RE-Building The House of RagE - AGAIN

[PS-RagE]

PS-RagE, is there any particular reason you left out the 3.3v line from the SATA power connectors?

I had checked with the Disk Storage guys (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=992502) and that line is not used with current devices. So to keep my wiring cleaner, I omitted it.

[gordy_hand]

I had checked with the Disk Storage guys (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=992502) and that line is not used with current devices. So to keep my wiring cleaner, I omitted it.

Thats worth knowing that. I've tried it in the past with older sata drives and it didnt work (Seagate one from memory)

Will try next time with new drive.


Keep up the good work on the project, loving it so far , my little file server ( linky (http://www.gordyhand.co.uk/main.php?page=maccube) ) is looking on enviously at all that hard disc space :D

[swatbat]

You guys should read the first 10 pages of this thread ;) This is a server - not a showpiece. No paint, no windows, no lighting, certainly no overclocking - just a server.

No I read where you said it was going to be a sever which is suspose to be big loud and beige or black(or something like that). It's just if you are going to do something why not do it in excess and beyond all reason? Isn't that the [H]ard way? Personally I'm trying to get one of those disney pc cases to make a porn server. Mind you it is small and I wouldn't be able to mount but so many hard drives in it but I still want to do it as I would laugh at it ever time I thought of it.

[drizzt81]

nice wiring job, i love the colored zip-ties

[Captain Colonoscopy]

I think I just messed myself. Good job sir.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/148779.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&id=148779)

[Bona Fide]

Maybe I missed this in one of your previous posts, but what RAID level are you using? Looks like a RAID 5 array, but I'd like confirmation from you :)

[Nugget]

I've never seen such an ugly case that's so dead sexy.

Your cable management intrigues me. Assuming I'm an electronic idiot (which I am) is there a guide/resource/whatever I could use to figure out how to rewire my rig? I've cut and soldered here and there, but I've been nervous about doing too much ever since I accidentally plugged a floppy drive into a line that I'd previously modded to provide 7V for some fans. The wife still enjoys reminding me about the fire....

[PS-RagE]

Maybe I missed this in one of your previous posts, but what RAID level are you using? Looks like a RAID 5 array, but I'd like confirmation from you :)

Yep, RAID 5. This time with a hot spare

[PS-RagE]

I've never seen such an ugly case that's so dead sexy.

Your cable management intrigues me. Assuming I'm an electronic idiot (which I am) is there a guide/resource/whatever I could use to figure out how to rewire my rig? I've cut and soldered here and there, but I've been nervous about doing too much ever since I accidentally plugged a floppy drive into a line that I'd previously modded to provide 7V for some fans. The wife still enjoys reminding me about the fire....

Take a read of my website and see if anything helps. For the most part you need to be competent with a soldering iron and then have the balls to cut at it. I am a tech with 15+ years of experience in system-level installation (not computer related) so the confidence is a developed thing.

Regarding your modded connecter - that is a no-no as you discovered. What you should have done is hardwired the fan.

[PS-RagE]

The SATA cables were around 18" longer than really necessary. Oh well......

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr39.jpg
Click here (http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr39big.jpg) for detailed view of this image.


http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr40.jpg


http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr41.jpg


http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr42.jpg


So now we're ready for a test drive....

.

[revenant]

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr39.jpg



/me sheads a tear... that's just a beautiful sight.. *sniffle* ;)

[Emission]

The SATA cables were around 18" longer than really necessary. Oh well......

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr39.jpg
Click here (http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr39big.jpg) for detailed view of this image.


http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr40.jpg


http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr41.jpg


http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr42.jpg


So now we're ready for a test drive....

.

**Pees Pants**

I wish I had that many drives.

Not to mention those are probably one of the nicest intel sinks. Full on copper and a nice finish. Why dont they make those for pressys? :( Good luck to yah! Hope everything works!

[themark]

You guys should read the first 10 pages of this thread ;) This is a server - not a showpiece. No paint, no windows, no lighting, certainly no overclocking - just a server.

I was hoping to avoid that... ;) besides, who said a server can't be pretty?

[PS-RagE]

I was hoping to avoid that... ;) besides, who said a server can't be pretty?


Hey, its pretty on the inside. Isn't that what they say about all the ugly girls? :D

[PS-RagE]

Its up and running, BTW. Gotta RTFM on the RAID card now :rolleyes:

[Dillusion]

Thats too many drives for life.

[PS-RagE]

And here we go............

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr43.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr44.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr45.jpg


I might as well go home. This will easily take the night I'm betting

.

[zoidberg3001]

and again all i can say is WOW.

all that Data Goodness in one package :eek:

[Nugget]

Take a read of my website and see if anything helps. For the most part you need to be competent with a soldering iron and then have the balls to cut at it. I am a tech with 15+ years of experience in system-level installation (not computer related) so the confidence is a developed thing.

Regarding your modded connecter - that is a no-no as you discovered. What you should have done is hardwired the fan.

Thanks, I'll do that. Probably come out with more questions than answers, but ain't that always the way. And yeah, I did switch the lines on the fan wires rather than the PSU lines, but forgot I'd messed with the fan and ran the floppy off the modded wiring. Smoke, flame, melted plastic, all the goodies.

[TehRoflcopter]

Hahahahahaha. The funny part about this is that even though you've got that many cables sitting right there, and they are flat out visible, the case in general is still a lot cleaner then a lot of the cases you'd see in the "Rate My Cables!" forum, lol.

PS, I laugh at your pun. "Time for a test DRIVE"

[V-e-l-o-c-i-t-Y]

OMFG thats awsome... if only i had the money lol...

[Thor]

im shure you answered this but im being ;lazy.... the heatsinks are different... one new one old? did you just buy a seconed cpu (just decided to go dualy?) or did one die/get replaced


one stick of ram and so many slots... *shakes head...* lots of data but not alot of access???

you do know you could shorten up the sata cables if you really wanted to right??? theres nothing special going on inside of the cables that would make it not work if you cut a chunk out of the middel... (thought i would still try and get them to be the same length, for timeing reasons, not really shure how big of a deal this would be though... the runs might be short enought that it may not matter...)

nice system... cant wait to see what it can do

one more... is that a pci pro 64bit slot you got the card in, or is it a pci/e-/x slot??? (trying to figure out what the buss saturation will be on it...)

thore

[mashie]

one more... is that a pci pro 64bit slot you got the card in, or is it a pci/e-/x slot??? (trying to figure out what the buss saturation will be on it...)

thore
It is a PCI-X 133MHz so 1GB/s.

There are no such thing as PCI Pro, only AGP Pro.

[m-unit]

That makes me wonder how loud it is. I know some hard drives humm like crazy and others are near silent. I doubt those fans make much noise. other than the little ones on the back. That blowhole has gotta be really effective too being that there is a nice air pocket under it for the air to build and be exhausted.

looks awesome. It seems like patience was key for making this one look good

[Thor]

It is a PCI-X 133MHz so 1GB/s.

There are no such thing as PCI Pro, only AGP Pro.

i was just thinking of 64bit pci, wrote pro by mistake, if im not mistaken there was one that looked like a normal pci, that was extended out the other way

as in

____ _________________________ ______
(pci 64)
vs
________________________ ______
(pci)
and there was a different one the was

______ ________________________
(server only)
(give or take)

(i may have them mixed up... ) regardless.. i beleve the last one i only ever saw on a pentium pro 60mhz system made by HP a VERY long time ago... it may have been a propriatary slot... dont know for shure the off set on the last one was very different from any onther card slot i have seen sence... there was about 5 inches of space between the edge of the case and the card, where as pci cards its only about 1 - 1,1/4" more so than a agp slot the pin spaceing on the last one was the same as a normal pci slot (so it wasnt something stupid like vesa bus or something... ) and it was the same color, if you took the case slot off a standard pci card it would fit the slot, faceing the wrong direction... (i bet it would have fryed when turned on thought) i beleave the system had 3 such slots, as well as 1 pci 64 slot, and 3 isa slots and one shared pci slot (shared with a isa)

(damn cursed photograhhic memory... ) i wish i could find more on this sytem as it was very interesting... (it also had dubble hight 3.5 and 5.25 drives... as in each drive had enought platters in it they had to take up 2 slots... ) but a max capacity of only about 500mb per drive (4 drives) and i remeber the 3.5 drive haveing a wicked spin up sound... possibily one of the first 7200 rpm drives... (i also remeber it haveing win NT 3.something installed on it)

thore

[Spidey329]

That makes me wonder how loud it is. I know some hard drives humm like crazy and others are near silent. I doubt those fans make much noise. other than the little ones on the back. That blowhole has gotta be really effective too being that there is a nice air pocket under it for the air to build and be exhausted.

looks awesome. It seems like patience was key for making this one look good

I'd be more worried about heat. It doesn't look like there's a lot of room for air to travel between the drives.

