Arch Linux

OrionFyre

Member

Registered: 2008-03-16

Posts: 68

Raid alternative?

So I'm planning out this server i'm building. Essentially it will be a HTPC/File Server/{SSH|FTP|HTTP} Host multi-talented box kind of thing. In fact the host name will be 'jack', get it?

I want the redunancy of a raid system since the initial configuration will be 10TB of storage (with intent to grow). I like the idea of doing a raid 5 or even 6 (can a level 5 be migrated to 6 in the future?). However one drawback that I'm beginning to realize is that if I utilize such a storage solution then all the drives must be spun up to watch any videos either locally or remotely.

Is there a system in place where one can have multiple discrete file systems on seperate drives (possibly even spanning) and one parity drive?

Say for example I have 5 2TB drives which are spanned and show up as 1 x 10TB, but in the event of a system failure or removal to another system they operate discretely. However a sixth 2TB drive is kept as parity against the 5 data drives. This way in the event of a data drive failing it can rebuild the discrete file system from the remaining 4 and parity. the bennefit being that if i'm watching a marathon viewing of Stargate Universe (damn you SyFy) the system can spin down the five other data and parity disks to conserver power (go green!).

And not to get greedy, but growing the number of disks in the set would be nice too.... Does such a solution exist?

rwd

Member

Registered: 2009-02-08

Posts: 664

Re: Raid alternative?

On my home server the content is backed up daily with a rdiff-backup cronjob (incremental) to a different local harddisk.  The downside is that In case the main disk /volume crashes it will take a little more time to restore than with raid mirror, but the backup disk can stay idle  the rest of the day.

Another solution would be to keep the nas as a separate machine from the htpc, so you don't hear the noise. Also this way you can use more than one htpc or upnp enabled tv that all use the same storage on the nas.

Last edited by rwd (2010-12-20 20:51:07)

tammer

Member

From: Philadelphia

Registered: 2010-06-18

Posts: 11

Re: Raid alternative?

Could a possible solution be a next-gen filesystem like btrfs or zfs, or would there be downsides that outweigh their features? The daily backup idea is a good one, but I feel like this would get complicated in setups with more than two disks.

RAID is a great technology but there must be something more modern out there.

Last edited by tammer (2011-03-19 05:35:19)