Storage, an issue for Otakus?

lain

Is storage capacity really an issue for Otakus nowdays? With all the HD and HQ in general stuff roaming around that eats away your space…

I think it depends a lot on the person…
· Do you collect everything and never want to let go of it?
· Do you even have a Backup of the “life” System files? (Backup of your RAID for example, btw. a RAID is NO backup at any means!)
· Do you just delete everything you have seen and might buy the DVD releases?
· And even if you delete it all, do you really have enough free time to view it all before your space fills up?

Personaly, the time to enjoy my hobbies has shrunk drasticaly due work and real life in general.
I barly can keep up with what is being released nowdays while i try to finish old stuff as well.

So i went for a fileserver, decisions had to be made so it wouldn’t end up being a money sink and i think the machine i have working for me now isn’t that bad at all. ;)

ant_p183_yeey

First the case, it should be able to hold a few disks but also provide proper ways of cooling everything.
I went with the Antec P183, it can hold up to 11 2,5″ disks if you really want to and comes with 2 pre-intalled case fans.
You will want two addional fans in front of the disk cages though, since when you stack 4 disks close together it can be a bit “warm”.
Though with it all being done properly, the system hardly goes over 50°C working temperature even while it’s 37°C outside in summer. :)

Secondly the processor Intel Q8200, nothing special but pretty good to have a quad core for a server anyhow.

The RAM had to be chosen carefully as well, since the operating system (OS) i had in mind would utilize at least 2GB just for the filesystem, then again it shouldn’t be to expensive.
I went with 4GB Kingston HyperX 1066 in the end – 2×2 GB, though it will be upgraded to 8GB soon.
As the system runs now it uses 3GB just in silent mode, but when i start bigger operations or huge copy processes then of course the 4GB are all used up.

For the disks i used 5x Western Digital 1,5TB Caviar Green 7200rpm, i use one of those since over a year already and am pretty satisfied with it.

ant_p183_wires

Now for the operating system (OS) and specialy the RAID level it took me a month to test things out with virtual machines as far i could.
I had to pick between Windows 2008 Server, some Linux or Open Solaris.
Now for the ups and downs of each system…

Mission: Fileserver – everything else is optional!

Hardware RAID or Software RAID?
While a software RAID is usualy not on par with a hardware RAID since the ressources used come from the server itself and not the used hardware RAID controler, it didn’t matter much for me in this case since the whoule thing isn’t suposed to do much more anyhow.
How secure can it be? Well, if the hardware controller dies or the disk on which your OS runs that manages the RAID, not much of a difference. It’s always a hassle to restore it, so yea…

Windows 2008 Server
It’s a strong system and would have enabled me to even use the VMware Server 2 on it to do more funny things, however the RAID utilization is pretty poor for my taste. I know the system pretty much since i work with it a lot, but can my lazyness beat my drive for pulling the best out of the hardware i got? No.

Linux
Actually not much different from Open Solaris, however in case of RAID and specialy the filesystem it is behind in my opinion… thus not much more to say. ;)

Open Solaris
Now i could write really a lot about this one, it’s the OS i picked to do the job.
Reasons? ZFS, RAID-Z2, iSCSI – perfect for a fileserver.
For some reason the iSCSI package is bugged at the moment, so i hope it will be fixed sometime soon.
However, RAID-Z2 and ZFS made it pretty clear for me.
Up to today it works marvelous and i have absolutely no complains excelt that iSCSI bug. :)
Also i have the option to virtualize another OS (Windows 2008 Server or whatever) with VirtualBox on it and still use it’s features as well.

ant_p183_abyss

So after all this, what do i have in the end?
4,5 TB of Storage with the option of up to two disks failing without geting into trouble.
Also the option to do snapshots from my devlopment folders is pretty nice in case i messed up some code weeks ago. ;)
The option to connect the storage via iSCSI once the bug is fixed and with that i can use my ESX and all the virtual machines (VMs) on it via iSCSI as well.

Needless to say that i can connect to it from my MacBook Pro or from my Windows machines without any trouble, for the time without iSCSI i use Samba and it works pretty nice too.

Ohh, and just to compare a little to those NAS (Network Attached Storage) systems out there.
A NAS with the euqal performance of this fileserver would cost naked (without a single disk) already far over 1000,- EUR, thus this setup i got now was by far cheaper and i dare to say – better. ;)

Posted on 2009/08/23 Sonntag 11:45 am by:
Tami (43 posts) in Category: 「Featured, IT」

Follow this article. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

5 Comments to 「Storage, an issue for Otakus?」

    battlecamel

    My laziness just made me buy the Drobo + DroboShare solution.
    Also, I use a 750 GB FW800 external HDD for TimeMachine on OSX. That way – I hope – my data is quite safe.

    My data mainly consists of documents and disk images. I am no photo geek, so I do not have billions of pictures I “might use some day”. So about 2 TB is easily enough to work with in my case.

    I do not utilize any special means in order not to lose some anime files, however.
    First – just as you said – one would never have the time to watch all releases (even restricted to interesting ones like Bakemonogatari). Second, I do end up buying DVDs of series I really like. Although the optical medium is a bit annoying (seek times / DVD menus), it is a valid way to store away your favorite series. And, of course, it is “nice” to pay the studios and producers for their effort to create something entertaining.

    In the end, I agree with your last statement: Pre-built NAS systems are expensive and not as flexible as your box. And the fiddling around and building the system must have been *some* fun, right? ;)

    Reply

    Tami replies:
    August 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    @battlecamel, hehe been roughly 2 days of fun and it still is somehow. ;)

    Of course buying the DVDs of the stuff which is worth (!) it should be a given.
    My point on this however is, while japanese have the chance to evaluate the shows on TV pre buying, we don’t.
    Considering that TV stations (at least german ones) hardly show any quality shows, the time issue between releases there and here, language, etc. pp. … well yea, it’s all pretty much obvious and the topic is as old as Santas beard. ;)

    And even if it may seem like it a bit from the post, my storage holds a load of different things – documents, backup of my MacBook Pro and Windows 7 machines, Virtual Machines and so on… :)
    All together, 2TB don’t cut it for me. :(

    Reply

    battlecamel replies:
    August 23rd, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    @Tami,
    I agree with you considering the “try out first” issue. Especially since I have a feeling that anime quality is somehow failing for the last few years? Macross F being a nice exception (most of the time, that is).

    The comment was just an answer to your bullet point · Do you just delete everything you have seen and might buy the DVD releases?
    So: Yes, more often than never I do.

    Same goes for music. I can safely say that my CD collection (no, I’m not a HiFi geezer who thinks Vinyl LPs provide warmer and overall better sound) would be only 30% of its current size if it weren’t for some “discovieres” I made through the net.

    If only the media mafia would recognize this. And the fact that charging 20 EUR for a CD release is robbery!

    Reply

    Tami replies:
    August 23rd, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    @battlecamel, Well said and very true.
    I felt a lot like “uhh geting that one was a waste of time” since a while with the one or other show.

    Now, all we can do and hope for is pray for a better future… i guess, just why do i have the feeling that this certain stuff called money will prevent it… :/

    Reply

    2009/08/23 Sonntag 1:13 pm
    6pack

    neat cable management!
    i dont delete stuff from my hdd. never know when the backup might fail. so usually end up having 2 copies of everything and three of more important data.
    hdds becoming more cheaper so its cheaper to add an hdd than look at other devices for backups.

    Reply

    2009/08/27 Donnerstag 6:27 am

Leave a Reply