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[dbalkunjr]

I am having problems with my HP Mediasmart Server.  It seems there is a well documented problem where drive failures occur quite often.  I have realized that I really do not use 90% of the features that are available to me with Windows Home Server and the HP interface.  I pretty much just use it for Media and data storage. I had originally purchased the EX485 Mediasmart server because it was supposed to be user friendly.  Well, too many lock ups and forced restarts right when I am trying to show off my media system to friends and family has caused me to pull my hair out and wonder why I ever chose this option.

 So I am looking for input from others on this forum about how you are dealing with your media storage and back up.  I have an HTPC that sends media to various amps and an HDMI video matrix switch.  All equipment is in a media closet in the basement.   I vaguely know about Drobo, Raid, etc.  What I want to be able to do is serve all my media and if possible back it up as well.  My HTPC running Win7 Pro has been rock solid.  It is an AMD quad core 3.2Ghz with 4Gb ram.  Should I just install something like Drobo or a hardware Raid setup?  Maybe another dedicated server machine? 

Anyone have experience that they are willing to share.  At this point I am open to all suggestions hoping that I find a solution that fits my needs. 

[glynor]

I have:

1. An Addonics Storage Tower with two Disk Array 3SA's installed (gives me 6 total hot-swappable 3.5" drive bays) in a nice convenient external case with it's own power supply.

2. My Storage Tower does not have one of the pre-installed backplanes.  I just bought the blank PM plate and installed my own.  Another simpler option would be to choose the one with 6 eSATA ports and just run multiple eSATA cables back to your main system.

3. Installed into the back plate of the storage tower, I have a miniSAS (8088, external cable style) I/O adapter that converts from dual 8088 miniSAS cables to 8 SATA ports.  This mounts perfectly in the SCSI space on the blank back plate I bought for the Storage Tower box.  These are then connected to the 6 drive bays in the Storage Tower, and the extra two are routed to two external eSATA ports I mounted on that blank back-plate.

4. In my main system, I have a HighPoint RocketRAID 2680 SAS card.  If you wait, these go on super-sale fairly regularly.  I got mine for $99 (plus someone had given me a $50 newegg gift card for the holidays, max kudos to that relative).  This card provides two INTERNAL (8087-style) miniSAS connectors and cables.

5. I connected these internal-style miniSAS cables a 8087-to-8088 adapter bracket for a PCI slot.

6. Then from this PCI bracket, I ran two 8088 (external) miniSAS cables to the Storage Tower box.

In the storage tower box, I have 5 x 1TB WD Black drives running in a RAID 5 array, which gives me one empty bay for a hot spare or future expansion.  If you wanted to do something similar, but save a big pile of money, you could get the Storage Tower with a blank back plate, punch out a hole, and just run some 1 meter 8087 miniSAS fanout cables through the hole.  These cables have 8087 style connectors on one end, and 4 SATA connectors on the other end.  You wouldn't need any of the adapters or expensive external miniSAS cables then.

Also, if you just go with a 4 drive array, you can just buy the Storage Tower box itself and some 5.25/3.5" mounting brackets and mount the drives directly, so you don't need the Disk Array 3SA things.  I did this initially and later upgraded my system with the Disk Array 3SAs to add two extra bays and expand my storage capacity a bit.

Then, to back this system up, I have the following:

1. I have a BlacX Duet Docking Station connected via eSATA to this PC.

2. I have two 3TB Caviar Green hard drives that I use with the docking station, one at a time.  I keep one at home and the other at the office at work (where I have another single-drive BlacX docking station).

3. I have SyncBack SE running on the system, which has a profile that automatically "syncs" the contents of the RAID over to this 3TB drive every day.  The RAID actually has more space available than will fit on the 3TB drive, but the RAID isn't full yet and there are a few things on it that I don't need backed up anyway so those get excluded.  That way, even if the RAID fails (or I stupidly delete something by accident) I always have a backup.

4. Once a month or so, I swap the drive I have at work with the one I have at home, and this provides a nice off-site backup, and also gives me access to all my media from the office (which is pretty sweet).  This access also provides a good impetus for me to remember to actually do the swap with home, because I want to get my new stuff at work.  The swap itself is easy.  Both drives get recognized by the system at home as the same drive letter (P for "Portable Media").  The computer doesn't really know or care that I've swapped them.  I just bring one home, swap it for the one in the dock, and then lug it back to work in my laptop bag.

The portable media drive is handy for other purposes too.  If I go over to a friends house, I can always bring all my music and movies with me without any fuss.  Just grab the drive and a cheap external USB drive case, and go.

5. My MOST IMPORTANT documents live in a 10GB TrueCrypt container on the RAID.  I have SyncBack also sync this container once per week over to a 16GB USB Thumb drive I have connected to the system.  I have a second 16GB USB drive in a safety deposit box at the bank.  I'm supposed to swap these out every so often too, though it happens less often than it should.  This gives me multiple layers of backup on these most important documents (mostly financial records and stuff like that), and some way to roll back to previous versions (since the USB drive sync only happens once per week).

6. Lastly, I store a lot of my everyday commonly used documents in my Dropbox folder, which syncs to the cloud.  This is also a very convenient way to access files that I might need from my phone.

It took a long time to build this system out, but it is secure and it works wonderfully.  I'm very happy with the results.

Oh, and that miniSAS based RAID is F-A-S-T.

[juice370]

Awesome detail Glynor, thanks for the Q&A.

[imugli]

Mine is nothing like this...

Im running an old Core2Duo PC mobo with 5 drives connected. 1 * boot drive, 2*500gb drives (in RAID1 array) and 2 * 1tb drives (also in RAID1). The drives are simple SATA drives and they're not hot-swappable.

The RAID arrays obviously provide one level of backup, while I also have an external drive and back my photo's up using Ubuntu1 cloud service.