some more RAID questions.

[Marzipan]

I Googled how many HDD can be in a RAID 6 array and the answers came up say a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 32. I then Googled to find out how many HDD is optimal for a RAID 6 array and found zilch. so...is there an optimal quantity of HDD for a RAID 6 array?

what do you do when you need an array with more than 32 drives, what do you do? don't say ZFS or equivalent...I know that is a good solution, but until it's something invested into and SMB level solutoins offered by the big OEM's*, it's not an option. is this where you would start doing smaller RAID 50 or 60 arrays to add more layers of parity to protect the data?

and as silly as it sounds, assuming the force is with your server, is having more hot spares than parity installed a good idea? the hope being it requires less hands on work during recovery until it's recovered and bad drives pulled and hot spares restored?

*I know QNAP and such offers solutions, but in these cases they need to be storage servers running Windows. I may be wrong, but I am not aware of any rack NAS from companies like QNAP that have Windows.

 

[gingerbee]

I don't know raid in these large setups but if it was me I would be turning to UNraid if I needed that kinda huge setup, but we both know folks with far more raid experience then me will asnwer

 

[Marzipan]

I don't know raid in these large setups but if it was me I would be turning to UNraid if I needed that kinda huge setup, but we both know folks with far more raid experience then me will asnwer

problem is they run a WIndows management program for the surveillance camera array, so not an option.

 

[gingerbee]

could this not be set up in a VR windows environment within UNraid ??

 

[lowfat]

could this not be set up in a VR windows environment within UNraid ??

Or just run the NVR software on some other system and mount a network share.

I don't think any of the big OEMs sell storage servers that can fit 32+ drives. Is there anyone besides 45drives or Supermicro? I don't think either offers any sort of OS.

 

[gingerbee]

Only 45 drives comes to mind couldn't they just run a windows VR and and have the UNraid storage show up as a network share. Not really sure if you can do it that way

 

[Marzipan]

Or just run the NVR software on some other system and mount a network share.

I don't think any of the big OEMs sell storage servers that can fit 32+ drives. Is there anyone besides 45drives or Supermicro? I don't think offers any sort of OS.

Supermicro does...they are the 3rd largest server manufacturer in the world, behind Dell (first) and HP (second).

Supermicro has Mass Storage SuperServers with up to 92 / 96 drives and with their SuperServers, they go up to 42 drives.

 

[gingerbee]

I new they were big, but I was more along the lines of the only company I know where you can buy one big server is 45 drives as a retail customer, I thought all the others were more of a "company wants to out fit there server floor so they need 50 servers" kinda sales lol

But learn something new every day I didn't know they were 3rd behind those others.

Ya friendly I think your best option is to go the UNraid route if it be a vr windows or another machine for the NVR Software.

 

[JD]

If this business needs over 32 hard drives, then I think they can afford to have another server running the actual NVR software. I wouldn't run the NVR directly on the storage appliance.

If the NVR software is really bad, you could do iSCSI so it looks like a normal hard drive in Windows.

 

[MARSTG]

you can add multiple cards to span the setup over more cards and break the 32 drive limitation. I know for a fact that LSI controllers can do that. There is no optimal number for raid 6 just make sure you have online spares to avoid downtime.