External expansion of /storage

[tfmeier]

Hi guys, I'm running on an old server (Dell PowerEdge 840) running RAID5 (Dell PERC 5/i) with 4x500GB drives - not a lot in today's day and age given this server also serves a general host in the house for pictures and other files. Like the simplicity of the backup solution and LMS is a treat so it works well for me.

I'm running out of space and replacing all 4 drives with bigger ones is expensive. So I was thinking of adding an external USB drive such as 5TB and expand /storage - giving me a theoretical max of 5+1.5=6.5TB. I know my way around computers a bit but when it comes to this kind of Linux internals that's way over my head.

Questions:
1. Could this theoretically work making a storage partition spanning a RAID5 array and a USB drive?
2. What about performance? Would the whole disk array be limited by the thoughput of the USB connection?
3. Could this extension be done on the fly or would I have to "rebuild" an extended /storage?
4. What's involved command wise?
5. Would I lose the convenient backup facility?
6. What would you do in this situation?

Your advise is much appreciated.

[Transporter]

Quick question, are you using your server for multi-national four million dollar a second bank transactions? If the answer is no, then you don't have any use for RAID because RAID is NOT backup. Additionally as hard drives keep getting larger RAID 5 and RAID 6 become obsolete because the likelihood of a rebuild error increases dramatically with larger drives meaning your data will be lost anyway due to a rebuild fail. RAID is for businesses that can't be down for even a second without access to data/files because it would cost them money, this is NOT the case with ones Music/Movie files. So to answer your last question, "What would you do in this situation?", I would create REAL back-up plus save money on the build as well as electricity as follows:

Buy an 8TB USB Drive and backup all your files to it. Buy a 60 to 120GB SSD install in drive bay one. Buy a 6TB hard drive install in bay two. Now install Vortexbox 2.3 if the Server is only 32 bit, Vortexbox 2.4 if it is 64 bit. Complete Vortexbox multi-drive install. Put backup data back on Vortexbox. Remove the USB Drive and store in another location. Do backups after adding new files.

[tfmeier]

Quick question, are you using your server for multi-national four million dollar a second bank transactions? If the answer is no, then you don't have any use for RAID because RAID is NOT backup. Additionally as hard drives keep getting larger RAID 5 and RAID 6 become obsolete because the likelihood of a rebuild error increases dramatically with larger drives meaning your data will be lost anyway due to a rebuild fail. RAID is for businesses that can't be down for even a second without access to data/files because it would cost them money, this is NOT the case with ones Music/Movie files. So to answer your last question, "What would you do in this situation?", I would create REAL back-up plus save money on the build as well as electricity as follows:

Buy an 8TB USB Drive and backup all your files to it. Buy a 60 to 120GB SSD install in drive bay one. Buy a 6TB hard drive install in bay two. Now install Vortexbox 2.3 if the Server is only 32 bit, Vortexbox 2.4 if it is 64 bit. Complete Vortexbox multi-drive install. Put backup data back on Vortexbox. Remove the USB Drive and store in another location. Do backups after adding new files.

Thanks for that. For some reason I didn't get the notification of the update...

The server wasn't built as RAID5 for VB. Was an unused piece of equipment which we then migrated into the world of VB.

Sounds like a good plan. The Vortexbox multi-drive install will install the OS and the /storage across the SSD and 6TB drive?

Also the server uses Intel Xeon CPU X3210 @ 2.13GHz. When I look up the specs (https://ark.intel.com/products/28033...z-1066-MHz-FSB) it mentions a 64-bit instruction set and a 32-bit physical address extension. So is this a 32 or 64 bit server?