RAID question

[MadMike]

First off, thanks to everyone who has helped with the questions I've had with the media center PC I'm working on. I'm hoping to order everything in the next few days.

I have one question about RAID, that I can't seem to find the answer to on the company's site. The card I'm ordering can handle up to 8 SATA drives, and I can see that they connect to the card using SATA cables that are included. But how do the drives get power? I don't see any kind of power connectors. Does the card take care of this, or is there some non-included part I need to get to hook them up to the power supply?

I'm trying to avoid any surprises, where I get my parts and can't do anything until the local computer shop opens the next day, since it closes at 7:00.

[Forgreatjustice]

your power supply has to have the SATA power cables.
not the card it self.

[Pedersen]

But how do the drives get power? I don't see any kind of power connectors. Does the card take care of this, or is there some non-included part I need to get to hook them up to the power supply?

Heya MadMike. First off, a quick picture from my favorite site for ordering computer gear: http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggIma...148-140-02.jpg

That should answer about the power, I hope (well, once you click on it, it will). Make sure the power supply for your computer has SATA power connectors. If not, you can buy adapters which will connect SATA to standard molex style power connectors. Here's a link from newegg for those as well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812123119

Hope that helps!

[MadMike]

I know about connecting a single drive to the power supply. I've done this before. But how do I go about connecting multiple drives (the card I'm looking to get can handle 8) to the power supply? Or do I need to use a different power supply?

This is the RAID card I'm looking at: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16816115026

This is the power supply I've selected: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817182044

It says it has two SATA connectors. That's not nearly enough. How do I do this? Apologies in advance for asking stupid questions, I've never done a RAID before.

[Pedersen]

Don't worry about asking questions. It's failure to ask that makes us look like an idiot. You know, like I failed to ask for help with a program I'm working with for a few weeks, finally did, and got my resolution all within 60 seconds of asking. After wasting a few weeks.

Each drive needs its own power connector. If you're planning on hooking up 8 drives, you're hooking up a crapload of power requirements. The links were both to the raid card, so I don't know what power supply you were looking at, but I'd suggest making sure it's big. No, bigger than that. Power supply issues have been the bane of my existence lately. I've had computers fail to start, or behave unstably, due to insufficient power. I've had servers at work go down because we were trying to pull too much power at once.

Go big. I've seen thousand watt power supplies. You're probably going to want one of them if you're doing 8 drives. My home server is a dual core, dual chip Opteron, with 3 sata drives in a raid. I've got a 630 watt psu. And I don't think I'd put more in unless I could get a bigger psu.

[JustADude]

Each drive needs its own power connector. If you're planning on hooking up 8 drives, you're hooking up a crapload of power requirements. The links were both to the raid card, so I don't know what power supply you were looking at, but I'd suggest making sure it's big. No, bigger than that.

What he's saying is, basically, go to NewEgg's advanced search for power supplies and set it not to look for anything below about 1 Megawatt.

[MadMike]

Edited the previous post if you want to recheck it.

The card handles eight drives, but I'm starting out with just five for now.

It's a 500W. I glanced at a few 1000W ones, and they didn't have eight SATA connectors either. What do I do?

[JustADude]

I glanced at a few 1000W ones, and they didn't have eight SATA connectors either. What do I do?

Get the converters that Pedersen recommended. RELINKY

It turns one Molex connector into 2 SATA connectors, so you'll only need 3 or 4 of them to take care of things. Look for the best power supply, and don't worry about it's actual SATA count.

[MadMike]

OK, is the one I have selected OK, or should I go with a different one? If you could recommend one, that would be great.

[Pedersen]

What he's saying is, basically, go to NewEgg's advanced search for power supplies and set it not to look for anything below about 1 Megawatt.

Actually, I was thinking he might need a power supply in the 1.21 gigawatt range. Dunno if he has a broken town clock available to act as a relay, though...