[Noni]

What about weight?

That case must be very heavy on one side!

Great job though!

[PS-RagE]

im shure you answered this but im being ;lazy.... the heatsinks are different... one new one old? did you just buy a seconed cpu (just decided to go dualy?) or did one die/get replaced

I don't know why they are different. Different batches, I guess. Obviously, I would have preffered that they be the same but it would be pretty hard to return a special order "cause the fans don't match" :D


one stick of ram and so many slots... *shakes head...* lots of data but not alot of access???
There are two sticks in there - a pair of Corsair 512M ECC DDR2

you do know you could shorten up the sata cables if you really wanted to right??? theres nothing special going on inside of the cables that would make it not work if you cut a chunk out of the middel... (thought i would still try and get them to be the same length, for timeing reasons, not really shure how big of a deal this would be though... the runs might be short enought that it may not matter...)

Hmmm, I didn't know that. I'll have to cut one and see. Something to consider for the next 5T ;)

nice system... cant wait to see what it can do

one more... is that a pci pro 64bit slot you got the card in, or is it a pci/e-/x slot??? (trying to figure out what the buss saturation will be on it...)



I also am curious what it will do. My workstation is similar (dual Xeons w/ 3Ware controller) so I have a pretty good idea. This machine's primary purpose is simply to stream video over my home network. It also will be used to rip media. Now I can do both at the same time ;)

[PS-RagE]

That makes me wonder how loud it is. I know some hard drives humm like crazy and others are near silent. I doubt those fans make much noise. other than the little ones on the back. That blowhole has gotta be really effective too being that there is a nice air pocket under it for the air to build and be exhausted.

looks awesome. It seems like patience was key for making this one look good

Man, it is whisper silent. I am very pleased. I've decided to not reconnect the side intakes since the PowerPC on the RAID controller runs so cool.

[PS-RagE]

What about weight?

That case must be very heavy on one side!

Great job though!

Weight doesn't really matter as I will only be lugging it one time. However, this incarnation is lighter than the previous since I am not using the removable drives

[AtomicMoose]

Impressive setup for sure.

How are the drives doing heat-wise, being that close together?

[superkdogg]

Thanks again Doug. As Penguin noted a lot of money is going into this rebuild so I wanted to be sure this time.

I hope I won't fall victim to that glitch again either but I still am going to have to do something with all the left over parts.......


;)


I'm accepting Christmas presents all year round! :D

[WesM63]

OMG that thing is pure SEX.

I want to do something similar with 500GB drives, but gotta find the money first lol.

[DougLite]

Right now, 400GB drives are significantly more cost effective, about $100 less than a 500GB drive.

[WesM63]

Right now, 400GB drives are significantly more cost effective, about $100 less than a 500GB drive.


True. I need the space thou ;)

[M4rk]

Some article I read said the way things are going, there should be 1tb drives availible sometime in 2006. I'm doubtful, but not much since Blu-ray and HD-DVD are out already.

[tom61]

Some article I read said the way things are going, there should be 1tb drives availible sometime in 2006. I'm doubtful, but not much since Blu-ray and HD-DVD are out already.

There are 1TB drives now. They just cost about a dollar a gigabyte currently.
:(

[ikurox]

*google*
http://www.cooltechzone.com/reviews/drives/hddnewsstory_001.php

[The_Mage18]

How are the drive doinh heat-wise, being that close together?

This and replacement are my big two questions. It looks like if a drive fails (which can and probably will happen, odds are against you) that you would have a difficult time removing the failed drive. From they way they're mounted, I'd guess you would have to take the entire thing off-line unplug everything (damn fine wiring job BTW, do you take comissions? :D) and pull the drive "tower" out to remove the failed drive.

[][V][AGIC]

cool, lotta hdds

[PS-RagE]

How are the drive doinh heat-wise, being that close together?

This and replacement are my big two questions. It looks like if a drive fails (which can and probably will happen, odds are against you) that you would have a difficult time removing the failed drive. From they way they're mounted, I'd guess you would have to take the entire thing off-line unplug everything (damn fine wiring job BTW, do you take comissions? :D) and pull the drive "tower" out to remove the failed drive.

They don't seem to get very warm but I guess I'll know for sure when I transfer the 1T backup to the array.

Replacing a drive will be a pain, I'm sure. No more than a half hour job though.

My problem right now though is it is very hard to turn on. That Thermaltake just doesn't have the balls. I've gone ahead and ordered the big 1kW unit. Friggin' $88 for shipping! Better damned well be here tomorrow morning for that price! :eek:

[RS3RS]

... Dude, Rage, when you hit the power switch on that thing, your entire city block's lighting is going to go dim! :eek: 1kW, that's insane.

[TehRoflcopter]

This thing is going to cost you A LOT in power bills.... I hope you have a good job, rofl.

[Artluo100]

that is an amazing setup. keep up the good work. i'm doing something similar but with less hardrives.

[Kaleim]

Oh my fucking god that's nice :D

[UnknownSouljer]

This thing is going to cost you A LOT in power bills.... I hope you have a good job, rofl.

Mmmm... well concidering he was able to pitch his other HD setup so soon, and the fact that he's now touting over 4TB in HD's and pretty spank'n hardware, I'd say he's not hurting.

The project looks good so far RagE, keep it up!

[PS-RagE]

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr48.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr47.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr46.jpg


Drive E: Two trillion, one hundred and seventy seven billion, nine hundred and eleven million, eight hundred and forty four thousand, eight hundred sixty four bytes free

Drive F: Two trillion, one hundred and ninety eight billion, eight hundred and eighty five million, six hundred and thirty eight thousand, one hundred forty four bytes free


:D

[mrweasel]

um, wouldn't that be TRILLION, not ZILLION...not to nit-pick:rolleyes:

Nice ass rig you got there...hope the fat bastard Santa brings me new shiat!

[unhappy_mage]

What, can't you do one big volume with the 3ware?

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072 (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&id=150072&tm=33)

[DougLite]

^ He is running XP Pro, so is limited to 2TB MBR partitions. He will need to acquire Server 2003 or move to dynamic disks.

[Borgschulze]

I have a hard time filling my 120gb HDD.... let alone 4TB :)

[Emission]

Its not so hard when you have an abundance of DVD's and music cd's :D

[doh]

[im]http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr48.jpg[/img]

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr47.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr46.jpg :D

Going to suck to defrag those. :)

[Whitedog]

Hats off to you bro. This is an excellent display of pure indulgance! I am taking notes daily..
WD

[marley1]

^ He is running XP Pro, so is limited to 2TB MBR partitions. He will need to acquire Server 2003 or move to dynamic disks.

couldn't he just span the disks in XP pro so it would just look like a 4tb partition?

i know you can do it with smaller drives, i tried it with 2 260gigs drive and it showed up as one drive letter with the 500ish gigs.

[Annon]

*google*
http://www.cooltechzone.com/reviews/drives/hddnewsstory_001.php

That's just an old external raid unit.

[Cpt Twitchy]

I'm curious to know why you needed a mobo with 4 pcix slots as you are using only one raid controller?

Very nice looking unit there. Clean and professional.

[xrdotimcr]

I believe he said for future upgrades. I'm not positive, but I believe that is what he said.

[PS-RagE]

Well look what the FedEx girl just dropped off:

One big box for a power supply!

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr49.jpg

Wow - one big power supply.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr50.jpg


Guess I know what I'm doing today ;)

[PS-RagE]

I'm curious to know why you needed a mobo with 4 pcix slots as you are using only one raid controller?

<snip>I don't want to get caught again with a maxed-out server and no room to grow, so this time I am using the 3Ware 9550SX (http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata2-9000.asp) - 12 port RAID controller. According to the 3Ware documentation: "64-bit LBA support for addressing arrays greater than 2 TB and support for multiple cards (up to 4) within a system for large storage requirements.". In theory, it should be a good long time before I have to do this again :cool:


Very nice looking unit there. Clean and professional.

Thanks

[0mega]

Well look what the FedEx girl just dropped off:

One big box for a power supply!

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr49.jpg

Wow - one big power supply.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr50.jpg


Guess I know what I'm doing today ;)
O M F G

plan on powering a science lab with that? ^_- wow thats a beauty to behold indeed.

