As the title states, will this RAID combo work, and if not what needs to be changed? Overall opinions would be most helpful.
I currently run a small file server of about 5TB or so. I keep outgrowing my needs and need to build a RAID setup that will allow me to expand as needed. I am new to RAID setups, especially one of the scale I have currently planned out, but I have being doing some research for the past couple of weeks and have come up with a build.
Ideally, I'd have the setup completely built, but I'd like to keep the total cost around $1k and can't afford to go above $1.5k, so unfortunately that's not an option. 2 of my current drives are WD Caviar Blacks 2TB; however, I have recently learned that due to the lack of TLER those drives are awful for any RAID setup other than 0 or 1. That being said, my third drive is a Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST300DM001) and I have found a RAID controller that states it supports it, so I'd like to use this same type of drive, if possible. Have any of you had any experience using this drive or a similar one in a RAID5 configuration? The manufacturer states that it supports it, but knowing that it is not an enterprise drive, I am slightly concerned that it could drop out of the array. I would just go with enterprise drives, but those are about double in cost...
Parts list:
Storage rack: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SGI-3U-Media-Storage-Server-16-Hard-Drive-Bay-SATA-SAS-Expander-Omnistor-SE3016-/140735776937?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c48188a9
3 more HDs (for now..): http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST3000DM001/dp/B005T3GRLY/ref=dp_return_2?ie=UTF8&n=172282&s=electronics
Adaptec RAID 6405: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103224 here's a link to the compatibility sheet if that helps:
http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/compatibility_report/arc-sas_cr_03-27-12_series6.pdf
SAS expander cable: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_cables_adapters/8887-2M.asp
My plan is to install the RAID card in my computer and then route the SAS cable to the rack. Setup a RAID5 on 3 drives, transfer my data over from my other drive, and then add that drive to the array. Eventually, I'd like to get a 2U unit and run the file server on that and move the RAID card over to there, but that will have to happen later on.
Side note: The computer the card would be going into will be running Windows 7 Pro with 24GB of DDR3-1600 and an i7-930.
