[MCSmarties]

Hi all,

I have a Dune Base 3.0 media player with an internal 2TB HDD (Samsung Spinpoint F4) and I love it.
The only problem is I'm running out of space fast! I would like about 8TB of storage space.
I would love a NAS but they are simply out of my budget range at this time (except maybe the Synology DS411J).
So I've been focusing more on RAID enclosures but it's driving me crazy.

One major limitation of the Dune appears to be that its eSata port does not have a port multiplier.

But here's my question: would it work with an enclosure that sports an integrated port multiplier located within the enclosure itself?

Specifically, I am looking at Addonics products.

For example, their RTM435R5 model (one-page PDF "user guide" here) would provide me with 4 bays, RAID, USB and "port multiplied" eSata... all for $199!

Why does this look bloody cheap to me? Has anybody used Addonics products before?

Can I believe their statement that thanks to their integrated eSata port multiplier you can connect their products to "any" eSata port?
Then why aren't other manufacturers providing this solution?

One more question that I can't seem to get a definite answer on:

Let us say that I make a concatenated, non-RAID array.
This setup is usually called "BIG" or "SPAN" but some manufacturers confusingly call it "JBOD" but the drives are reported as ONE volume.

What happens if one disk in the array fails?
Will I lose ALL my data or only that located on the failed drive?

Thanks!

[spinningmaster]

Q: What happens if one disk in the array fails?
Will I lose ALL my data or only that located on the failed drive?

A: If one disk fails you loose all data.

[yannis]

This isn't an answer to your specific questions, but have you checked out Lime Technology UnRaid? I am a huge fan.

In a nutshell, here are some of the advantages.

1. You can build it yourself and keep the cost down - especially if you have an old donor PC.

2. Unlike conventional Raid systems, data isn't striped across disks. If any one disc fails, the data can be rebuilt with no loss. If two discs failed concurrently, the worse case scenario is that only the data on the failed discs would be lost.

3. You can start with 2 discs (one data and one parity) and expand up to about 22 hard discs. It's easy to add a new disc and you can even mix and match disc sizes (but no disc can be larger than the parity disc so best to start with a large parity discs).

4. A really useful feature for a media server is that you can set up "user shares". These act like a virtual huge folder which physically spans multiple hard discs. For example, I have a single user share called "Movies" which spans across all 5 of my 2Tb data discs. I then just point my Dune to this share to pay any movie, regardless of which disc it actually resides on.

5. It's very energy efficient. I run mine 24/7. It has no monitor to power and if any hard disc hasn't been accessed for a period of time (in my case 30 minutes) it'll spin down. So at idle, it's onluy drawing about 15 to 20 watts if that.

I could go on and on. If you are interested and want to find out more, try their wiki http://lime-technology.com/wiki/inde...le=UnRAID_Wiki. Strat with the official manual.

As I said, I'm a huge fan.