[nmglug] RAID, SCSI vs ATA

[Nick Frost]

Andres Paglayan wrote:

> I am kind of tackling the same things at home,
> new hi-res camera, and lots of stuff to store,
> and so far I am considering getting whatever mobo supporting several  
> (5 to 8) sata disks,
> and starting with 3 or 6 500GB raided drives,
> roughly $450 for 1TB or $750 for 2,5 TB

I agree with Andres that the roll-your-own NAS is the most cost 
effective way to obtain a larger capacity NAS offering more versatility 
(one can choose the OS), for those that have the ability to assemble, 
install, and maintain one.

Though a good, stable $100 mainboard can occasionally be found, with the 
availability of low-end server boards with "professional" chipsets these 
days, I've increasingly been opting for those with generally much better 
results (in terms of stability/reliability).

I recently re-built a Linux workstation system around a Tyan Tomcat 
n3400b S2925A2NRF server motherboard (Socket AM2) with good results so 
far, having used a Tyan K8W S2875ANRF (dual Opteron, AMD 8111/8151) 
board with excellent stability for several years. If I were building a 
home NAS, I'd vote for a low-end server motherboard like the Tomcat 
n3400b above, or seek a good ASUS, Tyan, or Intel board like this;

Intel S975XBX2 T (LGA 775) Intel 975X ATX Workstation Board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121088

If one want to spend $300 or more, there are some very nice server 
boards to be had, with the advantage of PCI-X slots and onboard SAS 
controllers in some cases. I never paid much attention to MSI in years 
past, but in the last couple MSI has marketed some quality stable 
motherboards.  Historically I've found all-AMD solutions to offer 
excellent stability in many cases (anyone remember the Slot-A Gigabyte 
GA-7IXE or Socket-A GA-7IXE4???), and there are some newer boards with 
AMD 790FX chipsets that look intriguing, such as;

MSI K9A2 Platinum AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard  $174.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130136

that has excellent reviews as a "budget" AMD solution.

The MSI K8NGM2-FID (micro ATX) was a great cheap socket 939 board, cheap 
and seemingly very stable (if one avoids the temptation to overclock). 
I assembled a system for my sister with one and it's run reliably for a 
couple years now;

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1803985

If one doesn't mind the deprecated Socket 939 platform, this ASUS 
offering looks cheap and promising (in terms of a stable board), and has 
good reviews;

ASUS K8N-LR 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX Server Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131160

I'd be interested if anyone has any comments or suggestions regarding 
motherboards yielding *NIX (Solaris, Linux, BSD, etc.) uptimes of 90 
days or more.

-Nick
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Nicholas S. Frost
7 Avenida Vista Grande #325
Santa Fe, NM  87508
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