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First, if there's a better place for this thread, please move it with my apologies. I didn't see a specific place for hardware questions. I plan on running XBMC Linux, but have to get to the point I have something to run it on first!

Basically, I'd like some advice on my Frankenstein solution for a XBMC Linux box. I am planning on buying a 4U rackmount case with seven internal 3.5" drive bays. Is there any reason setting the (up to) seven drives in a RAID array would be bad idea? Even if software based? Would using one drive for OS and rest for RAID array be a better plan?

I'm also thinking I'll be dual booting with Windows XP, solely for the ability to rip Blu-ray discs, but I suspect complicating matters to this degree might not go so well for me.

So, I'm looking at building a NAS, XBMC and rip-capable box in one. Thus, the Frankenstein tag ;)
Just one question: you have a 4U rackmount monster in your living room?! *shocked*

You didn't mention the raid level you're going to use, but spending so much money on that rig makes me think of a hardware raid solution e.g. from 3ware and not software - despite i don't know a mainboard which can handle 7 drives without an additional sata controller card. please be more specific.
It'll be mounted in a rack in my equipment closet, so nothing to stress out the wife. Well, aesthetically speaking, at least! Moaning, growls and such that she's pretty well learned to tune out by now.

I was looking at the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P board which claims to be able to run up to 8 SATA drives in RAID 0/1/5/10. I don't have a real preference which RAID as I've never used one for anything like this... multiple streams of music/movie. I'd certainly take suggestions for that as well!

As far as expense goes, before I look at the drives, it looks like I can get everything at newegg for a little more than $600. No hardware RAID controller, obviously, but... well, let me make this hopefully somewhat simpler:

My understanding was that for the vid card, anything at all that would run the desktop would be sufficient since the video processing was entirely CPU based. And I'll not be using seven drives from the get go, although if the movie ripping works as I'd like, then certainly I'll be filling it as fast as possible.

If more info would help, let me know. It's a big, expensive step into the unknown for me. And for $600, it would be good to have some result other than an underpowered and unnecessary gaming rig!
markguy Wrote:My understanding was that for the vid card, anything at all that would run the desktop would be sufficient since the video processing was entirely CPU based. And I'll not be using seven drives from the get go, although if the movie ripping works as I'd like, then certainly I'll be filling it as fast as possible.

Take a look at the VDPAU thread - GPU video processing is pretty much here today. You can probably lower your cost and definitely your power now that it is available. Well... I suppose 6 HDs take a lot of power!

xnappo
xnappo Wrote:Take a look at the VDPAU thread - GPU video processing is pretty much here today.

This is the thread xnappo referenced, I believe.

That's very welcome news, indeed. Two reasons I'm sticking with the CPU I've listed are 1) ripping and encoding, which have just kicked the bejeezus out of my current rigs and 2) I'm nervous enough about making everything work that using a development build, however exciting it may be, would be more stress than I'd like. And if it gets merged in later (or, less likely, everything goes as smoothly as I hope), I can buy a vid card and reap the benefits then.

I do appreciate the reference though... I hadn't seen it and it really is exciting news. Too bad it's not particularly hardware agnostic, although clearly not XBMC's fault!
markguy Wrote:This is the thread xnappo referenced, I believe.

I do appreciate the reference though... I hadn't seen it and it really is exciting news. Too bad it's not particularly hardware agnostic, although clearly not XBMC's fault!

FYI it is actually merged now... Good luck!

xnappo
well, you nonetheless want to stick anything at least opengl 2.0 aware in that rig or xbmc will crawl. i'd look at an nvidia 9xxx mainboard for that intel cpu as it has enough power to display xbmc in its full glory. also, stick 2x2GB of RAM in - that won't cost you more than 20$ plus and it's worth it for your tasks.

for the raid part: DON'T DO IT :-) RAID is not just plugging in six hdds and give it a go. this must be carefully planned, at least regarding raid level. level 0 is a no go except you don't care about the stuff on the hdds, raid 1 is waste of space and raid 5 has borked write performance. also, keep in mind that those so called 'raid controllers' on motherboards nowadays are really nothing more than a software solution that will stress your cpu more than needed. even bader, most of them are not or only badly supported in linux and you'd be better off with 'real' linux-based software raid.

if i were you i'd buy some really big drives (if you need the space), say 2 x 1gb, stick'em together with RAID1 as a linux software raid array and be happy with that. also think of using a small but fast drive for the system and leave RAID to the data drives.
Haggy Wrote:for the raid part: DON'T DO IT :-) RAID is not just plugging in six hdds and give it a go. this must be carefully planned, at least regarding raid level. level 0 is a no go except you don't care about the stuff on the hdds, raid 1 is waste of space and raid 5 has borked write performance. also, keep in mind that those so called 'raid controllers' on motherboards nowadays are really nothing more than a software solution that will stress your cpu more than needed. even bader, most of them are not or only badly supported in linux and you'd be better off with 'real' linux-based software raid.

if i were you i'd buy some really big drives (if you need the space), say 2 x 1gb, stick'em together with RAID1 as a linux software raid array and be happy with that. also think of using a small but fast drive for the system and leave RAID to the data drives.

