[mythtv-users] Question re: available SATA ports and linux software RAID

Bobby Gill bobbygill at rogers.com
Thu Apr 7 22:25:56 UTC 2011


Wow, a lot of info here, can't thank you all enough! The elaborations on the
SAS and HighPoint cards is especially appreciated, hate to think I could've
gone and done the whole thing without knowing those little tidbits.

I perhaps should have been clearer as to the usage of my server: It will be
primarily for streaming media (.mkv, rare .avi, etc. video files + mp3s) via
XBMC and Myth [recordings of course] directly to a receiver via HDMI.
Minimally I'll be streaming wirelessly to laptop around the house, but that
first purpose is it for the most part.

So now 3 questions arise:

RAID is for availability, rather than backup, so unless you like the idea of
> doing unscheduled OS/MythTV reinstalls/restores, then it might be a good
> idea to put your OS on more than one drive too.
>

1. ^^^^ I don't understand what you mean by unscheduled OS/MythTV
reinstalls/restores. I back up my crucial OS configs and the myth database
and relevant stuff regularly to a few external drives and online space. I
think the idea is that I can just have a small drive (I have several of
various sizes 250gb-750gb) with the OS on it, separate from the array should
one of the larger RAID drives fail and I have to go through the whole
rebuilding deal or something, so that the machine is still usable even if
the data is on hold or whatnot. I am sure I'm misunderstanding or
overlooking some aspect of this and would greatly appreciate it if someone
can point to why it'd be better to put the OS on the RAID array than a
separate smaller drive.

For an non raid card I recommend the following controller under linux:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117157&cm_re=intel_sas-_-16-117-157-_-Product
>
>  John
>

2. ^^^^ If I get this card, to be clear for my thick skull hehe, a) it is
basically adding SATA ports to my motherboard to which I can connect my
drives as normal, and then set up a linux software RAID, correct? and b) It
specifies "RAID 0/1/1E/10E" but that is only if I use it as a hardware RAID
card, correct? (in other words irrelevant since I'd use linux software
RAID?)

3. It's looking like RAID6 is a better choice. For the cost I do not mind
losing some space for better protection, if that's how one can deem it. I
just used this RAID calculator: http://www.icc-usa.com/raid-calculator.asp
and it shows that if I have 8x2TB for example in RAID6, I'd have 12GB
usable. This is acceptable to me. My question is about having extra drives
to swap for failed ones: a) Must the drives all be 100% exactly the same and
b) How many would be advisable to have on hand? (sticking with the 8x2
example).


Thank you all for your time and help, greatly appreciated!!
Bobby
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