And for all of you out there who don’t back up your data: you’re askin’ for it. One of these days, drive failure will ruin your day…
Dude! There’s no need to rub it in my face!

While the idea of a big-ass RAID 5 array is excellent and far be it from me to dissuade you, but why not just go with a couple Connectstor boxes set to RAID 1?

would you really go with more Connectstor’s after having one failed and then having to deal with finding replacement parts? the thing about these appliances is that they’re likely to be using proprietary parts, parts that are difficult to find when they choke and expensive no doubt to replace. if these appliances are using hardware-based RAID, you’re locked in as far as trying to recover your data, i.e. you need to fix that appliance to get your data, that or find another such compatible device to hook the drives up to.

i prefer sticking with solutions with parts you can pull off the shelf at a local Fry’s. cheap and easy to fix.

plus, at 1.5TB, he’d need 8 Connectstor’s. 1 is already sounding like a small jet, how many would 8 sound like? at almost $600 per appliance, the cost of the drives inside are only 40-something percent of the cost… think of how much extra you’re paying for the appliance portion. by sticking to 1 or 2 servers with RAID arrays you’d save on the rest of the components, have potentially less noise from fewer high speed fans, and ease management.

I haven’t had much luck with the Connectstor product. One user account decided to not let anyone in — even the administrators, and there is no way I can get to the data there. That makes me nervous.

Plus, they’re REALLY LOUD and only have two drive bays.

What I really want is a 1-2TB Gigabit NAS box that won’t break the bank. It seems that taking an old computer with a bunch of free drive bays and slapping a RAID card in it will work the best. Would rather set up two machines than try to be really redundant on one.

:) interesting what you can learn by reading the FAQ. most important of which is that the drives in RAID0 or RAID1 should be transferrable to another controller! secondly, the Connectstor runs a version of Linux 2.2 with ext2 as the filesystem.

because the box is running Linux, it can either be using a Promise hardware RAID controller, or using Linux’s software RAID. we’ll assume it’s either.

so… my plan would be:

1. pull drives from Connectstor

2. buy 2×200GB HDs, preferably matching the ones in the Connectstors. you can later reuse them in your new fileserver.

3. buy a Promise 2-channel RAID controller, e.g. FastTrak TX2000. in the event that the Connectstor does use hardware RAID, using another Promise controller “should” make them compatible, given the FAQ. you can find a TX2000 anywhere between $25 – 100 it seems. an even better idea would be to look at the chipset inside the ConnectStor to determine what RAID controller from Promise is the exact controller equivalent to the one in the ConnectStor.

4. use a Linux box, set one up if you need to, and use dd to create a copy of those drives from the Connectstor onto the 2 200GBs you bought. BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO OVERWRITE THE ORIGINAL DRIVES. breathe, it’s pretty nerve-racking… once the backups are done, set the original drives aside. you can trash the copies all you want and re-image them if necessary using the originals. be conscious of the order of the drives! i.e. which drive was primary/slave on which controller in the Connectstor. this can impact the RAID setup.

5. put that RAID controller you got into the Linux box, setup drivers, etc…

6. using the backup drives (the imaged ones) try setting up hardware RAID on the Linux box with the newly added RAID controller. boot up the system and try to mount the volume as ext2.

7. if this fails, chances are the copies have been written to and are no good. re-image them.

8. setup a Linux software RAID using the re-imaged drives. i haven’t setup a Linux software RAID, but it shouldn’t be too difficult, refer to the HOWTOs.


imaging drives takes forever… so be sure to set aside a whole day for this project.

oy… at 1. i said to pull the drives from the Connectstor, i forgot to mention to remember what the order is. be sure to note the order!

I wouldn’t go with the Connecstors in the first place. My method is to buy a new hard drive, slap it into an external enclosure, move all my photos onto it and delete them from the old drives.

Then wail and gnash my teeth in pain when the stupid drive overheats and goes kaput.

That’s my method.

thanks for the info!

i spoke with someone at Promise support today who said the same thing. if I can’t get a replacement power supply, I’m just going to hook up a generic power supply to the box (it won’t fit, but it will work) and copy the data off of it.

much, much easier. :)

chester — i like your method. ;)

but i’d have bought two of the suckers and made sure that my data was on both of them.

oh, and maybe on some DVD-R media as well. :)

Cheap NAS…

1. Get cheap linux box
2. Get RAID card
3. Get multiple 250GB Drives
4. Download NAS lite:
http://www.serverelements.com/

total cost ~$1000 for RAID 5 multi-TB NAS

My only addendum to the Linux raid box which is in itself a good idea.

Use a good raid card with proper Linux support. Also use a server motherboard which uses ECC memory if the budget fits.

The money will be well spent. Especially if you value your time. Trust me on this.

sometimes i’m glad most of my important data is plaintext. :)

Chris -

NAS Lite looks pretty cool! But I probably wouldn’t be able to rsync to that box, would I? Apologies — I am a Linux neophyte. :)

I use A Linux Box with a Promise SuprerTrax SX6000 with 6 200GB IDE Disks. in a RAID5 Config

Additional I do weekly incremental Backups on DAT tapes.

Works pretty well. Onlky Problem: Driver Support prevents me to upgrade to Kernel 2.6

If I would Build a NAS Server again I would get a nice S-ATA RAID-5 controller .
There are even controller with up to 12 channels available at reasonable cost (Around 800 € here in germany, and this stuff is normally much cheaper in the US)

Simon

I already have one box set up with Windows and a 8-channel S-ATA RAID 5 controller. It will be easy for me to get that set up, since I’ve familiar with that environment.

Am working on a second box, which will run Linux. Have to go out and get an admin book — any suggestions? :)

anyone ever find a supplier to replace a ConnectStor II’s power supply????