hardware for home use large storage

[Dan Naumov]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 12:42 AM, Dan Naumov <dan.naumov at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 11:38 PM, Dan Langille <dan at langille.org> wrote:
>> Dan Naumov wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, 14 Feb 2010, Dan Langille wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> 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
>>>
>>> You do realise how much of a massive overkill this is and how much you
>>> are overspending?
>>
>>
>> I appreciate the comments and feedback.  I'd also appreciate alternative
>> suggestions in addition to what you have contributed so far.  Spec out the
>> box you would build.
>
> ======================
> Case: Fractal Design Define R2 - 89 euro:
> http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=32
>
> Mobo/CPU: Supermicro X7SPA-H / Atom D510 - 180-220 euro:
> http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM/ICH9/X7SPA.cfm?typ=H
>
> PSU: Corsair 400CX 80+ - 59 euro:
> http://www.corsair.com/products/cx/default.aspx
>
> RAM: Corsair 2x2GB, DDR2 800MHz SO-DIMM, CL5 - 85 euro
> ======================
> Total: ~435 euro
>
> The motherboard has 6 native AHCI-capable ports on ICH9R controller
> and you have a PCI-E slot free if you want to add an additional
> controller card. Feel free to blow the money you've saved on crazy
> fast SATA disks and if your system workload is going to have a lot of
> random reads, then spend 200 euro on a 80gb Intel X25-M for use as a
> dedicated L2ARC device for your pool.

And to expand a bit, if you want that crazy performance without
blowing silly amounts of money:

Get a dock for holding 2 x 2,5" disks in a single 5,25" slot and put
it at the top, in the only 5,25" bay of the case. Now add an
additional PCI-E SATA controller card, like the often mentioned PCIE
SIL3124. Now you have 2 x 2,5" disk slots and 8 x 3,5" disk slots,
with 6 native SATA ports on the motherboard and more ports on the
controller card. Now get 2 x 80gb Intel SSDs and put them into the
dock. Now partition each of them in the following fashion:

1: swap: 4-5gb
2: freebsd-zfs: ~10-15gb for root filesystem
3: freebsd-zfs: rest of the disk: dedicated L2ARC vdev

GMirror your SSD swap partitions.
Make a ZFS mirror pool out of your SSD root filesystem partitions
Build your big ZFS pool however you like out of the mechanical disks you have.
Add the 2 x ~60gb partitions as dedicated independant L2ARC devices
for your SATA disk ZFS pool.

Now you have redundant swap, redundant and FAST root filesystem and
your ZFS pool of SATA disks has 120gb worth of L2ARC space on the
SSDs. The L2ARC vdevs dont need to be redundant, because should an IO
error occur while reading off L2ARC, the IO is deferred to the "real"
data location on the pool of your SATA disks. You can also remove your
L2ARC vdevs from your pool at will, on a live pool.


- Sincerely,
Dan Naumov