hardware for home use large storage
Dan Langille
dan at langille.org
Sun Feb 14 23:07:29 UTC 2010
Wes Morgan wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Feb 2010, Dan Langille wrote:
>
>> Dan Langille wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm looking at creating a large home use storage machine. Budget is a
>>> concern, but size and reliability are also a priority. Noise is also a
>>> concern, since this will be at home, in the basement. That, and cost,
>>> pretty much rules out a commercial case, such as a 3U case. It would be
>>> nice, but it greatly inflates the budget. This pretty much restricts me to
>>> a tower case.
>>>
>>> The primary use of this machine will be a backup server[1]. It will do
>>> other secondary use will include minor tasks such as samba, CIFS, cvsup,
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> I'm thinking of 8x1TB (or larger) SATA drives. I've found a case[2] with
>>> hot-swap bays[3], that seems interesting. I haven't looked at power
>>> supplies, but given that number of drives, I expect something beefy with a
>>> decent reputation is called for.
>>>
>>> Whether I use hardware or software RAID is undecided. I
>>>
>>> I think I am leaning towards software RAID, probably ZFS under FreeBSD 8.x
>>> but I'm open to hardware RAID but I think the cost won't justify it given
>>> ZFS.
>>>
>>> Given that, what motherboard and RAM configuration would you recommend to
>>> work with FreeBSD [and probably ZFS]. The lists seems to indicate that more
>>> RAM is better with ZFS.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] - FYI running Bacula, but that's out of scope for this question
>>>
>>> [2] - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192058
>>>
>>> [3] - nice to have, especially for a failure.
>> After creating three different system configurations (Athena, Supermicro, and
>> HP), my configuration of choice is this Supermicro setup:
>>
>> 1. Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner $20 (+ $8 shipping)
>> 2. SuperMicro 5046A $750 (+$43 shipping)
>> 3. LSI SAS 3081E-R $235
>> 4. SATA cables $60
>> 5. Crucial 3×2G ECC DDR3-1333 $191 (+ $6 shipping)
>> 6. Xeon W3520 $310
>>
>> Total price with shipping $1560
>>
>> Details and links at http://dan.langille.org/2010/02/14/supermicro/
>
> Wow um... That's quite a setup. Do you really need the Xeon W3520? You
> could get a regular core 2 system for much less and still use the ECC ram
> (highly recommended). The case you're looking at only has 6 hot-swap bays
> according to the manuals, although the pictures show 8 (???).
Going to
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/tower/5046/SYS-5046A-X.cfm it
does say 6 hot-swap and two spare. I'm guessing they say that because
the M/B supports only 6 SATA connections:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Core2Duo/X58/C7X58.cfm
> You could
> shave some off the case and cpu, upgrade your 3081E-R to an ARC-1222 for
> $200 more and have the hardware raid option.
That is a nice card. However, I don't want hardware RAID. I want ZFS.
> If I was building a tower system, I'd put together something like this:
Thank you for the suggestions.
> Case with 8 hot-swap SATA bays ($250):
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192058
> Or if you prefer screwless, you can find the case without the 2 hotswap
> bays and use an icy dock screwless version.
I do like this case, it's one I have priced:
http://dan.langille.org/2010/02/14/pricing-the-athena/
> Intel server board (for ECC support) ($200):
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121328
ECC, nice, which is something I've found appealing.
> SAS controller ($120):
> http://www.buy.com/prod/supermicro-lsi-megaraid-lsisas1068e-8-port-sas-raid-controller-16mb/q/loc/101/207929556.html
> Note: You'll need to change or remove the mounting bracket since it is
> "backwards". I was able to find a bracket with matching screw holes on an
> old nic and secure it to my case. It uses the same chipset as the more
> expensive 3081E-R, if I remember correctly.
I follow what you say, but cannot comprehend why the bracket is backwards.
> Quad-core CPU ($190):
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115131
>
> 4x2gb ram sticks (97*2):
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139045
>
> same SATA cables for sata to mini-sas, same CD burner. Total cost probably
> $400 less, which you can use to buy some of the drives.
I put this all together, and named it after you (hope you don't mind):
http://dan.langille.org/2010/02/14/273/
You're right, $400 less.
I also wrote up the above suggestions with a Supermicro case instead:
SUPERMICRO CSE-743T-645B Black 4U Pedestal Chassis w/ 645W Power Supply
$320
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811152047
I like your suggestions with the above case. It is now my preferred
solution.
> For my personal (overkill) setup I have a chenbro 4U chassis with 16
> hotswap bays and mini-SAS backplanes, a zippy 2+1 640 watt redundant power
> supply (sounds like a freight train). I cannot express the joy I felt in
> ripping out all the little SATA cables and snaking a couple fat 8087s
> under the fans. 8 of the bays are dedicated to my media array, and the
> other 8 are there for swapping in and out of backup drives mostly, but the
> time they REALLY come in handy is when you need to upgrade your array. Buy
> the replacement drives, pop them in, migrate the pool, and remove the old
> drives.
This is really nice. :)
Thank you for your suggestions. They have been very helpful. :)
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