Hello all,

I am putting together a home security camera system and bought a refurbished Dell 5810 as a base.

My plan for storage was to install a NVME onto a pcie x16 adapter and then use that as the boot drive. I’d them remove the 2.5” sata ssd and install 3 spinning HDD’s and software RAID 0 them for the video file storage from Blue Iris.

However, I goofed a bit and ordered SAS hard drives instead of SATA and the 5810 doesn’t support them natively, but Dell documentation lists some LSI Megaraid options for a PCI solution.

Those are more expensive than I want to spend so here is my question: will any generic sas RAID controller work assuming it has the 6.0 speed my drives are capable off? Since I’m doing a RAID 0 with at least 3 drives do I want one of the 12.0 controllers or will that not matter since the drives are only 6?

For instance: will this work for me?

https://www.newegg.com/p/14G-0...?item=9SIACSJ8U15172

Or this one:
https://www.newegg.com/p/1UW-0...?item=9SIA4A0A7C3338

Or this:
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E1...?item=9SIACSJ8VM9077

If all it is going to be is a media server then that is WAY overkill for a PC.
However, it will work and LSI makes a good RAID controller.
I might ask why you would use RAID 0?

Two tyes of RAID controllers. Hardware driven and software driven. Hardware driven has a processor on the card that handles all the computations. Software uses the CPU to do that so it is slower. Having said that, I built a Win 10 box for my IP cameras. I used an SSD for boot disk and 4 large drives in a storage pool tool in Windows 10. You need a fast boot drive because the database is on the boot drive and it needs speed. All video is stored on the 4Tb drives. I have been running BluIris for about 2 years now and the hardware has been pretty much bullet proof.

If it is cheaper to get an SAS controller than replace your drives I would get a cheaper software based one since I am using software onboard for mine and throughput is not an issue.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
If all it is going to be is a media server then that is WAY overkill for a PC.
However, it will work and LSI makes a good RAID controller.
I might ask why you would use RAID 0?

Not a media server, the hub for my security cameras. I just didn’t know if any typical card would work.

RAID 0 for the extra storage and slight speed advantage. I know it is putting me at greater risk for data loss but literally the only thing I’ll be using this machine for is the cameras. I don’t plan to store video long term. If I have a data loss I don’t think it’s the end of the world.

Though if I can figure out a way to cram a 4th spinning disc in there I might be persuaded to do a RAID 01 or 10, I’m not sure the difference.

Let me add: I’m open to an education if I’m headed in the wrong direction.

quote:

Let me add: I’m open to an education if I’m headed in the wrong direction.

Media Server / Camera Server > same thing for all intents and purposes.

Still more than you need but then again Blue Iris is not very efficient.

I would have just kept the original SSD for the OS and added SATA drives for the storage.

Any extra "speed" for using SAS or an enhanced RAID controller will largely go unnoticed.

I fully agree with cruiser that a W10 storage pool would be all that is necessary.

It may be possible to connect SAS drives to the onboard SATA controller (with sas-to-sata adaptor), if you are using a hot-swap backplane then you need to get the SAS enabled backplane and controller for optimized performance.

Note: that RAID 0 would not be my choice, zero redundancy (primary purpose of RAID).
If you really need faster disk speeds then just get a large SSD SATAIII, IMO.

Of all disk accessory items I like a hot-swap backplane the best, YMMV.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

Let me add: I’m open to an education if I’m headed in the wrong direction.

Media Server / Camera Server > same thing for all intents and purposes.

Still more than you need but then again Blue Iris is not very efficient.

I would have just kept the original SSD for the OS and added SATA drives for the storage.

Any extra "speed" for using SAS or an enhanced RAID controller will largely go unnoticed.

I fully agree with cruiser that a W10 storage pool would be all that is necessary.

It may be possible to connect SAS drives to the onboard SATA controller (with sas-to-sata adaptor), if you are using a hot-swap backplane then you need to get the SAS enabled backplane and controller for optimized performance.

Note: that RAID 0 would not be my choice, zero redundancy (primary purpose of RAID).
If you really need faster disk speeds then just get a large SSD SATAIII, IMO.

Of all disk accessory items I like a hot-swap backplane the best, YMMV.

Thank you for the input, I appreciate it.

If after I add a few cameras I find that I’m still not breaking a sweat on this machine I may use that as an excuse to shift it over to Premiere/After Effects duty (I’ll need to upgrade from the K2200 video card probably) and then get something different for the cams.