[PS-RagE]

Its a little bigger than the Thermaltake and a lot heavier.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr51.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr52.jpg

Looks like I'm going to have problems with that top blowhole

[NickS]

LMAO it's going to rip the back of the case off. I love it!

[PS-RagE]

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr53.jpg


Well that is one problem solved. She powers up now like nothing - go figure. I'm going to let it burn in for a couple days before voiding the warranty on the PSU.

I'm transferring the data now. 70 minutes for 250G (PATA bus to RAID array). Its been going for 20 minutes now and the drives are barely warm.

Next, I'm going to have to figure out how to put the lid back on

[Cpt Twitchy]

I didn't think so many parts could be fit into a case that small :eek:

Yet another question for the time being. Why did you go for a regular psu instead of redundant?

[PS-RagE]

Does anyone even make a redundant 1kW supply?

Of course even if they did, it would never fit. This one barely does

[dropper]

I know the mod is all about the mod, but wouldn't have been easier to go with a CM Stacker 810 (http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?LT=english&Language_s=2&url_place=product&p_serial=RC-810&other_title=+RC-810+CM%20Stacker%20810%20ATX)? Would have fit the motherboard, your PSU, 12 HD's in 3 cooled racks and 2 slots left for DVD R/W's.

Also, if you wanted to stick with this case, you could have gone with 2 x 5-in-3 SATA cages and a 3-in-2 cage, still leaving that 1 slot for your DVD.

I know, there's no challenge in that...


Keith

[Thor]

Does anyone even make a redundant 1kW supply?

Of course even if they did, it would never fit. This one barely does

i know sun. makes redundent 2kw for there big servers(ult. spark 5k)... there not atx thought... :S. i know it dosent help you any, but the fact that they do exist shows its possible

on that note, wont PCPnC custom make psus to any desgin spec you want??? you just gotta pay thought the ass for em? (your right it wouldnt fit, but dual 1kw's would be cool...(acctually.... warm....very very warm... ;) )) perhaps a littel Q&A is needed

thore

[TheAcorn]

If on the sixth day, God did his wiring, it still wouldn't look as immaculate as your's. :)

Hats off to you and your skills, it's the cleanest PC I've ever seen with that much STUFF in it.



/sorry, God. Window seat, please?

[Cpt Twitchy]

Good point about if anyone makes them that large. Doesn't matter though with the pcp&c though becasue last I heard they have guts from zippy :D

[Dav5049915]

that is the most SEXY build i have evar seeen YOU ROCK!

[l0cke]

For the big PSU you could make another backplate that lets it stick out, would help airflow lots. Might tip over, if it weighs more then all the HDD's together, which i doubt it does.

[PS-RagE]

For the big PSU you could make another backplate that lets it stick out, would help airflow lots. Might tip over, if it weighs more then all the HDD's together, which i doubt it does.


That would have been an excellent idea when the machine was all torn down. I may still consider it. As it is now, I'm thinking to either modify or just make a new lid. This way, I can leave the lid at the shop to work on while the server stays online at home.

[PS-RagE]

Well, I've transferred all the data and I have to say the drives barely got warm. No warmer than the single backup drives sitting outside the case.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr54.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr55.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr56.jpg

And for doh:
http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservrHDT.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservrSAN.jpg

[mashie]

Nice performance. Can't wait to get done with my new server here.

[1337m0dd3r]

Great performance there man :) looks good too :)

[Cpt Twitchy]

I have no clue what half of the bench numbers are but they sure look good :D

[BEX]

Well thanks for the idea with the shelf rails, I've already stolen the idea ;) I only have 4x250GB drives in raid5 and 2x160GB ones in raid1... all samsung drives tho so they look identical and even though 6 drives isn't 12 it still looks sexy to me ;). All with a opty 170 slightly oced ( one thing at a time ) and a massive 300watt seasonic powersupply.

[Shroomie]

Oh my god. I'm speechless. It's so clean and beautiful.

[Logan321]

As for the SATA cables, if you're a madman you CAN shorten them, IF they are a clipped style connector and not a injected mould style (unable to dissemble).

As you can see, there's 4 signal lines and 4 ground lines (2 of which only have a single connection point in the middle, so they're just tied together).

I wouldn't recommend cutting and splicing the cable mid-run, as it'd probably weaken the signal and increase likelyhood of a short.

For example:
http://members.shaw.ca/ed209/SATA1.JPG
http://members.shaw.ca/ed209/SATA2.JPG
http://members.shaw.ca/ed209/SATA3.JPG

[Order]

Love the Microtech, Rage.

[Minotaar]

I built a similar system a year ago. Its a 3 TB array using a similar 3ware controller and 10 300gb disks. Your wiring is better than mine though, because my power supply did not have sata power, and all those adaptors uglify it :(

Im a little surprized you went through so much trouble for the case. With VERY insignificant modding (remount the power button onto a side panel), the coolermaster stacker can support 16 3.5" disks cooled by four 120mm fans. Your setup clearly works, but you had to work pretty hard for the case mod; could of been done with off the shelf components, and with more fans. A larger system (say, 20 TB) could be more elegantly implemented with a case from mountainmods, too.

I wish there was 3.5" vantec ez-swap things that could fit into the 3.5" disk mounts. I've had to since replace 2 dying disks, and its anoying to reach back there and pull out the sata/power connectors.

[Magog]

If you are worried about voiding the warranty on the PSU which I would be as well, why not make an extension cable?

You aren't using the 3.3v line so why not make your SATA wiring onto its own cable. then add a molex connector on the top of it then just plug it into a molex connector on the PSU?

[Rick]

Wow, simply wow :eek:

[Pkirk618]

I see people using more than one PSU. Did you dismiss that from the get go?

[ASSEMbler]

I built a similar array (3TB) in a very similar case.

My question is how did you deal with the issue of vibration?

I found when all the drives were on, they tended to create a harmonic vibration that
used to drive me nuts at night.

Right now I'm at 4TB, but I chose to convert all the drives to external USB 2.0
cases as they are for archive storage and don't need to be on all the time.

It's a pain in the behind, as it's ten power adapters, a big power bar.. But I got tired
of changing everything each time I upgraded my system or replaced the motherboard.

Keep up the good work! looks good. I wish I could run wiring like that.

[Tseng]

someone buy this man a rounded blue ide cable. no machine such as that should have that old pos ide cable :P

[cyberbone]

what speed xeons did you go with? also, did you get a good deal on the board? i know its a $400 board but the least expensive that i've seen it is like $389.

thx.

CB

[covertclocker]

To the OP. call me a terrible newB if you will, but could you go into a little bit of detail on how you went about the cable mod. That cabling job is a work of art and I would kill to know how to do it. Again call me a newB if you must, but I don't know how to do that.

[solotech]

Building my own file server I have found that the Areca cards were far supirior to the 3ware cards.
I highly recommend you use these cards for future upgrade and hardcore performance for any JBOD or raid solution.

http://www.areca.us/

[CertificationMan]

PS-RagE,

I know it may be to late but if you would like I can donate a totally legal copy of Server 2003 Enterprise with 25 CALs to your project. I don't know if you would want to rebuild it just to get it off XP though.

Just let me know and i'll ship it out.

CertificationMan

[travis712]

Cool stuff. Question though, how many damn movies do you have?

[unhappy_mage]

CertificationMan: I'll take it if he doesn't want it ;)

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072 (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&id=150072&tm=33)

[krotch]

Ya, I was planning on upgrading to 12 x 250 gig WD SE drives, running on a 3ware 9500S-12 raid controller.

Since I'm not rich, I've only got the 3ware card and 2 x 250 gig WD SE drives. My current setup has just been small upgrades over time, leading to 2286 gigs.

Adaptec 1200A raid controller
Highpoint 404 raid controller
1 x 100 gig WD SE (system)
5 x 200 gig Seagate/WD SE (RAID 0)
5 x 120 gig WD SE (RAID 0)
2 x 250 gig WD SE (RAID 0)

Ya...I know. I should go Raid 5. That's what the new controller is for, plus drives that are all the same size. I got the raid controller (brand new) from a friend for $400.

Old Pic (Before the 250 gig drives)
http://www.afkrotch.com/My_Comp/Omiokane/IMG_0218%20(Latest%2001%20Apr%2005).JPG

I don't expect my upgrade to last long, as I'm close to maxing out my 2.2 TB right now, but not to big a deal, as all the hdds I've accumulated will be crammed into my other computer........somehow. I'm thinking case panel left open, with hdds laying on a table and a desk fan blowing on them.

