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I'm trying to get together a build for my first HTPC, from it I plan to store my dvd,music,photo collections so I really want some redundancy in the storage. For this reason I'm looking at a RAID 5 configuration, but from a lot of the suggested and recommended mobo's on this forum and others (WP, OCAU) none of the south bridges are ICH9R or 10R compatible. I've also found the number of internal SATA ports worrying as I'm planning on 4x750gb storages giving me 2.25tb.
Am I pushing $hit uphill trying to get a good HT mobo with >=6 SATA ports, ICH9R and also have on board HDMI support? Am i better to just get a typical p35 board an slot in a graphics card?
-Cheers
Schnapper
P.S - Sorry for bringing up WP and OCAU, but that's my background.
I have heard quote a few horror stories about onboard HDMI.
My thoughts would be to get a GPU supporting HDMI and have the benefits of the 6 SATA and ether a CH9 or CH10. I recently upgraded to a GA-EP45-DS5 Gigabyte board which supports what you required excluding the onboard HDMI. Very very happy!!
One further point, I am assuming you can accommodate ATX size board!
[Edit: It took so long to write this that you have already answered the question about size - so my post is mainly irrelevant :-( ]
Hi
The raid supplied by ICH9R and ICH10R is great and there are many motherboards that have them, but the first question you need to ask yourself is what size motherboard are you going to require? ATX or mATX.
I have the Asus P5E VM - HMDI - this is a mATX board, with full raid capability via ICH9R as well as having HDMI video out.. However the video quality is a little ****ty and the board could do with a seperate video card.
Basically this board has the new ICH10R and the new G45Express chipset.. HDMI, SIX SATA connectors etc etc. It could be a good contender for a mATX solution.
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David
Last edited by slimf; 29th July 2008 at 11:41 AM.
Reason: added images of boards
Where did you get a figure of 2.25tb? Windows will only see volumes of 2tb max. unless you use GPT partitions instead of MBR. I'd recomend staying away from onboard RAID solutions as well since all of them are also limited to 2tb LUN support.
Note too that onboard RAID is STILL software RAID but the software happens to be embedded in the firmware.
If the data AND size is that valuable to you then you may need to get something like a 3Ware hardware RAID card that supports larger than 2tb volumes.
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That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
Aristotle
Where did you get a figure of 2.25tb? Windows will only see volumes of 2tb max. unless you use GPT partitions instead of MBR. I'd recomend staying away from onboard RAID solutions as well since all of them are also limited to 2tb LUN support.
Note too that onboard RAID is STILL software RAID but the software happens to be embedded in the firmware.
If the data AND size is that valuable to you then you may need to get something like a 3Ware hardware RAID card that supports larger than 2tb volumes.
Just the way I drew it up, correct me if I've got my wires crossed.
WRT the 2tb limit, I thought that was a limitation in XP, i was under the impression that Vista had overcome this.
So, you're suggesting a raid controller card would be a better option?
I would do the simple thing which is just use a back software like Acronis which I'm happy to do, but I prefer the performance increase in using a semi-redundant RAID.
WRT the 2tb limit, I thought that was a limitation in XP, i was under the impression that Vista had overcome this.
Nope, the limitation is in the use of a Master Boot Record (MBR) and is not limited by the OS or the filesystem itself. If you use GPT you can get around the 2tb limit BUT your RAID controller will ALSO need to be able to support greater than 2tb volumes, I believe to date there are NO onboard RAID controllers that can do this, other than those found on some XEON server based motherboards.
Now for the really bad news, RAID controller cards that support SATAII, >2tb volumes, RAID5 will set you back about $500 - $800 for a 4 port card. eek!
DON'T even think about RocketRAID cards they're pretty pathetic in terms of speed and reliability for this sort of thing, 3Ware or Adaptec make the cards you're after.
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That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
Aristotle
Now for the really bad news, RAID controller cards that support SATAII, >2tb volumes, RAID5 will set you back about $500 - $800 for a 4 port card. eek!
DON'T even think about RocketRAID cards they're pretty pathetic in terms of speed and reliability for this sort of thing, 3Ware or Adaptec make the cards you're after.
Yeah, I see what you mean about the price. I've been looking through adaptec and found a few that meet what I need, but put them into staticice and maybe I'm going to have to find an alternative to get around the issue.
Any suggestions as to how to maintain redundancy but not spend more on a raid controller than the rest of the hardware?!!
I wouldn't worry about software raid vs hardware raid, you're still gonna get closeish to double the throughput either way (no increase in response time performance) which is what you want when editing your videos on a HTPC. So you'll have some slightly higher cpu usage... with todays cpu's who really cares, pretty soon we're gonna have octal core processors - you'll want those cores to have something to do right?
I'd say get the EP35-DS3R or EP45-DS3R. No need for anything higher (like the DS4, DS5, or DQ6) unless ur going to use crossfire. I have the EP35-DS3R, and run 2 raid 0 arrays on it. It has 8 internal sata ports. The ICH10R has no major improvements over the ICH9R, and in fact had lower performance in some situations (Tom's Hardware did a review, and weren't particularly impressed).
The hard drives themselves shouldn't make much noise, just as long as they don't vibrate the case.
If noise is a concern, you could check out pccg's range of padded cases for noise absorption. They will however cost more than the $30 rubbish case you can get from msy.
I wouldn't worry about software raid vs hardware raid, you're still gonna get closeish to double the throughput either way (no increase in response time performance) which is what you want when editing your videos on a HTPC. So you'll have some slightly higher cpu usage... with todays cpu's who really cares, pretty soon we're gonna have octal core processors - you'll want those cores to have something to do right?
I'd say get the EP35-DS3R or EP45-DS3R. No need for anything higher (like the DS4, DS5, or DQ6) unless ur going to use crossfire. I have the EP35-DS3R, and run 2 raid 0 arrays on it. It has 8 internal sata ports. The ICH10R has no major improvements over the ICH9R, and in fact had lower performance in some situations (Tom's Hardware did a review, and weren't particularly impressed).
Hardware RAID 5 is nearly double the speed of software RAID you can find many articles that back this up by searching with google. You also have to realise that Software RAID is using the CPU and OS to perform RAID functions. This is not so critical if the machine is to ONLY be used for a file server BUT where the machine also doubles as a MC machine, touch wood it doesn't happen, but if and when the OS or applications crash or hang you ARE putting that valuable data at risk, risk I might add you don't get with a hardware RAID solution, but of course we all know how bulletproof Windows opperating systems are so you should not have a problem.
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That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
Aristotle
Yes, that may well be the case extreme, but these ARE just videos... Not exactly irrecoverable lifetime of memories stuff. And in my case (using raid 0), it's just inherently risky anyway, regardless of whether it's software or hardware.
And on the performance difference, I don't think I quite made my point. I wasn't saying that hardware raid wouldn't perform better, I was just saying it's not worth it to any sane person for regular home use. $800? Geez... I could double my performance again by using 4 drives in RAID 0 for A LOT less than what a hardware RAID controller can cost.
Wasn't trying to contradict you mate, just pointing out that theoretical superiority, while nice, is quite silly when it costs more than the rest of the computer put together.
I'm not going to bother with google searches, but I also assume by 'double performance' you are referring to resource usage, NOT I/O throughput... as I find that EXTREMELY difficult to believe. This is a 7200 rpm, I don't care how efficient your controller is, nothing outside the hdd is going to make it transfer 10GB of linear data any faster than it wants to. RAID will mean each hdd only has to transfer half the data it otherwise would have to (in a 2 disk array). But it's still not gonna make the river flow any faster.
maybe I'm going to have to find an alternative to get around the issue.