wanting to make a server

[thePh@r@oh]

someone gave me an old HP 400Mhz it runs pretty good im wanting to turn it into a file/print server so my question is how can i add a bunch of harddrives there are only 3 PCI slots for controller cards and i want to add a whole lot of drives...what can i do

[jmichna]

Why do you want to add "whole lot of drives"? How much storage space do you think you need? What kinds of files are you going to store? What size of files? How many will get added per year?

You can buy parallel-ATA and serial-ATA raid controllers, which provide capability to do RAID-5 (mirror+stripe+parity for very secure data). These 3Ware.com "Escalade" RAID controllers can support up to twelve devices per card (see http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata9000.asp and http://www.3ware.com/products/parallel_ata.asp

I run a couple -- well, three -- servers at work, that service about three hundred people in our business unit. Users do team-oriented file storage, a technical library with electronic documents going back for almost 12 years, and so on. Even run an Oracle DB. I doubt if we use 200gb of storage space.

Getting back to "a whole lot of drives"... what makes you think a handful of 120gb drives in RAID-5 wouldn't provide you with at least a few year's worth of storage?

[John Prophet]

expensive idea here---> http://www.cooldrives.com/twodrusb20en.html

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the problem with using a lot of drives is probably not the controller cards....but the actual physical space needed to mount the drives.

[thePh@r@oh]

well the physical space isnt a problem Im building a custom case that i can store out of site. i didnt know how many devices could be on one controller. Im storing all my DVDs, CDsand most of my games on there Ive lost to many things ive concidered valuable due to "accidents" that ive started backing everything up.

[John Prophet]

well each pci controller card is 4 more hard drives..yes?

[davidamarkley]

If you're building a custom case, and wanting to have this as a file server for what sounds like multiple terrabytes. I'd say that 400Mhz CPU is just a little too , uh little? Wouldn't it be a better idea, since this is a critical backup box, to put a little money into the hardware, even buy a not new technology, but new motherboard and CPU and RAM? RAM is even more important to the file server than a fast CPU. Maybe it's just IMO, but you won't be able to fully use the file server without a good board, fast CPU loads of RAM and a gigabit network. Trust me, Gigabit is worth it, ESPECIALLY when transfering multiple GBs worth of files. 3com or Intel are the only two Gigabit NICs I would recommend. Not a bad price, most places are selling them at about $40-$60.

Dave

[thePh@r@oh]

well i didnt want to sink too much into this i was gonna upgrade my comp

[John Prophet]

adding just one pci controller gives you 4 more hard drives...thats a LOTTTTTTT of storage space...especially when added to the 3 drives it could already have (leaving room for one cdrom also)

[jmichna]

Adding one of those Escalade RAID controllers I mentioned above gives you anywhere from 2, 4, 8 or even 12 devices per PCI slot.

Three open PCI slots give you plenty of options even if -- as JP and David mentioned -- you just went with standard controllers, you'd still get four more devices per slot.

Couple other things to keep in mind:
1) Unless you do mirrored RAID, adding more drives increases the odds you'll experience a failure in one of them. Example, if expected failure is 1-in-50,000 hours for a certain drive, and you have four drives of these drives, the statistics say you now have a 4-in-50,000 hour chance of seeing a failure. Multiple drives in RAID are safer NOT simply because there are more drives, but because the data is stored in multiple places... when one drive fails, and new one replaces it and the data is mirrored back from the remaining old, good drive to the new replacement drive.

2) More drives will draw more power, so power supply output becomes more critical.

3) More drives generate more heat, so case ventillation needs to be very good. If you don't keep the drives cool, failure rates go up. This is one reason many server cases are so big, and have so much case ventillation. Rack mounts are just very tall, open cases with all kinds of air circulation.

IMO, you really ought to think over just how much storage space you think you'll need for X number of years, and decide how you intend to backup your data... it may cause you to simply double the drive space, and use half the drives for backup (Ghost, whatever).

Alternatively, go RAID (mirrored) with two (or four) drives, when one fails just go out and buy another... no data lost, just downtime.

[thePh@r@oh]

well decided not to use it as a server turns out it only had 32mb of pc100 i got 2k on it and it runs ok its just a tad slow decided to set it up as a computer for my mom. she seems happy with it. if i could find about 128mb of pc100 or 133 for cheap i think im gonna upgrade for her