Can you believe in 2000, I was only using half my storage. During that time, I had a 5.5 gig hdd. Then I found the greatness of mp3s, AVIs, and ASFs. Course, that's all changed. ASFs, died out.

Anyways, how do you take care of heat? My case temps sit at 37 - 40C. I've had to take off the case panels and randomly place 120 mm fans. I hung them up with the wires inside Cat-5. Proc temp was around 48C, for a 3.06 ghz P4 Northwood.

Case vibration and noise. I didn't care. It's still quieter than my gaming rig. : P

[talon_262]

PS-RagE,

What a damn fine job you've done on that server....certainly a work of art :D

[Welsper]

PS-RagE,

What a damn fine job you've done on that server....certainly a work of art :D
Work of art indeed! This is beautiful...

[skyman]

Any thoughts on using a couple of these?

5 in 3 SATA Cage (http://store.yahoo.com/directron/dk0357ssb.html)
http://us.st11.yimg.com/store1.yimg.com/I/directron_1876_45209709

[codebasher]

Wow now that's a project I can only hope to look forward to emulating one day. What a sweet sweet sweet rig indeed. My old lanning rig looks like a junyard and with only 3.2TB of storage.

Sure makes my old lanning clunker look a little old

http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~codebasher/rigview.JPG
http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~codebasher/rigrear.JPG

With the stacking job you've done on the drives I certainly know what to do next time there is a majour overhaul. Fark that's excellent.

top marks indeed

[alcky]

Tonight, I got all the power wiring done.



Last week, I had bought a bag of right angle SATA power connecters from ADPmods (http://www.adpmods.com). Great service BTW. Had the parts overnight.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr35.jpg

Here is the power buss:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr36.jpg
Hmmm, lots of detail lost there. Click here for lifesize (http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr36big.jpg)

:cool: :cool: :cool: :eek:

[franke3c]

Good freaking job!

Could you post IOmeter test results? 16-32 workers, 100% seq read/write , 128k, 256k, or 512k block size.

Thanks!!!

[alcky]

The SATA cables were around 18" longer than really necessary. Oh well......
].[/COLOR]
WTF why not buy shorter cables?

I mean you've got $32159831756437 in hardware and can't spare $24 for a dozen SATA cables that would be the correct length :confused:

[Thor]

WTF why not buy shorter cables?

I mean you've got $32159831756437 in hardware and can't spare $24 for a dozen SATA cables that would be the correct length :confused:

he is useings a raid setup, for a large set like this, the cables need to be the same lenght for timeing reasons, still, looks like he only needs like 15, and not 24 in cable...

meh.. i agree, but i dont really think it matters that much...or he would have fixed it already

thore

[PS-RagE]

If you are worried about voiding the warranty on the PSU which I would be as well, why not make an extension cable?

You aren't using the 3.3v line so why not make your SATA wiring onto its own cable. then add a molex connector on the top of it then just plug it into a molex connector on the PSU?

I'm letting it burn in for now and once I'm convinced it works OK, I'm going to just cut into it like I did the Thermaltake.

[PS-RagE]

I see people using more than one PSU. Did you dismiss that from the get go?

Yeah, no way I could have fit two in there. Future expansions will, no doubt, require additional supplys though

[mashie]

Yeah, no way I could have fit two in there. Future expansions will, no doubt, require additional supplys though
Yeah 48 HDDs will require a slightly bigger case ;)

[PS-RagE]

I built a similar array (3TB) in a very similar case.

My question is how did you deal with the issue of vibration?

I found when all the drives were on, they tended to create a harmonic vibration that
used to drive me nuts at night.

Right now I'm at 4TB, but I chose to convert all the drives to external USB 2.0
cases as they are for archive storage and don't need to be on all the time.

It's a pain in the behind, as it's ten power adapters, a big power bar.. But I got tired
of changing everything each time I upgraded my system or replaced the motherboard.

Keep up the good work! looks good. I wish I could run wiring like that.

When I'm in that room, I have my big machine (http://www.houseofrage.com/superdone2.html) on so any sound that comes from this one is drowned out. These drives are not too loud anyhow. The Seagate in my HTPC chatters much more

[bigstusexy]

Good gravey I wish I had the money, time, skill to build half that! Freakin' sweet!


I have two things.

1) XP supports Dynamic Drives, why can't it's support of DD be used? and I thought NTFS supported lager thatn 2TB drives with the later update, I'm not sure that it comes with XP but I think I've read few things you could install that would update NTFS on XP


2) Just an FYI, if you ever want to take clean shots of the task manager or if you leave it up for quick peering just double click the actual information part of the window and all the non- info is hidden.


Good work, Good luck!

[PS-RagE]

what speed xeons did you go with? also, did you get a good deal on the board? i know its a $400 board but the least expensive that i've seen it is like $389.

thx.

CB


They are 2.8G Nocanas (800MHZ FSB). I actually overpaid for the board but it was not exactly a stock item.

[PS-RagE]

To the OP. call me a terrible newB if you will, but could you go into a little bit of detail on how you went about the cable mod. That cabling job is a work of art and I would kill to know how to do it. Again call me a newB if you must, but I don't know how to do that.

I assume you are referring to the power cabling? Those connectors are the "Punch Down" type. I cut off the original ones and lined the cables up to reach the bottom most drive with the correct amount of slack for the "bend" at the top. I then simply lightly punched it down. Repeat for the other two in the chain then remove them, punch all the way and put aside to do the next grouping.

[PS-RagE]

Good gravey I wish I had the money, time, skill to build half that! Freakin' sweet!


I have two things.

1) XP supports Dynamic Drives, why can't it's support of DD be used? and I thought NTFS supported lager thatn 2TB drives with the later update, I'm not sure that it comes with XP but I think I've read few things you could install that would update NTFS on XP


2) Just an FYI, if you ever want to take clean shots of the task manager or if you leave it up for quick peering just double click the actual information part of the window and all the non- info is hidden.


Good work, Good luck!

Thanks

1) The two big partitions is fine. I'm keeping the movies in one and the other is for everything else including the music and photographs (a single compressed NEF is 10M and a TIF is 50M+ so those add up pretty fast too)

2) Cool!

[alcky]

he is useings a raid setup, for a large set like this, the cables need to be the same lenght for timeing reasons, still, looks like he only needs like 15, and not 24 in cable...

meh.. i agree, but i dont really think it matters that much...or he would have fixed it already

thore
well I knew about the timing... but he has like 18" extra on those puppies :o

[PS-RagE]

Yeah, they are the ones that came with the RAID controller. The only other ones I could find in town were real cheapos and they didn't have 12 the same.

[feigned]

I had to do the same thing to our mail server and backup machines with the copper standoffs. Only thing I didn't do was JB-Weld them to the motherboard "tray."

Very well done! :D

edit

If you ever want to upgrade your case, look into the Enlight 8950. Very, very, very well put together pieces like your Aopen.

[Tanis143]

Rage, I don't know if I should feel envy for your rigs or pitty for your electric bill :p

[jrweis]

I'm using an Addtronics #ET7890A server case with dual power supplies (redundant ps capable) This thing has 7 exposed 5 1/4 drive bays, 1-3 1/2 exposed, & 3-internal 3 1/2 slots. If you used a pair of those 5 in 3 drive cages along with two of the internals you would have space for all 12 of your drives, the DVD drive, and dual power supplies. It has 1-6cm fan(rear), 6-8cm fans(2 front[plan to swap these to 12cm soon to cut noise] & 2 each side), & I added 1-12cm blow hole so cooling would be no problem either. This case is rugged as hell and takes all kinds of abuse. Bought mine in 1998 ($165) and have used it for many builds/rebuilds.

[God_Of_Death]

I was suprised to see the Tt psu turn on at all. right now I have 13hd's running on a single PC P&C 510deluxe psu and another PC P&C 510deluxe psu running cpu, mobo, ram, vid card, sound card, ide cards, ect..

the reason i have two PC P&C psu's running is because i built my server way way before the beefy psu were even an idea. if i had to build it again i would go with the 1Kw psu like yours. :D


great build btw :cool:

[DR_K13]

wow, just wow :D

[ninjaturtle]

Wow, nice job Rage! Wish I had the time and patience for cable modding.