Thanks, Haggy. I'm aware of the limitations of some of the RAID types, but I have a large movie collection that I'd like to be available to the family and friends. Two terabyte drives isn't going to cut it, as bizarre as it seems to say that! And I know the motherboard RAID solutions are software, although I was unaware they had Linux issues (that seems obvious, now that I think about it). As far as the write speed for RAID 5, that shouldn't be a large concern, since basically the only time a write would happen is when I was ripping the DVD or CD. And if I go ahead and get a VDPAU capable vid card, there should be spare CPU for the RAID array anyway :)

Is there a limit as far as the Linux software RAID solution goes? If that works at all well, I'll use that for now and plan on spending the outrageous sum of money for a hardware RAID controller at some point in the future.
Just an updated hardware list, from suggestions provided:

Current cost on newegg.com: $784.93 (there are some mail in rebates and the CPU/motherboard is currently a special at $20 off, so call it $750 actual)

Also, finding a RAID card for eight drives is proving even more difficult than expected. Anyone have any suggestions that won't run me more than the rest of the system?
I'd skip the mobo/HW raid stuff and just use the disks in a linux SW raid setup. Main reason being if the controller dies you can just toss you disks on a new one and be right back in business (assuming they didn't go with it). Proprietary HW raid solutions all mark the disks differently, so if you decide to upgrade your controller later you're probably going to have to completely rebuild. I've had to do this even when upgrading within the same vendor. Mobo SW raid is just an extra level of failure potential and headaches, I wouldn't bother. As for linux raid limits, it probably has less limits than any HW solution and in fact combined with LVM it's probably considerably more flexible. The only place HW solutions are really better is the fact that they get to build partity for level 5 and 6 and offload rebuild procedures on custom silicon which shouldn't be a problem for your application. Also, I don't think RAID5 would be a problem for you. Media servers do more reads than anything else and encoding is a completely CPU bound operation. My recommendation would be a smaller, quicker disk for your OS/apps and a linux RAID5 archive volume with however many disks you want. And don't forget, you can grow it as necessary Smile.
Thanks for the input, althekiller.
You might want to consider putting this in two seperate boxes. Do the "raid" as an unRAID which is fairly appliance like and the XBMC box as a little more cutting edge Ubuntu install. I am currently sitting at close to 8TB worth of files with over 5 of that being movies and MP3. That is spread on two unRAID servers - neither of which are near maxxed out to say the least. These servers grow with me and can handle up to 16 drives EACH of whatever size I want. Drives not being accessed for a period of time spin down - try that with most any other RAID. That means less noise, less heat, less energy. My current XBMC box is a bit overkill but for $400 or less you could duplicate it in a cheaper case. BTW that P/S is overkill, I'm running more drives on less. DO buy a 80+ rated P/S though as they save a great deal of energy!

Anyway, consider it. You're trying to do an awful lot in a single box and if running SVN code scares you then I am surprised you're willing to tackle both software RAID and XBMC on the same box. Ripping, compressing, and storing movies is labor intensive - losing them to a software failure or other boo boo would suck! Been there, done that, with my MP3s - they are now backed up in multiple places.

P.S. If you're going to be ripping BlueRay you won't be doing it on a Linux box anyway....
Honestly, that was my plan initially. But, what with the economy, I thought I might be able to get away with everything in one go. Or case, as it happens.

Okay, so the unRAID site looks interesting. What sort of hardware are you using on those rigs, BLKMGK? And I assume you're using the Pro version for them... $120 each is a trivial amount of money considering what the other options look to run. And I really like their "first hit's free" approach to making money.

And while we're at it, would you mind listing out your XBMC rig components... and if you're feeling particularly magnanimous, any shortcomings with them that you'd change if you could?

Once again, thanks for the input.
The XBMC setup is in my sig :-) I actually have two machines built like this with one of them in a plain jane case. IMO fancy cases don't make nearly the sense I thought they would when I built my first box. Here's a cheap build guidline for you http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Public...er=9999386 that you can tweak.

As for the unRAID, I'd honestly have to pop open the cases to see what motherboards are in there. The latest machine is running a dual core Celeron (hey, cheap!), a handful of 1.5TB SATA drives, a couple of IDE drives, and is placed in a Coolermaster tower case. P/S is an 80+ rated Corsair and 650Watts - overkill! Oh the box here says it is a Supermicro C2SEE board. 2gig DDR3 memory blah blah so I spent a little on this one - is an upgrade from an older pure IDE machine and one I push the envelope on with add-ons etc.. This box is mainly for computer backups and TV show downloads. This box is 7.6TB and has 12 drives - at least until I can get the data off the old IDE and pull them! Second box I cannot recall the motherboard. Has 1Gig of memory, 3.4ghz single core Celeron, all SATA (lots of slots onboard), has 2x Supermicro drive cages, 8.25TB of space, 10 drives +1 IDE cache, and about a 500watt P/S - 80+ rated. This is in a Coolermaster too.

Hint: with unRAId buy a BIG parity drive and then buy storage drives as they go on sale. Do not buy a bunch of drives planning ahead, grow as you need them and they go on sale. So long as a storage drive is no bigger than parity you're golden. My drives spend most of their time spun down. Write speed isn't stellar but with a cache drive it's not bad copying movies over. Read speed is fine for me and I can watch HD with no worries even over 100meg ethernet. Go read and ask questions here -> http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php as that's a better place for it, feel free to PM me if you need details. I've run unRAID for YEARS now and it's served me well.

P.S. Yes, Pro version of software. The free version is excellent for checking out hardware compatibility on hardware you might already have laying around :-)
What's that unRAID OS based upon? I strongly assume linux - but then how comes they don't release the source code?
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