Large storage 'server' build

[ctxrob20]

Hi Guys,

I'm pretty new to 'server' builds but need to create a system that will be able to record 20 HD video streams @ 25fps. I have created 2x specs for the machine and could do with a few bits of advice:

a) Will this motherboard/CPU handle it?: Intel DX58SO ATX Desktop Motherboard, Intel® Core™ i7-610E Processor (4M Cache, 2.53 GHz).

b) My Chassis has 16 x 3.5" Drive bays in blocks of 4 (1 connection per row of 4 HD's). I obviously need some sort of HD controller to write to the 16 2TB drives i'm going to house. My NVR software allows me to prioritise which HD i write to in which order (1-16) as long as it can see the HD's. I don't want it mirrored in RAID or anything but i guess i will need a RAID controller of some type to connect and view the drives. Any ideas if or how or what i can get to do this without setting it to a particular RAID?

Your suggestions on this build will be great even if they go beyond the initial question, i'm pretty novice.

Thanks,

Rob

 

[tipstir]

Server OS which one? Windows or Linux? If you use Windows Server 2008 Enterprise it supports Multi-core. Are you getting real server blade or server or workstation?

 

[DelJo63]

Using a RAID controller w/o a raid setup will create JBOD (just a bunch of disks)
which operates just like Windows Dynamic disks; each disk becomes the locical extension of the previous,
meaning only when HD#! is full wild HD#2 receive data, .... all the way to HD#16.

poor performance and bad storage efficiency.

Mass storage is nicely handled with a SCSI ii card and a chain of 0-16 devices.

With SCSI, we normally access a /volumeName (OS X, Linux), but I've not seen how Windows maps SCSI devices (but it does )

record 20 HD video streams

so am I to assume all 20 are streaming at the same time?

mapping one stream to one SCSI:x device would be easy enough and the controller will
support asycronous i/o to allow all 20 to write concurrently