[PS-RagE]

I'm using an Addtronics #ET7890A server case with dual power supplies (redundant ps capable) This thing has 7 exposed 5 1/4 drive bays, 1-3 1/2 exposed, & 3-internal 3 1/2 slots. If you used a pair of those 5 in 3 drive cages along with two of the internals you would have space for all 12 of your drives, the DVD drive, and dual power supplies. It has 1-6cm fan(rear), 6-8cm fans(2 front[plan to swap these to 12cm soon to cut noise] & 2 each side), & I added 1-12cm blow hole so cooling would be no problem either. This case is rugged as hell and takes all kinds of abuse. Bought mine in 1998 ($165) and have used it for many builds/rebuilds.

Heh, something like this?

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/03unmod.JPG

[skwayb]

No PS-RagE.. that is a SuperMicro Case. I have that running my Dual P3 450 Webserver I put together from spare parts. LOL it used to be my Desktop Case before that.

[PS-RagE]

I know. But SuperMicro had them built for them by Addtronics - they are the same. That is my desktop case, BTW ;)

[ScHpAnKy]

That's a lot of drives

[Ozone77]

I'm letting it burn in for now and once I'm convinced it works OK, I'm going to just cut into it like I did the Thermaltake.

Rage, Check the PS forum to verify this, but i read somewhere that PCP&C are not so picky about waranty. If you call them, they may actually give you some advice on the best way to mod the Power Supply AND let you keep the waranty.

[jerem43]

Just a small note, at max draw that PS will be pulling something like 8.5 amps. I hope you have very little else on your power circuit that thing is plugging into. If it goes near a home entertainment system, you could very easily blow the breaker watching some movie like Star Wars at high volume that is being streaming from the server.

I put a separate 20 amp, isolated ground circuit just for my servers to avoid any such problems.

Jeremy
no fancy quotes.

[TekieB]

Thanks

1) The two big partitions is fine. I'm keeping the movies in one and the other is for everything else including the music and photographs (a single compressed NEF is 10M and a TIF is 50M+ so those add up pretty fast too)

2) Cool!

10mb nef? what are you shooting with? (only thing I know with that big of a compNEF is d200 or d2x)

Very cool server indeed, hope to have something like that someday

[PS-RagE]

10mb nef? what are you shooting with? (only thing I know with that big of a compNEF is d200 or d2x)

Very cool server indeed, hope to have something like that someday

Yes, D2X

[TekieB]

Yes, D2X
i'm jelious (but the d200 is still awesome)

[DaCoOlNeSs]

when I shoot with my bosses D2X sometimes the NEFs are like 20MB :/

[TekieB]

when I shoot with my bosses D2X sometimes the NEFs are like 20MB :/

turn on compressed, it literally cuts the size in half, thats what I started shooting with a d70 vs d100

[DaCoOlNeSs]

turn on compressed, it literally cuts the size in half, thats what I started shooting with a d70 vs d100that would do it.


no matter to us though, we have a server with 1.5TB just for his cameras.

[Ockie]

Here is mine..

http://www.michigangamers.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=36148

[Crimson Tear]

Sweet Jesus Ockie. Kind of expensive per gig though, eh? Wouldn't it have been significantly cheaper just to build 2 servers? Of course that wouldn't get you the e-penis that a 10tb server does.

[Morphes]

If i only had the money to do this, jesus how much was the project in total as of now if you dont mind me asking?

[jrweis]

Posted by PS-RagE
(But SuperMicro had them built for them by Addtronics - they are the same. That is my desktop case, BTW )

The case you showed a picture of is equal to the Addtronics # ET6890A case not the #ET7890A case. Yours only has six external 5 1/4" drive bays instead of seven and the 7890 has a dual 3 1/2 internal bracket mounted approximately where the CPU fan is located in your case as well as a backplane for dual power supplies.

[jrweis]

I would post a picture of my case if someone would tell me how to insert a picture into a reply. Dammed if I can figure it out.

[Ockie]

Sweet Jesus Ockie. Kind of expensive per gig though, eh? Wouldn't it have been significantly cheaper just to build 2 servers? Of course that wouldn't get you the e-penis that a 10tb server does.


Meh I'm driven by drive technologies. The prices of the 500's has been dropping to the point where it can be doable.


I'm just like rage... you can never have enough :)


Oh and PS: Neptune has been completed, it's my fall back server, not as impressive, featuring around 3tb's of storage :) I will post pictures someday... I'm not much of a picture person, I have a nice camera that spends more time on the desk than in my hands.



To Rage - Nice job on the cabling... no way in balls I'd cut a $400 psu like that :eek: My biggest problem is that I'm always adding or upgrading somewhere so that would insane to specialize a psu like that.

[feigned]

I would post a picture of my case if someone would tell me how to insert a picture into a reply. Dammed if I can figure it out.
[ img ]http://www.website.com/directory/picture.jpg[ /img ]

Take out the spaces

(and start your own thread)

[uzor]

Rage, Check the PS forum to verify this, but i read somewhere that PCP&C are not so picky about waranty. If you call them, they may actually give you some advice on the best way to mod the Power Supply AND let you keep the waranty.

I think that this is indeed correct. TopNurse mentioned this as well, and I do know from personal experience that if you wanted you could even call them up and have your PSU custom wired by them. Only downside is that on custonm wire jobs you can't return it for a refund. They will, however do whatever they can to help you out with that wiring if you need it. Ran into the need when replacing the power supply on a Dell Workstation.

[Ockie]

I think that this is indeed correct. TopNurse mentioned this as well, and I do know from personal experience that if you wanted you could even call them up and have your PSU custom wired by them. Only downside is that on custonm wire jobs you can't return it for a refund. They will, however do whatever they can to help you out with that wiring if you need it. Ran into the need when replacing the power supply on a Dell Workstation.


Well when you pay that much for their products they ought to give you a warm breakfast and a free air ticket so you can come and see your psu being modded.

[SKINNER]

Rage,

I checked out your site...holy crap you have a serious camera and gear!! Awesome photos too man. I love the insect ones the best. Very,very cool.

And the mega pr0n storage tower you're working on is sweet! :p

[PS-RagE]

Well, three weeks is a long enough burn in for me so back at it.

First job for tonight was to cover up those front intakes. They've bitten me a couple times now and I really don't want the pussy-cat getting her nose in there:


http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr57.jpg

As you can see, I've already started the snipping.

I've cut the "spine" off the Thermaltake:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr58.jpg

Now I just have to fuse it to the PCP&C.


.

[Welsper]

Woo, nothing like major surgery :D
Looks good so far, keep up the good work, dude

[PS-RagE]

Once again I cut off all the existing molex and SATA connecters - this time soldering in my "spine" from the Tt:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr59.jpg


So here we have it again:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr60.jpg

High res version (http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr60big.jpg)


http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr62.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr61.jpg

Next up is moving that top blowhole forward a few inches. Still haven't quite decided how I want to go about that yet.

.

[BoySetsFire]

how's the rig working out, daily usage-wise? good speed and noise levels?

[Stoney]

One word
AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Thor]

question about the motherboard.... what goes into that foxcon connector just under your raid card??? i was thinking its for SLI, but something tells me thats not it...

thore

[PS-RagE]

SCSI card

[PS-RagE]

how's the rig working out, daily usage-wise? good speed and noise levels?

It is quiet. Not as silent as I originally thought but certainly reasonable. As for speed, this machine has two purposes: to rip DVDs and then stream them over the network. It can do both simulaneously. In fact, for its purposes, I haven't found a bottleneck yet. One thing I am really impressed with is how fast it fires up. I'm used to RAID arrays that take for ever to initialize but this machine boots up as fast as my notebook!

[sparky1_2007]

hey, rage, check this out

ockie of michigangamers.com is making a 10Tb storage server hehe....



Galaxy 3.0 (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1006837)

[compslckr]

drool, that is one beast of a rig :)

[paradoxblue]

ahaha omg i wish i had money to put into a server like that :O

edit:
woo page 21 :)

[marquee]

That some nice wireing m8. Nice. I love it so much. Since you are a pro, what kinda specs should I look when making a gaming server. If its dedicated should the GFX card matter. Memory is number in my books for gamin server what abouth the CPU and Hds?

[iansilv]

why did you choose pci-x instead of pci-e? Can you find a reliable server motherboard with pci-e?

[paradoxblue]

That some nice wireing m8. Nice. I love it so much. Since you are a pro, what kinda specs should I look when making a gaming server. If its dedicated should the GFX card matter. Memory is number in my books for gamin server what abouth the CPU and Hds?

i would also like to know this. if i wanted to make a good gaming server for general purpose lan usage and goo speed. i would say a low end vid and no audio etc would be fine. wut would i want for ram.. hdd. cpu etc to make it worthy?

