[Pc_Support] MEdia Driven Universal Storage Array (MEDUSA)

[Jason Boxman]

On Saturday 22 January 2005 22:17, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> I think I've finally decided on what I'm going to do with my old AMD
> Athlon MP system when I upgrade.  I'm going to turn it into a
> centralized storage device for all media.
>
<snip>
> I'm also building a new storage array using the 64-bit PCI NetCell 5000
> 128MB RAID-"XL" controller.  It will have (5) 160GB 7,200rpm 8MB buffer
> HD drives (640GB usable) in it (which I've been picking up for $60-80
> after rebate from different places on different weeks).  This will give
> it a massive performance capability of virtually (4) RAID-0 drives, not
> only for reads, but it's very fast at writes too.  The 5000 is designed
> explicitly for (4) 16-bit ATA data paths into the 64-bit PCI approach,
> and then the on-board ASIC buffers the SDRAM for writing to the 5th,
> dedicated parity disk.  The catch is that you must use the exact
> configuration (fixed organization).
>   http://www.netcell.com

Are they random 160GBs or are they the Maxtors I keep seeing?

Why did you choose NetCell over 3Ware?  The fast writes?

What kind of performance are you expecting for reads? Writes?

How will you deal with the issue of PCI bus bandwidth?  Is the NIC on its own 
PCI bus or will it share it with the HD-3000?  I imagine the RAID card will 
be on a bus by itself?

With hardware MPEG encoding, do you really need much bandwidth for this 
application?

> I think the combination will make good use of my now 3.5 year old (2
> years with the MP2400+ CPUs) Athlon MP system.  It's not the greatest
> I/O platform, but I just want a media server, and one that can pick up
> ATSC broadcasts for local channels -- no matter where I am.

-- 

Jason Boxman
Perl Programmer / *NIX Systems Administrator
Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing | University of Florida
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff