OK, forget the unraid thing.  I'll just go with a normal windows server.  I'm close guys, I'm close!!

@StoicJoker - Aw man! Now look what we've gone ahead and done. We wore SBoy out!

A few things to consider when going for an ESXi server configuration for purposes beyond file storage, esp. in the multimedia area:...

WRT ESXi, I only meant it for whatever "server" machine was actually used and only for this machine that is already created.  My suggestion would be to start with a VM in Workstation, for example, to get it all working virtually first.  That said, I did know about a lot of these things, so I will address a few of them, but it is good to point them out.

1. Performance - Yes, it can be hit or miss, but unless you are KILLING the machine, in a home environment these shouldn't be an issue.  I can't imagine throttling a single VM for ANY resources as it wouldn't make any sense.

2. Hardware limits - True, but again, in this particular environment it wouldn't need to be anything more.  If it turned out it did, there are other routes to go (Like V2P).

3. Graphic Card Acceleration - True.  I forgot that may end up playing a big part of any Multimedia setup.  This could be a deal breaker for permanent setup, but you can alway V2P back once everything is setup.

4. USB Pass-through et. al. - I am not sure why you would think this to be the route to take with ANY server.  It was already mentioned that the right way to handle this would be to pull/push the data from the server to do intensive multimedia manipulation on his regular machine.  This takes the USB and Blu-Ray issues out of the picture.

The lab environment doesn't give any indication of many things, but it does help to determine what he would want to look at for actual hardware.  If it works out to be a multibox setup, you can figure out how to do so.  If it were just to determine what software is needed, again it works.  Even network issues can be found this way, though that can be (read usually is) difficult to determine and I am not sure if it carries over outside of the paid versions of ESXi.  I only pointed out a great way to create a proof of concept, and if it works well in the PoC, then you can move it wholesale to another machine as is.  If not, you have options, including a V2P if performance is the only issue and you are inclined to believe that it is due to the virtualization.  It is really just a cheap way to figure out what's what.

Steeladept!!! Come up here and take a bow!

Before you buy anything I'd definitely give virtual a try to get a better handle on how to implement this project. No need to worry about hardware right away. They'll build plenty more by the time you're ready to buy something.

Who knows? It might even end up staying in a virtual environment if it works for you.

Thanks.  That last line is the point I was making about the ESXi.  It isn't the only option, but if it works well, it is definitely the way to go.

I think one thing has become abundantly clear from this thread: if you want to implement an "ideal" solution for yourself, you need to understand both your own needs (comprehensively) *and* the technology available to meet your needs.

Now obviously you've been trying to learn about the tech by asking for options here, but the key point is this is just a *starting* point. We can point out possible options - and now there seem to be 3 or 4 on the table - but we can't really pick one "best" one for you. Even you can't do that right now, and that's because you don't fully understand the underlying tech.

I suspect that, even if you were to go with one of our recommended solutions, there would be some caveat in it, or lack of understanding of some feature of it, that would end up being an issue for you. The best way is for you to really understand all this stuff. That will take a lot of time but if you're willing to invest a lot of *money* into it, I think it only sensible to invest a similarly significant amount of *time* into learning the technology so you can make your own well informed decision.

What we've got here in this thread is a starting point for much, much more further research. When you can look at all this stuff and say confidently for yourself something like "I feel RAID is the best solution", and be saying that from a position of understanding and knowledge of the technology underlying the options, then you'll be making your best decision. Until/unless that happens, I suspect you'll keep flip flopping until you make a decision, maybe even one made more or less on a "coin toss", and so - not being fully aware of the limitations through your own deeper understanding - you may well be disappointed in what you end up with.

That being said I hope that's not the case. I hope you settle on a solution and it does everything you want it to. But I do frankly suspect this will just be the beginning and that whatever you go with, you will spend a lot of time trying to make it do exactly what you want.

That's my last "2 cents" input on the matter.

- Oshyan

I agree Oshyan!  Thanks for your input so far, it's been very helpful.  What I really want to do is find someone who has already done this, go to their house, and just check out their setup.  That one guy I posted about lives in Redondo beach, which is just a few minutes away.  I'm very tempted to ask him to show me his setup, but that's "weird" in this day and age for some reason.

OK, I went back and reread this thread (ping-pong is exactly the correct term!).  But that's how I work, sorry if it's frustrating.  Believe it or not, all of this helps me a lot, and I appreciate everyone's assistance.  Good will come of this, I promise!

So I went back to some of the previous links, and the product I'm really liking is this one:

This will be my box of drives.  This box will be directly connected to my current workstation through these SAS cables (which I don't know much about right now).  But it sounds perfect.  I'll need to buy a SAS controller for that box, which are relatively expensive.  I think this is the item that a few of you here have talked about to make sure I get a business grade quality, which I want to do.  If you have any advice as to which manufacturer/model I should get, please let me know.

Next is the connection to my computer.  My computer doesn't have any SAS stuff right now, so I'm guessing I need to buy a card or something for it.  Any direction on suggested models would be appreciated.  Same goes for any cables involved, in case I have to be careful about it.

So that gets mucho storage attached to my desktop.  After that, I can experiment to my hearts content.  I'll try doing some server stuff with VM's.  But mostly I'll just use the storage directly from the desktop.

How is that?  I can't really see much overkill in this one, and it's relatively cheap.  The box and related items will run me about $1500, and then I'll just hunt around for good hard drive deals.  The ones with 5 -year warranties are my fav.

