Need help with small business server 20TB + Build or Buy?

[5UP3RM4NG]

I am looking to build or buy a reliable storage server with 20TB or more. I can't decide whether to build one or buy an OEM/NAS one. It needs to be compatible with a macbook and be approx $1500-2000 CAD. I have been building computers for years and have worked in the networking field a bit so i understand enough to set it up, but I have never had to supply storage to a mac. The application is for a professional photography studio. There is a pretty big amount of RAW image files and projects that will need to be stored on this thing. Raid configuration that supports data redundancy is preferred depending on the price and recommendations, it would benefit me most if the drives can be hot swapped and old drives taken out to be stored for long periods of time. Approximately 1TB is produced a month. So the more storage, the better. Little bits of projects will be transferred to it every day and I will need to be able to edit or download any project folder on the hard drives. I plan to set up VPN for remote access. It looks like going with 4TB hard drives is my best bet. The data needs to be kept for a while in case a customer comes back in looking for another copy of their wedding or event photos. If i can find a 10 bay case, I may consider 40TB gradually added over time. I need lots of storage space and i don't want to rely on internet bandwidth for cloud storage. There will only be one mac computer accessing the data at a time.

What is the most current reliable hardware to do this?
How much CPU/RAM is actually necessary for this application?
Which operating system will i need for this to work with a mac?
What RAID configuration is best for this application, if any?
What type of hard drives works best for this?

Or should i buy a NAS server/ OEM server? (OEM seems to get too pricey when you start getting in to lots of data)

I've been looking for a while on this and i am so lost, I've finally turned to the forums to get some advice from the experts. I apologize for the long post and all the questions

Thank you

 

[basroil]

You should really contact an OEM, and triple your budget at the same time. If you use 1TB/mo and want the system to last 18mo, you'll need ~28TB of space (6x4+spare) minimum, more if you need it 24/7. You'll need RAID5 minimum, probably 6 if you want extra security, and then an offline backup stored at a second location just in case.

 

[5UP3RM4NG]

You should really contact an OEM, and triple your budget at the same time. If you use 1TB/mo and want the system to last 18mo, you'll need ~28TB of space (6x4+spare) minimum, more if you need it 24/7. You'll need RAID5 minimum, probably 6 if you want extra security, and then an offline backup stored at a second location just in case.

I just need a more reliable solution than piling up external drives, i pretty much buy a hard drive every month. I am looking for something that can potentially handle that much data. I plan to add hard drives as I go. Is RAID required if i'm just using it as a jumbo hot swap. The way i'm looking at this is to keep the drives separate and when a drive is full take it out and store it properly. So they'll pretty much be used for 3-4 months then be put in storage until required. I'm not sure if storing them will cause data loss. A backup would be good in the near future, but with the crazy amount of data i stack up. I don't think it is possible at the moment. It could be shut down every night. I will not be transferring huge amounts over my network, however i want it to be fairly quick. The data will get placed and moved in fairly small amounts. What type of hardware are we talking besides the drives?

I could back up individual projects on DVD cd's? or cheap usb sticks. I need to supply the customers with that stuff anyways.

 

[basroil]

If you care about not losing 4TB of data at a time, go with RAID 5 minimum (RAID 5 is one disk failure redundancy, 6 is two disk, 1 is up to half but only if the failures are on the spare for each drive pair). You can usually get a 8 bay NAS with redundancy for ~$1500, and then each 4TB disk is ~$150 (assuming WD RED), and if you start at 3 disks and add an extra every other month, it should hold you over for two years