NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi,

New to all this and looking to build a media server, was thinking 4 HDDs over a RAID 5 configuration using Silicon Image 3114 SATA card.

The website has more information here: http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?id=28

Normally cards are expensive, however I can get one of these for about £25. If it does the job then it'll be great, just want to make sure it'll work with NASLite2 first though

Thanks!

Check the sticky in this forum section..
http://www.serverelements.com/phpBB2/vi ... cf21a344fe

Hi Superboss,

Thanks for the reply - silly me forgot to do a search on that reference PDF when I looked through it yesterday - just did so and there is it!

That's great it's supported, although I see it's only supported as a SATA controller and not as a raid card. Obviously I assume that means I can't run it in a RAID5 array with 4 HDDs attached to it?

Does anyone know of any alternative cards that are cheap (approx £25 / $50) but will allow me to run in a raid?

I'm looking at NASLite vs MS Home Server atm, NASLite would be my better choice because of current hardware I have, but I am unfortunately on a tight budget...

Thanks!

NASLite requires true hardware raid cards for raid functionality. I imagine this is a design choice made to ensure stability and reliability as well as keeping the system requirements at a minimum (cards such as the one you listed relies heavily on the CPU for performance). You are not likely to find a SATA hardware raid card for $50, sorry.

The best I have found is an LSI Logic MegaRaid SATA 6-150 raid card for about $125 including shipping on ebay. Just picked one up brand new.

Same here - LSI Megaraid 8 port SATA card for around £70.00 ($140.00)on ebay.

Don't think you'll find one for the sort of money you're wanting to spend.

MS Home server would cost you the neck end of £100.00 in the UK which would buy a decent hardware RAID card. That and the fact that it's OEM which could cause problems if you need to change a motherboard due to a failure (although i think MS are fairly understanding in issueing activation codes in these circumstances)

I had a brief moment when i thought about using HomeServer as it has a few nifty features and add-ons, but they are a bit gimmicky, when all i really need is a basic storage server to feed Meedio and Windows Media Center.