[mythtv-users] Another take on large-capacity disk enclosures

Jarod Wilson jarod at wilsonet.com
Fri Jun 19 16:30:36 UTC 2009


On Jun 19, 2009, at 10:58 AM, Jeff Wormsley wrote:

> Jarod Wilson wrote:
>> The 3Ware 9500S I have is 64-bit PCI, which is slightly different  
>> than PCI-X (its an older and slower predecessor to PCI-X), and it  
>> *can* theoretically be plugged into an old-fashioned 32-bit PCI  
>> slot (as long as its PCI 2.2-compliant) and function, albeit less  
>> optimally.
>>
> Not only can be, but is.  I run one in a PCI 32bit slot on a dual  
> Xeon server, with 8 250G Sata I drives for 1.5TB storage.  Aside  
> from some initial problems with drive heat, this raid5 system has  
> run flawlessly for about 4 years now, and is recording from my A-180  
> and streaming to my frontend without any problems.  It is slow,  
> compared to what it could be, but faster than I need for Myth (which  
> is all this server really does, other that acting as a storage dump  
> for things like family photos that take 0.00% of any resource anyone  
> would care to name).
>
> Had I to do it over again (and I probably will, as I can get single  
> drives as big as my whole $3000 array), I would probably not use the  
> 3-ware card, because software raid is now plenty fast enough, and  
> much more flexible about resizing the array as disks get bigger and  
> replaced, something I can't do with my 3-ware card (using its native  
> raid implementation).

Heh, the parallels... I decommissioned my own 8x250G array that was on  
a 3Ware 9550SX just a few months ago, replacing it with four 1.5T  
Seagate drives using the onboard Marvell controller on an Intel  
D975BX2 motherboard. One major difference: my 8x250 setup cost ~$600,  
not $3000...

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com






More information about the mythtv-users mailing list