- Mar 12, 2018
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OK, please bear with me while I explain.
Quite a few years ago I got tired of always having to look for movies or TV show I wanted to watch. I have a very large DVD/Bluray collection and both my wife and I had a habit of watching discs and (sometimes) not putting them back in the right place. So when we had a hankering to watch a specific show, it could be a pain finding it in the first place. So I have been ripping my DVD and Bluray collection and storing them on RAID boxes (and storing the DVDs/BRs in archive boxes in the garage).
The first file-server I built 10 years ago using spare PC parts, a few SATA cards and a bucketful of cheap 2TB HDDs. It uses software RAID to create a RAID5 array and present it to the home network. Still works after all these years and hasn't given me a single problem (or HDD failure, cross fingers).
When that one started filling up I purchased a Netgear ReadyNAS (RNDU6000) and filled it full of 3TB HDDs, again in RAID5 configuration, then moved the TV shows over (splitting my collection into TV Shows and Movies). Access speed and multi-user access is not a problem since I tend to write-once and only access the RAID arrays via the home-theatre PC.
Both servers are now approaching the 80% mark and I am looking at installing a new file RAID5 server before I run out of room. The problem is that (a) building another file-server like the first one would be easy but probably not very efficient; and (b) the RNDU6000 is no longer sold (damnit). Newer RAID enclosures are either under-catering (2-4 drives) or catering to enterprise levels (12+ drives). So I have been looking for alternatives for 6-8 drives (or there-about).
One of said alternatives is the IB-3680SU3 ICY BOX External Case which would allow me to put up to 8 HDDs in it... but it is a JBOD enclosure (the RAID version is not sold here in Australia
). Is it possible to take this JBOD enclosure and somehow turn it into a RAID5 box? By, say, maybe adding a Raspberry Pi between the IB-3680SU3 and the network to create a software RAID5 array?
Or perhaps people have a better solution for a home-level RAID5 array?
Quite a few years ago I got tired of always having to look for movies or TV show I wanted to watch. I have a very large DVD/Bluray collection and both my wife and I had a habit of watching discs and (sometimes) not putting them back in the right place. So when we had a hankering to watch a specific show, it could be a pain finding it in the first place. So I have been ripping my DVD and Bluray collection and storing them on RAID boxes (and storing the DVDs/BRs in archive boxes in the garage).
The first file-server I built 10 years ago using spare PC parts, a few SATA cards and a bucketful of cheap 2TB HDDs. It uses software RAID to create a RAID5 array and present it to the home network. Still works after all these years and hasn't given me a single problem (or HDD failure, cross fingers).
When that one started filling up I purchased a Netgear ReadyNAS (RNDU6000) and filled it full of 3TB HDDs, again in RAID5 configuration, then moved the TV shows over (splitting my collection into TV Shows and Movies). Access speed and multi-user access is not a problem since I tend to write-once and only access the RAID arrays via the home-theatre PC.
Both servers are now approaching the 80% mark and I am looking at installing a new file RAID5 server before I run out of room. The problem is that (a) building another file-server like the first one would be easy but probably not very efficient; and (b) the RNDU6000 is no longer sold (damnit). Newer RAID enclosures are either under-catering (2-4 drives) or catering to enterprise levels (12+ drives). So I have been looking for alternatives for 6-8 drives (or there-about).
One of said alternatives is the IB-3680SU3 ICY BOX External Case which would allow me to put up to 8 HDDs in it... but it is a JBOD enclosure (the RAID version is not sold here in Australia
). Is it possible to take this JBOD enclosure and somehow turn it into a RAID5 box? By, say, maybe adding a Raspberry Pi between the IB-3680SU3 and the network to create a software RAID5 array?Or perhaps people have a better solution for a home-level RAID5 array?
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