Need to build remote backup server

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bryonmccoy

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Oct 17, 2009
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Hey guys I new to this forum. Just stumbled on it today reading a new egg review and I must say I've learned more in one day than I have in the last week of researching backup solutions.

The thing is there are still some holes in my knowledge. I would like advice.

Here is what I want to build. A raid 6 backup server with at least 12 bays of course more is better. (I can activate more bays later as my needs grow) I want the entire thing to be in one case, have redundant power supplies and a decent raid controller. Oh and rack mountable. This thing doesn't have to be fast because I'm using it for an FTP backup server over my business internet connection of 10 MB/sec.

I'm not sure what kind of case to use because I'm not sure if they come with an SAS expander and then I plug that into the controller. I just need some ideas on a cheap but decent quality system that I'm not going to have to worry is going to break down for the next few years.

I realize the drives will fail from time to time but that's okay. I'm going to buy some spares. Also what kind of drive should I use for this? Is 1.5 terabyte okay? I've been told they don't have the right kind of firmware.

Anyway. Ideas please!
 
bryonmccoy said:
Here is what I want to build. A raid 6 backup server
Click to expand...
Why RAID 6?
bryonmccoy said:
with at least 12 bays of course more is better.
Click to expand...
How big is your backup job?
bryonmccoy said:
This thing doesn't have to be fast because I'm using it for an FTP backup server over my business internet connection of 10 MB/sec.
Click to expand...
10 MB? Or 10 Mb?
bryonmccoy said:
I just need some ideas on a cheap but decent quality system that I'm not going to have to worry is going to break down for the next few years.
Click to expand...
IMO "cheap" contradicts "redundant power supplies", "at least 12 bays", and "a decent raid controller".
bryonmccoy said:
Also what kind of drive should I use for this? Is 1.5 terabyte okay?
Click to expand...
Twelve 1.5TB drives? Again - how large is your backup? If you're really on a 10Mb connection (and not 10 mega BYTES), that = mathematically 0.6876 TB / week assuming 24/7 operation (realistically less).
bryonmccoy said:
Ideas please!
Click to expand...
IMO, your requirements are non-trivial. I suggest contacting a backup consultant, especially if this is for a business. If this is an "experiment" for trying out network backups, to supplement your business's existing backup solution, then by all means, fire away.
 
RAID 6 because it is harder to loose your data than raid 5. While not as good as RAID 1 it is a good compromise between data protection and disk capacity loss do to redundancy.

The backup job is for 4 TB. However I want to build a lot of room into my backup for other clients.

The speed of my connection is 10Mbps

Yes I know I'll have to pay for a good system but there is a difference between buying a 1200 dollar raid card with features I don't really need as opposed to features I do in a 600 dollar card. I'm expecting to pay between 2 and 3 k for a system without the drives or OS.

As for the 1.5 TB drives I am aware that I cannot backup 4 TB in a reasonable amount of time over 10Mbps. That is why I'm getting two external 2 TB drives and will actually drive to their location and do the first backup from there. After that they will do Incremental or Delta level. Haven't decided yet.

I am servicing a small town that I am 25 min from. It is the government of an Indian reservation. If I actually do sell the 10 TB of data I will put in a microwave connection from my office to a central location on their network. The speed of this connection will be about 600 Mbps. They run Gigabit on their network and the backup will happen at night.

That way I can easily backup the entire 10TB in a short amount of time.

Again any ideas in that area would be appreciated as well. Any alternative idea are good to but I can't afford to give them some expensive off site backup solution with another company. Just to sell wholesale is 4k per TB. But unfortunately I'm only making 4 k for 4 TB the first year. Don't ask... lol
 
If i was in your shoes I would buy a HP or Dell storage sever.... but if that is not what you want to do, then

Norco 4220 case
4 Supermicro LP PCIe 8 port dummy sata card
a Supermicro Server socket 775 motherboard or a Gigabyte UD 775 motherboard (buy 2)
DDR2 ECC ram 2-8gb

a bunch of WD RE3-GP 1.5 TB drives.... dont go GP non-re drives for a RAID 6 storage that you are selling to someone.

buy 1/2 the drives from newegg, 1/4 from mwave, 1/4 from tigerdirect... something like that, so that you dont get all the same batch of drives and end up losing 4 drives in 2 days.. or something crazy

then find a redundany PSU.... g/l with that one.

the Norco 4220 has 2x SATA power plugs for redundant PSUs.


really man, if I were selling storage I would be using SANs and have 2 of them... i would not have 1 server that has all the data on it no matter what RAID you are running


JMO
 
Buy a pre-built SAN...running a business off something that isn't rock-solid is not a good idea, at all. You're asking for trouble.
 
If rack space is an issue (which wouldn't surprise me if it was) then I would suggest getting a system based off this case:

http://supermicro.com/products/chassis/2U/826/SC826TQ-R800U.cfm

and an ARC-1231ML

I use the same version of this case that has a cd-rom drive and only 8 hot swapp cases and 8x1.5 TB drives on an ARC-1231ML and it works great. The system is also under a high I/O load and I have had no drive issues or timeout problems:

Code: 
root@方向音痴: 03:22 AM :~# uptime
 03:22:44 up 73 days,  3:13,  7 users,  load average: 1.79, 2.02, 2.16
root@方向音痴: 03:22 AM :~# cli64 vsf info
 # Name             Raid# Level   Capacity Ch/Id/Lun  State
===============================================================================
 1 OS RAID6           1   Raid6     64.0GB 00/00/00   Normal
 2 DATABASE RAID10    1   Raid1+0   30.0GB 00/00/01   Normal
 3 DATA RAID6         1   Raid6   8891.0GB 00/00/02   Normal
===============================================================================
GuiErrMsg<0x00>: Success.
root@&#26041;&#21521;&#38899;&#30196;: 03:22 AM :~# df -H /data/
Filesystem             Size   Used  Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1              8.9T   5.5T   3.5T  62% /data
root@&#26041;&#21521;&#38899;&#30196;: 03:22 AM :~# iostat -m
Linux 2.6.28-houkouonchi-web100 (houkouonchi)   10/18/2009

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           6.66    0.31    9.08   12.24    0.00   71.70

Device:            tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_read    MB_wrtn
sda               8.98         0.06         0.04     405559     272404
sda1              6.62         0.06         0.03     366585     211544
sda2              2.18         0.01         0.01      37289      47966
sda3              0.02         0.00         0.00        299        393
sda4              0.16         0.00         0.00       1385      12500
sdb               6.34         0.10         0.01     630455      41360
sdb1              6.34         0.10         0.01     630455      41360
sdc             261.03        21.26         0.12  134318562     787657
sdc1            261.03        21.26         0.12  134318562     787657

That is ~130 TB read and 780GB written over 73 days.



This recommendation is based on the assumption that you will be colo'ing the server in a data-center.
 
Those are great suggestions.

Does anyone have an idea of something I can buy for 2k? Cause if not then I'm back to square one. They don't want to fork over the cash to get a good backup solution. They just want something they can send files to.

I'm open to prebuilt suggestions! Thanks!
 
Hit up SmallNetBuilder for NAS recommendations and reviews.

I think Adidas4275's build is around $2000.
 
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