And yeah, MadMike, 500W might be an issue for you, believe it or not. I found four drives and an Athlon 3GHz was not working so well on a 430W PSU. Without knowing the rest, you might get away with the 500W, but getting bigger will only help. To be totally serious, I don't think I'd go with less then 700W just to satisfy immediate needs. If you're planning on 8 in future, I'd get the 1000W, if for no other reason than to play it safe.

[MadMike]

OK, how's this one look? It's going to put the cost of the server up around 2 grand, but it's 1000W, and it has plenty of SATA connectors, so I shouldn't need any adapters.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817189016

[Pedersen]

Let's put it this way: If I were building a system with 8 drives, and could afford it, I'd be buying that one. That's nice, and should hold you up for a very long time.

Heck, I've bookmarked it. When it comes time for me to build such a beast, I might wind up getting that PSU (assuming a newer model hasn't come out by then).

[MadMike]

OK, I've added that power supply to my wish list and removed the 500W one.

If you could take a look now, I'd appreciate it.

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/...Number=4575345

[MadMike]

Damn it, I linked to the wrong PS.

This is the one I was looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817101023

One thing I like is it has 12 SATA connectors.

[Pedersen]

OK, I've added that power supply to my wish list and removed the 500W one.

If you could take a look now, I'd appreciate it.

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/...Number=4575345

Very nice. Some small changes you might wish to make, but these are only ideas, and not nearly as important as the PSU.

First, the CPU is 64-bit. You might want to consider upgrading XP to XP64 bit. It adds $50 to the cost, but you get some added boost by having 64 bit. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116378

Your memory setup is a 2 dimm set. If possible, you might wanna switch it down to 1 dimm. This way, if you go to upgrade memory later (which, with a server setup, is not necessarily likely, but as a Windows PC setup, is), you don't have to throw away a dimm.

You have a 160G drive and 5 750G drives. I'm assuming the 160G is meant for OS and programs, while the 750G is meant for data. It's a good setup. However, you could make things somewhat cheaper by dropping the 160G entirely. The 750G in RAID will provide you with 3 terabytes of space. Surely you could afford to give a few gigs over to the OS and programs? Oh, and I checked, that RAID card is bootable. You can do just that. Very likely, though, you will need a floppy drive, and a way to get the drivers for that raid card onto the floppy, so that XP can find it when you install. Small price to pay, and you get to drop $50 from the total.

Keyboard/Mouse: If this is going to be a media center type PC, go for a wireless keyboard and mouse. You're going to learn to hate having to walk over to your computer just to type on that keyboard, believe me. Personally, I do like Logitech, they make good stuff.

DVD-ROM Drive: Switch to this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106073
It adds $20 to the cost, and you get burning capability. When you've got a recording and want to save it, you'll want the burner. The only reason not to do this (aside from monetary) is if you have a DVD burner elsewhere in the house.

I know, if you take all of my suggestions, you're going to add about $50 to the total, but I've got one other to make, and this one will really make you cringe.

Buy all eight drives. You're making a RAID array. You're going to want to have one large volume to store all your data on. Very likely, you do not have partition magic, or partition manager, or other such software, and were not planning on buying it in future. Under Windows, logical volumes (called Dynamic Disks) are horrible. I have never seen them work well. But I have had to undo them, and that can be extremely difficult.

If you get all eight drives all at once, you build your full RAID volume set all at once. You get the maximum space, and the least frustration down the road.

That last bit is the most optional of everything. The stuff above, I think is a really good idea, and will make you happy right away, without adding *too* much to the cost. The extra drives can not make you happy down the road, though they can frustrate you by their absence later.

The rest? Makes me wish I were building another system. I always forget how fun it is to make everything work

Oh, something else you could try, and this will cost you about $0.50, and an overnight download: http://www.ubuntu.com/ A variety of Linux. If you're not comfortable with the idea, don't do it. But if you're willing to experiment, it can be rather fun.

Hope any of this has helped!