:)

[PS-RagE]

That some nice wireing m8. Nice. I love it so much. Since you are a pro, what kinda specs should I look when making a gaming server. If its dedicated should the GFX card matter. Memory is number in my books for gamin server what abouth the CPU and Hds?

i would also like to know this. if i wanted to make a good gaming server for general purpose lan usage and goo speed. i would say a low end vid and no audio etc would be fine. wut would i want for ram.. hdd. cpu etc to make it worthy?


You guys would be better off asking either someone who does this for a living or who already runs a similar gaming server - I am neither

[PS-RagE]

why did you choose pci-x instead of pci-e? Can you find a reliable server motherboard with pci-e?

PCI-X was the required spec for the RAID card.

[German Muscle]

very, very awesome.

[iansilv]

but would a raid card based on pci-e be just as good? ARe there any disadvatages to picking pci-e as the server motherboard exapnsion architecture over pci-x?

[dropper]

but would a raid card based on pci-e be just as good? ARe there any disadvatages to picking pci-e as the server motherboard exapnsion architecture over pci-x?

PCI-e is the future of that stuff. All of the servers I am testing use loaded with PCI-e slots and have 1 'legacy' PCI-X slot.

Keith

[TimG]

Amazing server.

*subscribed*

[skudmunky]

Daaaaamn! The blue cables are very pretty, nice and neat. :p

[Majin]

That really did turn out nice!!!

[lame]

Very nice.

If you're rich you might as well dedicate this server to photos or whatever else you're using it for and get yourself a Kaleidescape system for movies though. ;)

[PS-RagE]

That really did turn out nice!!!

Its not done yet. Still have to rebuild the lid. The machine has been running "topless" for the last few weeks waiting for me to sneak in some time to work on it.

[PS-RagE]

Very nice.

If you're rich you might as well dedicate this server to photos or whatever else you're using it for and get yourself a Kaleidescape system for movies though. ;)

There is a big difference between being well compensated for your efforts and rich. :p

This machine does exactly what I need it to do with power to spare.

[IDversusEGO]

any more feedback on the HDD temps? I am looking at the same type of mounting for a server that I am building but am nervous about the HDD temps.

[paradoxblue]

oh i love the rack idea ima steal that :)

looks awesome your my idol this is exactly what my opty 10 pc is goign to become when its obsolete as im working on it no for a server.

when i do end up replacing it. it will be my media tv etc server :D

thanks for poinging out that saata card. dunno if i need it jsut yet but if i do i think im going to shoot for 12 hdd's in a soprano case :O

[aj@x]

Very nice work Rage i saw your worklog t'night and sent the link across MSN to various pc freak buddies and we've been shattering our jaws ever since :D

[PS-RagE]

Well, I had a bit of a scare last night. When I was going to bed, I heard the cpu fans running hard and stopped to check why. When I opened the case, I found the drive tower running hot! It was late so I just shut it down. This morning I discovered the cause - seems the front filter was completely clogged with cat hair and absolutely no air was getting at the drives. Pretty scary - may need a larger case after all :(

[remnant.soul]

Try cutting come of the rings out of the fangrills (giving a little more airflow, not allowing cathair to build up as much.) I don't know if your tower is on the ground/carpet but if it is that is a major source of dust/hair, try moving it onto a desk or something (unless its already off the ground)

[swatbat]

Well, I had a bit of a scare last night. When I was going to bed, I heard the cpu fans running hard and stopped to check why. When I opened the case, I found the drive tower running hot! It was late so I just shut it down. This morning I discovered the cause - seems the front filter was completely clogged with cat hair and absolutely no air was getting at the drives. Pretty scary - may need a larger case after all :(

The simple fix is to kill the cat. The more human fix is to shave it. I'd just make a point of interest to check the filters each month or so.

[Ockie]

Put the system in a large air filter housing :D

[Bbq]

Air filters.

[iansilv]

Buy a large snake to eat the cat, and change the air filters a few times. The hair will be filtered out,and the snake will eat anyother cats that show up to clog your air filters.

[Hinokagutsuchi]

Looking at all of this has made me think about my own computer. I think I'm going to start small with a RAID 1 array of two drives, so would it be better to use racks like what you started out with, or something like this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121405) to leave room for future expansion? Or should I skip out on racks?

Sorry for the derail. Awesome setup, though.

[PS-RagE]

I've decided for now to change out the front intakes for higher cfm models and to drill out the holes in the door. The case sits up off the floor so it is free flying pussy-cat hair. Obviously, I am going to have to keep a closer eye on the filter

[Welsper]

Glad this is still being updated :D Very hot sh*t :)

[jtobrien]

Once again I cut off all the existing molex and SATA connecters - this time soldering in my "spine" from the Tt:

[ig]http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr59.jpg[/img]


So here we have it again:

[im]http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr60.jpg[/img]

High res version (http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr60big.jpg)


[mg]http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr62.jpg[/img]

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr61.jpg

Next up is moving that top blowhole forward a few inches. Still haven't quite decided how I want to go about that yet.

.
mother of god...

[Emission]

Can you do some benchies on those Xeons? Im dying to know how they perform :D

[fenton06]

well...this is uber baclk from teh dead, but I want to see pics of the top finished etc.

[dagamore]

Once again I cut off all the existing molex and SATA connecters - this time soldering in my "spine" from the Tt:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr59.jpg


So here we have it again:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr60.jpg

[/COLOR]

very clean setup, kind of supprised that you did not go with right angle SATA cables, might clean it up some, but when you are running 12 of them, that might not be a viable sollution.

[PS-RagE]

well...this is uber baclk from teh dead, but I want to see pics of the top finished etc.


It is still "topless" - been a busy year. I didn't like the first top and haven't had time to try another yet.

[oneil]

Once more I'll reiterate the congratulations on the build. Kudos!

[Emission]

I've discovered my earlier posts from two years ago, you must give us an update! :p

[PS-RagE]

So at some point during the summer a drive died. I just happened to look at 3DM disk management one day and noticed a drive had dropped out of the array. Oops - how long has that been like that? It was, of course, inevitible but hey, RAID5 with hot spare so no worries.

I ordered a replacement drive.

While I was waiting for it to come in another drive died. So, I ordered a replacement for it as well so I could change them both at the same time since I knew damned well that it was not going to be just a simple operation.

This should have been the cue that it is time to power down the server so it can be repaired (duh). But no, I kept it running cause it is in use all the time.

Well, one day, the System Administrator decided that he needed to transfer some files to the degraded array. The partitions are set to Read Only so the user permissions have to be changed for the partition.

Ya know, I'd fire that guy if he wasn't so damned good looking.

Wouldn't you know it - the server crashed while the permissions were being changed. Geez, maybe I should take it offline now and drag down to the shop to repair.

Get it to the shop and sure enough the entire F partition is missing (2T partition about half full). Doh. Power it down and wait for the drive to come in. Hopefully, the data can be recovered.

About a week later, the drive finally comes in. I swap them out and boot up expecting to see a rebuild message. Nope - the RAID card only sees the two new drives and none of the old ones - incomplete array. So I call 3Ware. They had a fibre cut and had intermittent phone operation so I lost the tech in the middle of the call.

Did I mention that while I’m working on this I have the fans disconnected? The stack get mighty warm with no air blowing at it.

So while working on it a third drive failed.

[PS-RagE]

That flushing sound was the sound of 3T of data going bye, bye.

The photos are backed up in two other locations - no loss.

The music is a copy of the master that resides on my workstation - no loss.

The movies though ....... far too much data to back up - poof. It would appear I have a lot of re-ripping to do.

[rogue_jedi]

Ouch... I lost about 2tb of data over the summer, the linux drivers for the cards I'm using kind of suck, so it kept dropping disks it shouldn't have, and rebuilding the raid5 - eventually that corrupted everything :/

Turns out one controller was flaky as well, have to RMA that still...

Losing a raid5 really sucks, it gives you a false sense of security :/ Good luck getting the data back together.

[uzor]

Ow. Those posts hurt to read. Depending on how many you have, maybe you can automate the process somewhat with a DVD Autoloader (http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=656663&cm_sp=Product-_-Overview-_-Main+Tab).

[PS-RagE]

Here we go again. :rolleyes:



Obviously, stacking 12 hardrives one atop the other ain't gonna work.



I'm done screwing around with this. I called up my supplier and raised his eyebrows when I told him what to order for me.



It came in today:



http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr63.jpg



http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr64.jpg

[Emission]

Hot damn, you're really not messing around this time. :eek:

[PC Junky]

Chenbro is a great case company, I can't wait to see which case you decided to go with.

Personally I own the Chenbro SR10769.

[NickS]

Damn man, sorry about the loss. I demand more pix of that case though! :eek::p

[swatbat]

I think I have an idea of what you have ordered but am waiting to see pics of it unboxed. This should be interesting.

[Veeb0rg]

I tremble with antici......pation

[PhantomFelix]

Reading through this thread sure shows how fast things change over the years.

You should see if you can beat Ockie's Galaxy 4.0, so he might feel the need to retaliate and I get endless logs to scroll through and drool at :D

[gjvrieze]

Good God, that was the last nightmare, i wanted to read about, ie a raid 5 array failing completely... I had a drive fail in my raid 5 two months ago, (I do not run with a hot spare, I should but you know how it goes) it was failed for at least a week, before I saw it... Now I leave the Management Console open 24/7 and login to the server at least 1 a week....

PS, Please post the specs and pictures of the big*ss case!!!!

[PS-RagE]

Once I get it rebuilt, I am going to configure the RAID card to email me if anything happens. I never saw the purpose in that before but I do now.

I still haven't opened the big box yet. Hopefully get a bit of time this afternoon.

[Concentric]

:eek: Can't wait for more pics, looks like a serious case this time.

[PS-RagE]

Wow - just - wow

So we start off with a box inside a box:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr65.jpg

and out she comes:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr66.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr67.jpg

Chenbro RM51924 (http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?serno=44) rackmount server chassis

24 hot-swapable SATA drives

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr68.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr73.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr74.jpg

1350W 3+1 redundant, hot-swapable power supply(s)

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr69.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr70.jpg

8 internal hard drive fans - you guessed it - hot-swapable:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr71.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr72.jpg

Wiring is already pretty neat. Suppose I can clean it up a bit:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr75.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr76.jpg


.

So there it is. I like it! Now, I've got to find some kind of rack to mount it in........

.

[gjvrieze]

Oh my God, I am in love!!!!! I cannot wait to see this thing completed, oh, it is so great:-)

[uzor]

Shiny! :cool:

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/1771/84.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tnum=33&id=1771&type=84)

[digital_exhaust]

Um... wow... that is, um...holy shit...

I want one.

[Ockie]

That is a nice case you got there. Sad to see you lose your array, hence the reason why I avoid raid arrays like a plauge, they are a crap shoot IMO, but as any person should know, backups are a must :)


You basically transplanting your hardware?

[PS-RagE]

Yup. This time the hardware stays and the case goes. With this upgrade, there should never be an unrecoverable failure again.

[swatbat]

Yup. This time the hardware stays and the case goes. With this upgrade, there should never be an unrecoverable failure again.

Still could have a raid card fail and wipe it out or a virus.

Anyway one thing that gets me with that is I was kinda expecting a sas backplane(s).

Yea a nice half rack or something to throw that and some other shit in would do nice.

[PS-RagE]

True enough. :( But it won't be something simple as a hard drive failure (plus neglect plus stupidity)

SAS was an option, I chose the SATA backplane since that is how the 3Ware card is configured

[Emission]

How much did that case run you for? After tax, shipping, etc.

[PS-RagE]

It was really expensive. After taxes, it was around the $3k mark including the four power supplies, the backplane, all the fans, etc. I'm still waiting on the the bezel (yet another $80) and the slim burner.

[Emission]

Holy $@#* !

I expected it in the thousands but not that much. Guess one of these is out of the question for me :).

[gordy_hand]

That is a BIG case.

For that money though, I'd want it gold plated!

[tylerdustin2008]

Well looks like the porn drives get a new home, that must be some good stuff to give it such a nice case.

But seriously hot damn what an expensive case. The case itself is worth more than most peoples entire computer. That Motorola business must be doing great... Though I could have swore that walkie talkies were dead, haven't seen someone use one in a long time.

I know one good thing you can do with it... Backup everybody's data in the whole town...


Tyler

[Ockie]

Well looks like the pron drives get a new home, that must be some good stuff to give it such a nice case.

But seriously hot damn what an expensive case. The case itself is worth more than most peoples entire computer. That Motorola business must be doing great... Though I could have swore that walkie talkies were dead, haven't seen someone use one in a long time.

I know one good thing you can do with it... Backup everybody's data in the whole town...


Tyler


3k is a fair price, given the demand for these in the server enviroments... not to mention, the number one customer for these are corporations, so money is really no issue for them.

Sadly for us it's a lot of money, but even worse for me, the one I want is nearly 5k :( :eek: I want to go out and buy it, but I have a strong feeling that my wife will beat me to death. :D

[tylerdustin2008]

hahahah

You will have to either pick Hummer or case....

Which is it?

[xmylifeforyoux]

It was really expensive. After taxes, it was around the $3k mark including the four power supplies, the backplane, all the fans, etc. I'm still waiting on the the bezel (yet another $80) and the slim burner.

What if I told you that, that case is worth more than my car??

:p

[stain.]

3k is a fair price, given the demand for these in the server enviroments... not to mention, the number one customer for these are corporations, so money is really no issue for them.

Sadly for us it's a lot of money, but even worse for me, the one I want is nearly 5k :( :eek: I want to go out and buy it, but I have a strong feeling that my wife will beat me to death. :D

I think the wife's going to beat me to death with me buying 2 500gb seagates.

I'd love to have one of those badlarries to fill up with stuff.

[PS-RagE]

Well looks like the porn drives get a new home, that must be some good stuff to give it such a nice case.

But seriously hot damn what an expensive case. The case itself is worth more than most peoples entire computer. That Motorola business must be doing great... Though I could have swore that walkie talkies were dead, haven't seen someone use one in a long time.

I know one good thing you can do with it... Backup everybody's data in the whole town...


Tyler

My buisness is all Industrial and Public Safety - buisness is always doing good :)

[alcky]

Still could have a raid card fail and wipe it out or a virus.

Anyway one thing that gets me with that is I was kinda expecting a sas backplane(s).

Yea a nice half rack or something to throw that and some other shit in would do nice.

for RAID card failures all that would have to be done is to replace with an exact match and then go into the setup and input the EXACT same settings as before [stripe, name, etc] and the array would be fine, I've done it before

virus.. yeah, that woud suck

[swatbat]

for RAID card failures all that would have to be done is to replace with an exact match and then go into the setup and input the EXACT same settings as before [stripe, name, etc] and the array would be fine, I've done it before

virus.. yeah, that woud suck

Wrong. Yes if the raid card manages to just stop working sure. I've seen card failurs kill an array more then once. All depends on how it fails. If you run an array running over more then 1 card(as some of the higher end stuff supports) then you can increase this risk. Only safe way is to have an offsite backup.

So rage you going to convert any other systems to rackmount and mount them with this sucker?

[PS-RagE]

No. In fact, I'm probably going to move it back into the basement. Got a feeling its going to be pretty loud. Hafta see.

[Ockie]

No. In fact, I'm probably going to move it back into the basement. Got a feeling its going to be pretty loud. Hafta see.

It's going to be very loud :) It's most likley going to make that TC-1KW look like playschool in noise :)

[PC Junky]

What distributor did you purchase your Chenbro RM51924 from?

[unhappy_mage]

It's going to be very loud :) It's most likley going to make that TC-1KW look like playschool in noise :)

Last I checked, playschool was pretty loud :confused:

:p

[jmroberts70]

Yea, I was wondering how loud it would wind up being. Awesome case! I've been looking over one myself but I'm worried about the noise. I'll probably wind-up building something custom...

[PS-RagE]

It's going to be very loud :) It's most likley going to make that TC-1KW look like playschool in noise :)

Its last incarnation was not very loud at all - at least I don't notice it much. This one, however, has 22 fans. I suspect it may give the big purple beast some competition. Thing is, the server runs 24/7 and is in the next room

[PS-RagE]

What distributor did you purchase your Chenbro RM51924 from?

It was a special order at the local Audiotronic dealer. I get all my electronic toys there

[PS-RagE]

Hmm, looks like I'm going to have some cabling to cleanup after all. Don't like the look of this:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr77.jpg

The whole rear of the case pulls out. Never had a case that did this before - very handy.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr78.jpg

Wow - all the holes line up.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr79.jpg

And here is the transplanted guts:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr80.jpg

And thats all I had time for tonight.