Hi superboy, have u checked the pricing on 2TB SAS drives? I think that's one important step before you commit to buying that big box.

Hi superboy, have u checked the pricing on 2TB SAS drives? I think that's one important step before you commit to buying that big box.

Why not have the benefit of cheap SATA drives with the speed of an Multilane Infiniband connection?

eg.
Storage - Addonics Rack System (it doesn't need to sit in a rack since there's no ventilation slots on the bottom of the case.)
            1 or 2 x Addonics Multilane Bridge coupled with Addonics 5x1 SATA Port Multipliers (Each host Multilane controller could then run, conceivably, 20 HDDs.  However, I'd be looking at probably only 1 or 2 Port Multipliers per Multilane which would still give you from 14-20 HDDs that could be connected to 2 host controllers.)
PC end - 1 or 2 x Multilane 4x RAID 5/JBOD Controller (Doesn't have to be in RAID/JBOD mode.)

Going completely berserk, 2 Infiniband cables could conceivably connect you to 40 SATA HDDs.....big enough? 

Basing this on using 2TB HDDs, (so at least 10 of them), since they're still significantly cheaper than 3TB - the cheapest option which allows room for upgrading later:

1x Multilane 4x RAID5/JBOD PCIe 8x Controller              @ $185
1x 3M Infiniband cable                                             @ $85
1x 4X Multilane bridge for SATA storage                      @ $29
2x 5X1 Internal SATA Port Multiplier                           @ $62
1x Storage Rack DA base unit with ATX power supply   @ $355
2x Disk Array 5SA (black bezel)                                 @ $129
                                                                   ---------------
                                                                             $1036

More thoughts: If you wanted to forego the Infiniband links to start with then you could do the following:
1x Storage Rack DA base unit with ATX power supply   @ $355
2x Disk Array 5SA (black bezel)                                 @ $129
2x 5 Port HPM-XA Enclosure Version                           @ $89
                                                                   ---------------
                                                                             $791
This uses a pair of eSATA ports which are probably on the host PC already.



HDDs are a personal choice but if you use WD 2TB WD20EARS, (Caviar Green), @ $79.99 each from Newegg, then the total is approximately: $1836

If you go for WD 2TB AV-GP WD20EURS, (designed for always on streaming), @ $89.99 each, then the total is approximately: $1936.

NOTE: I don't know what kind of performance you'd get over Infiniband links but since they're used for server farms, etc, they must be halfway decent but SJ or 40hz would be more likely to have had some kind of experience/knowledge with/of them.

Also, this is still more expensive than simply building a new PC with the requisite amount of ports in a decent size case and running it using FreeNAS, WHS or similar.

plus a $500+ Infiniband PCI-e host adapter when you attach this to the PC?

First item on the list.

Quick one: how do we connect one 4x Multilane bridge to 10 SATA drives, isn't there a shortage of 6x?  

Fourth item on the list   (Will actually give you the capacity for 12 drives.)

Just for a laugh: 1 x WD 2TB SAS drive is ~$250 @ Newegg.

4wd, thanks for your posts above.  I have to study them this week.  But I have a question, maybe you or lotus can help:
I've read that if I get a sas controller card for whatever box I end up using, that the controller is compatible with sata drives.  Is this true, and are there any bad side effects of doing this?  I like the sas controller with sata drives because the sas controller will allow me to have fewer cables, and the sata drives are way more convenient to buy and use vs sas drives, which i'm not really interested in.  Also, the total cost in the end is not that different.  So I like the sas way, and you've posted addonics' clever sata setup.  I've always like addonics, but you're setup seems to be a little more complicated and more cable-y than what I'm picturing in a sas setup.  Any thoughts on that?

4wd has inspired me to create a similar list of things to do before my project can be ready for purchasing.  I'm now thinking more clearly about these things, thanks to everyone's help here.  So my list is posted below, and I'll continue to update it as I progress.  I'm not going to tally any price totals right now because too many things are up in the air.  My first task is to figure out what my "x" and "y" numbers are so I know how much space I need to get.  But anything with a question mark needs to be resolved before I'm done with this.

DAS

Storage estimate:
2TB currently
x TB stored on discs
y TB stored on spare drives

Total space CURRENT = 2+x+y
Future space needed = (current total x 2)
Backup --> two backup copies
total space to build for = [(2+x+y)x2]x3 (yikes!, I know)

<<Equipment to purchase>>
Storage Unit:
istarUSA storage tower
http://www.istarusa.com/raidage/products.php?series=CUSTOM%20STORAGE%20TOWER&model=DAGE840-ES
8-bay
2TB x 8 = 16TB
additional internal cables?
additional external cables?
additional controllers or cards for current desktop?

Hard drives:
SATA III
5-year warranty desired
model = ?
capacity = 2TB (will consider 3TB depending on price)
store = ? (wherever a good deal for bulk orders can be found)

I'm liking this.  Here's a question about the cabling:
1) If I do a SATA to SAS thing, can I get away with just one cable connecting the storage tower to the desktop?

2)  Let's say I want to put the DAS in another room.  How would I connect the DAS to my desktop?  The SAS or SATA or eSATA cables are only a few feet maximum.  So would I have to connect the tower to my router, which would bring it to my desktop?  Or does that change the whole setup into a NAS and now I need to have a motherboard, OS, etc. on the tower?

...connect the tower to my router, which would bring it to my desktop?  Or does that change the whole setup into a NAS...

If the answer to this is not obvious by now, you need to do more research. If the storage unit is attaching to your network, it is a...

- Oshyan