehow loads up all of that space. I know I could get cases that hold more drives. But with the way his Theater Room is designed all of the equipment is in glass cabinets in front of the room, and he really likes the aesthetically pleasing cases. So, do the experts here think this sounds like a good idea? I'm curious how incorporating the data filled drives into the array would work out. Should I move the data onto the array and then add the blank drive into the pool? I plan to use the software that comes with the RAID Card to handle everything, and it may take care of this for me...? Is RAID 6 the best option in this case? I see everyone talking about different redundancy options, but I lack some experience here. My gut tells me to go with the standard RAID 6 to be able to handle 2 drives failing at the same time.
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OK, after doing some research to try and bring down the price a little after reading the post of djsecrist Posted: Friday, March 16, 2012 12:11:17 AM (just above) I've come up with this: I'm going to take my system apart and place it in a Norco RPC-4220 case with the following: Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219033Power Supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171055Fan Wall: http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=258Fans (x3): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103061SAS RAID card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816401184&Tpk=468406-b21Power splitters (x2): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133040SAS Cables (x6): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133033&Tpk=N82E16816133033Internal Slim DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118064Total Cost just around $1250.00 But now I'll have 1 case not 2 and still be able to expand into another case later if need be! Now my question is, if this works, what are my options for LARGE storage (ie. spanned drives) that can be backed up (I am aware of the 2TB limit, thus my question)? What I was thinking is instead of mirroring like I am now, what if I were to put a backup drive of equal size to each 'data' drive I install?
System info: Custom Build by ME Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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You want the Norco 4220, not the 4224, if you are building a stand alone system. The 4220 has the slim DVD drive bay. It only holds 20 drives though instead of 24. That might be a good thing though as that SAS card you picked might only support 20 internal drives if you want to use the external port to hook up an expander at some point in the future. That is definitely something that you should research if you haven't already.
You might want to look into Storage Spaces or whatever it is called in Windows 8 or Windows Server 8. It might do everything you want, and the blogs are saying that it should be out in October.
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Thank you djsecrist, you are correct the 4220 is only 20 bays but it has a slim drive bay. I can later add the 4224, don't think I'll outgrow that combo any time soon!
System info: Custom Build by ME
Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply
Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard
AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM
Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive
Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS
Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup
Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents
Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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Ok, been thinking again, is this doable?
Rack case 1:
IPC-4038 4U 12 drive bay w/480W P.S.
Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard
AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM
Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive
LSI Logic 9212-4i4e 8-port SAS RAID Controller
Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS
Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup
Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrive (x6) everything except videos
Running WHS 2011 and MM Server
Rack case 2 & 3:
RPC-4224 4U Server Case w/ 24 Hot-Swappable SATA/SAS Drive Bay
Chenbro SAS expander w/ UEK-12803
Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrive (x24)
Case 1 will be the actual server w/OS drive, backup drive, optical drive, server folder drive (except videos)
Case 2 will hold 4 drives for video files and 20 for video TS folders
Case 3 will be the same as case 2 and serve as baackup to case 2
This should provide ample space to grow into and still allow me to add additional cases as needed.
System info: Custom Build by ME
Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply
Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard
AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM
Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive
Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS
Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup
Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents
Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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Sounds awesome!!! I haven't checked the SATA on your Gigabyte mb. Between it and your LSI controller, do you have enough internal ports for all of the drives (hard drives and optical) in the server unit?
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djsecrist wrote:Sounds awesome!!! I haven't checked the SATA on your Gigabyte mb. Between it and your LSI controller, do you have enough internal ports for all of the drives (hard drives and optical) in the server unit?
The MB has 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices (SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and JBOD) which will host the optical drive, the 500GB drive and the 1TB backup drive. I'm leaving the remaining three for additional backup drives. The LSI card will host the the 6 2TB drive (internally) with the two externals 1 each feeding the chenbro UEK-12803s in rack cases 2 & 3.
System info: Custom Build by ME Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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zippyz wrote:djsecrist wrote:Sounds awesome!!! I haven't checked the SATA on your Gigabyte mb. Between it and your LSI controller, do you have enough internal ports for all of the drives (hard drives and optical) in the server unit?
The MB has 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices (SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and JBOD) which will host the optical drive, the 500GB drive and the 1TB backup drive. I'm leaving the remaining three for additional backup drives. The LSI card will host the the 6 2TB drive (internally) with the two externals 1 each feeding the chenbro UEK-12803s in rack cases 2 & 3. Just for info the LSI card has 8 Sata/SAS prots that is only 8 drives 4 internal and 4 external thru 1 single 8087 port on the internal and a single 8088 to the outside world. This would mean putting an expander inside the host case to get 6 drives of the internal connector and then daisy ching the 2 norco's thru the Chenbro's. I havent actually tried this yet but am trying to source the necessary hardware to do the same currently have a norco 4220 and a TST ESR316 cases already running as discrete servers but I want to run just one server with the 2 hotswap cases attached to it. The server will have lots of processing power and Ram but not a lot of Storage internal to it so that will just have a pair (or Quad) drives mirrored for protection and the rest will probably run on something like Solaris with a ZFS File system. So will be looking for an 8 port card where the sockets are external feeding the 2 chasis seperately in an attempt to keep the bandwidth up. HTH Doug
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dougal1957 wrote:zippyz wrote:djsecrist wrote:Sounds awesome!!! I haven't checked the SATA on your Gigabyte mb. Between it and your LSI controller, do you have enough internal ports for all of the drives (hard drives and optical) in the server unit?
The MB has 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices (SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and JBOD) which will host the optical drive, the 500GB drive and the 1TB backup drive. I'm leaving the remaining three for additional backup drives. The LSI card will host the the 6 2TB drive (internally) with the two externals 1 each feeding the chenbro UEK-12803s in rack cases 2 & 3. Just for info the LSI card has 8 Sata/SAS prots that is only 8 drives 4 internal and 4 external thru 1 single 8087 port on the internal and a single 8088 to the outside world. This would mean putting an expander inside the host case to get 6 drives of the internal connector and then daisy ching the 2 norco's thru the Chenbro's. I havent actually tried this yet but am trying to source the necessary hardware to do the same currently have a norco 4220 and a TST ESR316 cases already running as discrete servers but I want to run just one server with the 2 hotswap cases attached to it. The server will have lots of processing power and Ram but not a lot of Storage internal to it so that will just have a pair (or Quad) drives mirrored for protection and the rest will probably run on something like Solaris with a ZFS File system. So will be looking for an 8 port card where the sockets are external feeding the 2 chasis seperately in an attempt to keep the bandwidth up. HTH Doug Good point, just did a little looking and found this: SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA II (3.0Gb/s) Controller Card Brand SUPERMICRO Model AOC-SAT2-MV8 Specifications Type SATA II (3.0Gb/s) Internal Connectors 8 x SATA II Interface 64-bit PCI-X133MHz Transfer Rate Up to 3Gb/s RAID Software RAID suported Operating Systems Supported Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Windows XP EM64T, 2003 EM64T, RedHat 9.0, RHEL 3 (Updates 2, 3, and 4), RHEL 3 EM64T/X86_64(Updates 3, 4), RHEL 4, RHEL 4 EM64T/X86_64, SuSE 9.1, 9.2, SuSE Enterprise 9 and Fedora Core 3 If I read this correct, I can use 6 ports for the internal 2TBs and port 2 external to feed the chenbro UEK-12803s in rack cases 2 & 3 via something like: Rosewill RC-202 Internal SATA to eSATA II External 2Port Host Bracket.
System info: Custom Build by ME Athena Power RM-4U4038B48 case w/700W power supply Gigabyte 78LMT-S2P Motherboard AMD FX 4-core 3.6 GHz AM3+ CPU Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM Pioneer DVR-219 Optical drive Seagate Pipeline 500GB harddrive for the OS Seagate Barracuda 1TB harddrive for Backup Seagate Barracuda 2TB harddrives (x6) Mirrored for Movies/Music/Documents Running WHS 2011, My Movies
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