[Thor]

Hmm, looks like I'm going to have some cabling to cleanup after all. Don't like the look of this:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr77.jpg





hmmm... i see a custom power buss in your future.. :D

The whole rear of the case pulls out. Never had a case that did this before - very handy.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr78.jpg



for 3 k.. it should do your dishes.. lol but really.. thats pretty slick, ( now if only it had a back plane so you didnt have to unhook every thing if something should go belly up...

also.. ditch them damn red cables.. i hate them with a passion.. they pop out all the damn time... nothing says failed array like cheap cables...

/edit

i looked again and relised that they are the locking type.. never mind.

i see the red of the cable and have nightmares for weeks.. lol

[unhappy_mage]

also.. ditch them damn red cables.. i hate them with a passion.. they pop out all the damn time... nothing says failed array like cheap cables...
Really? I have some of each type, and the locking ones don't lock all the way snug against the drives, so they wiggle back and forth. The non-locking ones stay snug just fine, and secure enough that you can dangle the drive by the data cable (I tried that just once... with a helper to catch :p). I don't plan to buy more locking cables.

[tylerdustin2008]

I prefer this sata cable, I just took a picture of it because I could not find one on the net.

It does not come out, and it is made only for western digital drives.

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/2503/dsc01449ad5.th.jpg (http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc01449ad5.jpg)

This is the only one I can find on the net. And I don't think it will work.
http://www.bluedogink.com/images/images/products/wd_SC50RCW.jpg

[PS-RagE]

I'm throwing the whole thing together right now for a test run before I start snipping at cabling. I was thinking to install the OS on a drive seperate from the array (I seem to have a few 200G PATAs on hand). Any compelling opinions for or against this idea?

[stain.]

Good idea, buy why use a PATA isntead of a SATA? Do you *need* all you SATA drives in the array, or can you spare one, or a spot for a raptor?

[PC Junky]

Personally I wouldn't put any PATA drives in that case.

Anything less than SATA in that case is just not right. :D

[uzor]

Good idea, buy why use a PATA isntead of a SATA? Do you *need* all you SATA drives in the array, or can you spare one, or a spot for a raptor?

Personally I wouldn't put any PATA drives in that case.

Anything less than SATA in that case is just not right. :D

From the sounds of it, because he already has them on hand, meaning there would be no added expense. Also, performance-wise, the OS drive will not be getting anywhere NEAR the workout that the array will once everything is up and running, so PATA is good enough.

PS-RagE: Haven't even approached anything at the level you're talking about, but it seems to me that the most persuasive reason for separating the os from the array is that if you do, you'll still be able to boot to the OS in the case of an array failure. Now I know that there won't always be something useful you can do for/to it from within Windows, but it's always nice to have the option.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/1771/191/0.png ( http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tnum=33&id=1771)

[PS-RagE]

From the sounds of it, because he already has them on hand, meaning there would be no added expense. Also, performance-wise, the OS drive will not be getting anywhere NEAR the workout that the array will once everything is up and running, so PATA is good enough.

PS-RagE: Haven't even approached anything at the level you're talking about, but it seems to me that the most persuasive reason for separating the os from the array is that if you do, you'll still be able to boot to the OS in the case of an array failure. Now I know that there won't always be something useful you can do for/to it from within Windows, but it's always nice to have the option.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/1771/191/0.png ( http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tnum=33&id=1771)


If you look back to page one of this thread you will see them! ;)

Indeed, I was thinking if there was ever an array issue that at least I could still boot the machine.

I was also thinking to put in a pair of them and run in RAID1 but decided against that. The only spare RAID cards I have are Fastracs and they don't play well with others

[PC Junky]

https://www.pc-junky.com/images/suggestion.png

At least this way when the server needs to be rebooted for any reason it will boot faster and still have a descent amount of space for whatever apps may be used for the OS.

[uzor]

the raptor would go to waste. Way overkill for the system drive on this.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/1771/191/0.png ( http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tnum=33&id=1771)

[PS-RagE]

I built it up for a test drive to make sure everything is working ok.

I only have 11 drives at the moment (bought two new ones and RMA'd the three dogs) so I'll add the hot spare later.

The trays seem to be quite well made wasting no space and holding the drive tight:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr81.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr82.jpg

I decided to use the seperate system drive:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr83.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr84.jpg

With the wiring hooked up temporarily, I fired it up. Now this is friggin' slick! Blinky lights! Everybody loves blinky lights!

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr85.jpg

Added bonus - its not that loud. That is some good news! I didn't really want to put it in the basement.

So, the array is initializing now. Be about another hour I guess

[Welsper]

I built it up for a test drive to make sure everything is working ok.

I only have 11 drives at the moment (bought two new ones and RMA'd the three dogs) so I'll add the hot spare later.

The trays seem to be quite well made wasting no space and holding the drive tight:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr81.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr82.jpg

I decided to use the seperate system drive:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr83.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr84.jpg

With the wiring hooked up temporarily, I fired it up. Now this is friggin' slick! Blinky lights! Everybody loves blinky lights!

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr85.jpg

Added bonus - its not that loud. That is some good news! I didn't really want to put it in the basement.

So, the array is initializing now. Be about another hour I guess

That, sir, is f*cking sick! I love it! :D

[swatbat]

I'm throwing the whole thing together right now for a test run before I start snipping at cabling. I was thinking to install the OS on a drive seperate from the array (I seem to have a few 200G PATAs on hand). Any compelling opinions for or against this idea?

Yea it was a good idea to seperate the system drive. I'd still go with a raid 1 for it though. You still running xp on this? If you are running any of the windows servers on it use software raid 1 on the system drive or buy a cheap card for it. That way if the system drive was to fail you wouldn't need to worry about setting up premissions and everything again.

[PS-RagE]

Well that's interesting. The array is up and running again. When I set the partitions I get one that is 1.99T and the second one is 1.63T.

Last time I got 1.98T and 1.99T.

Almost sounds like I'm missing a drive? They all show in the disk manager but it says a 3.64T array?

Guesses? It must have been using the hot spare for something?

[uzor]

That might explain why your array dropped out one drive sooner than you thought it should - maybe you didn't have as much cushion as you should have?

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/1771/191/0.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tnum=33&id=1771)

[PS-RagE]

That might explain why your array dropped out one drive sooner than you thought it should - maybe you didn't have as much cushion as you should have?

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/1771/191/0.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tnum=33&id=1771)

Didn't have as much as I thought I did anyhow.

[PS-RagE]

Here is what an afternoon of cable-foo produces:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr87.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr88.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr86.jpg

Man, that was a lot of wiring to clean up! I almost gave up a couple times - I have a bad back and is painful working hunched over like that.

.

[tylerdustin2008]

How much is this thing going to way fully loaded?

You now need to make a mount to a dolly. The thing you use to move... just in case you didn't know.

I am a person who would love to have one of these. But in order for me to fill it up legally it would cost to much. But illegally.. cough torrent..cough. I could have it filled in a year. Now Ockie's shit more like 10yrs.

Looks great by the way.

[Concentric]

Looks sick dude, nice wiring.

What drives are going in this thing again?

[PS-RagE]

How much is this thing going to way fully loaded?

Its already heavy enough that I won't be attempting to lift it by myself again.

[PS-RagE]

Looks sick dude, nice wiring.

What drives are going in this thing again?

Thanks

There will be 12x 400G going back in.

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr1.jpg

[Rob Black]

You have a server cabinet for that?

[Thor]

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr86.jpg

Man, that was a lot of wiring to clean up! I almost gave up a couple times - I have a bad back and is painful working hunched over like that.

.

could you imagine the nightmare if they had been pata or scsi cables.. lol damn nice job on that , sata sure cleans up nice..

on that note, i was thinking you should atleast raid1 the os drive, even if you do it in sofware... you have that much invested already, and you _need_ the os...

[PS-RagE]

Assembled again:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr91.jpg

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr92.jpg

You can see the rack mount sliders on the side.

So now for that rack. Many moons ago, I scavanged this and have had it kicking about since. It is a rack for a Motorola CentraCom I - A Police Dispatch Console:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr89.jpg

Cleaned it up, filled some of the deeper scratches with glazing putty and gave it a few coats of Rustoelum "Deep Canyon Black" paint:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr90.jpg

So now that is (almost) ready to assemble, I've got to figure out how to support this. Most rack mount stuff is just bolted to the front but this thing has got to weigh 180 pounds. Somehow theses things must support the back of the sliders:

http://www.houseofrage.com/images/newservr93.jpg

Guesses?

.
.