Has anyone have any experience building one of these? I've come to quickly realize that 150 blu-ray/dvds are taking up way to much space for me to be able to simply use a PC with 4/5 HDD in them for my HTPC, so I'm guessing I'm going to have to go with a file server. I've never built one before so if there is anything I would need aside from the software I would appreciate a heads up. Thanks
You need to do a hardware raid (preferably nvidia or intel) , software raids aren't reliable. There are different kinds of raids for different purposes. What is it you're trying to achieve with this array? I have a raid5 setup on my main rig, using nvidia nvraid, which is built into my nvidia chipset.
Basically I want to use this as a file server, it was originally just going to be an HTPC, but I had no idea I was going to need about 8+ terabytes plus room for expansion.
Then do a RAID5 like I have. It requires 3+ hard drives, and lets you use about 2/3 of the total capacity of the combined drives (as opposed to RAID1, which only lets you use half). RAID5 offers data redundancy, so if one HDD dies, you can take it out and pop another one in there, and the RAID software will automatically start to rebuild it... keeping your data safe. Most hardware RAID controllers support RAID0, 1 and 5. I use the nVidia one which is built onto my board. Just enable RAID from the BIOS, reboot your PC and press a certain key to go into RAID setup, configure which disks will be part of the array, reboot and install your OS (I'd recommend running Windows Server 2008 on your server). Don't forget to install the RAID software/driver after you've loaded your OS.
Much appreciated advice, thanks again. Is Win7 or Server08 capped at 2TB per drive, like Vista & XP are?
Just wanted to add something : RAID is NOT a back-up solution. RAID is NOT a back-up solution. RAID is NOT a back-up solution. Don't forget to have a full back-up of all your files elsewhere.
Any suggestions? I've never had to deal with anything like this before as I typically just burned everything that I wanted to keep to dvds. But, I'm putting in a lot of time getting all my media switched over and would love any advice for a quick recovery scenario should something horrible happen. Just my dvds alone have taken up almost 3TB, I haven't even touched the BluRays as I was told those can go up to 40g per, esh... Needless to say this is not a process I want to repeat.
Saffaya is right, but in the case of building a file server specifically for large media files, and building a RAID array to store them, there isn't much you can do to back those files up unless you buy several more terabytes worth of storage space. I have everything stored on my one and only RAID array. I backup my important documents to another HDD, but that's about it. The movies/music/games/ISOs I can always replace easily. Norton also offers an online backup service, 25GB for $50/year. It's not a bad deal for important documents/photos. Since they're a big company, I bet they store your files on several different servers, so they'll be there when you need em (even if one server dies)
Why are you backing up your Blurays in a HDD anyways? When you store your disk data to the HDD, is it raw or compressed? If do a compressed or lesser-quality rip, you could make each bluray 720p which would be around 6GB or 1080p which would be around 12GB. The size of the file depends on what codec/compression method you use. There are tutorials out there, Google for 'bluray rip' or 'how to rip bluray disks' Good luck!
I put all my media on my HTPC which allows me to watch any/every movie/video/song I have in any room of the house with a TV at anytime. It's really quite cool.