New File Server

lcdguy · Mar 18, 2010

Well i tried the norco route and did not have an enjoyable time. As a result of used a more reliable solution. (in my mind atleast). The norco cases are nice but you defintely get what you pay for. I ended up with the following.

3ware 9690sa-4i
Supermicro SC846E1
9x 1TB WD black (will add more as they go on sale)
AMD A64 x2 7550 2.5Ghz
Asus M2N Based Board
2GB G.skill Pc-6400 DDRII
80 GB WD Scorpio Blue Boot Drive
Intel PRO 1000 MT Dual port
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

I can post pictures if people would like.

rays87turbo · Mar 18, 2010

I always like to see pics and benchmarks of people's servers! Is this for a home server system? Looks like you spent some serious money for that case, and the OS for home use. I can definitely say that Supermicro's quality is great, I've picked up several servers made by them and I have no complaints about quality. I have a Norco sata array also, and I can say its quality, while not bad, is not even close to SM's.

Neb · Mar 18, 2010

I would also note that generally speaking, the loudness factor of a Norco is also not even close to SM's

J-Will · Mar 18, 2010

wow 9x black tb drives. Holy moly

pjkenned · Mar 18, 2010

rays87turbo said:
I always like to see pics and benchmarks of people's servers! Is this for a home server system?

What kind of benchmarks? File copy? Media encoding?

Also, the 1TB Blacks are on sale at Newegg I think today for like $80/ each. You may want to consider the Hitachi 2TB in the future because I calculated my port costs (i.e. how much it costs me to plug in a single drive) to be between $46-48/ drive between my old WHS and new WHS (See: http://www.servethehome.com/?p=279 ). I figure that means a $130 Hitachi + $48 = $178/ 2TB vs. $80 *2 + $48 * 2 = $256/ 2TB, plus it halves your installed drives lowering power consumption and failure points. I'm no longer buying smaller drives for the farm, save SSD's.

lcdguy · Mar 19, 2010

Ok i will be posting the pics. There are alot so bare with me. On the topic on the cost of the case yes it was expensive but when you take into account the cost of a norco chassis for me ($400) plus a SAS expander card it's not that much more. In regards to the loudness this will be mostly solved with some surgery. In the area of price of the software i am "testing" the software.

In regards to the 1tb blacks at newegg for $80 that price may not apply to my region as i am in canada. Anyway enough blabbing here are the pics.

I haven't had the time to do any heavy benchmarks yet. If anyone has any specific tests they would like to see let me know the program and settings. Currently it is configured in RAID 10 with a 256kb Stripe.

Oh and the name of this is The Horde

treadstone · Mar 19, 2010

Hey lcdguy, nice job. Reminds me that I need to get on with posting my build log for my server

They even shipped you a cat ?!? Wow...

lcdguy · Mar 19, 2010

nah. she was my "helper" she kept an eye on the empty box while i worked on the server

. And then freaked out when she got into the box. There's a reason i call her glitch

J-Will · Mar 19, 2010

That looks awesome!

Neb · Mar 19, 2010

lcdguy said:
Ok i will be posting the pics. There are alot so bare with me. On the topic on the cost of the case yes it was expensive but when you take into account the cost of a norco chassis for me ($400) plus a SAS expander card it's not that much more.

Where did you find that Supermicro case for $600 or so? Please tell me because I'll get one at that price!

Unless the SAS expander card is also ridiculously expensive for you as well

In regards to the loudness this will be mostly solved with some surgery.

Swapping out fans I take it? How quiet is it now with the new fans in?

Cyberrad · Mar 19, 2010

Neb said:
Where did you find that Supermicro case for $600 or so? Please tell me because I'll get one at that price! Unless the SAS expander card is also ridiculously expensive for you as well

+1

I've been looking for an 846E1 to add to my 846TQ setup. Can't wait to see your benches with that setup.

lcdguy · Mar 19, 2010

$600 for an E1 will you let me knwo when you find that. This case was $1200+tax. I will let you know on the fan front when i get them installed i only ordered the fans last night. The stock fans are very loud. especially the PSU i think they are rated at around 50-65dba each and there's 2 power supplies. In regards to the benchmarks i will run iometer tonight (i am still grasping it's configuration) i can run hdtach and hdtune but they are not very reliable when it comes to raid 10 arrays.

Cyberrad said:
+1

I've been looking for an 846E1 to add to my 846TQ setup. Can't wait to see your benches with that setup.

here you go. only $1200.

http://www.rackmountnet.com/supermi...slots-900w-redundant-power-supply-p-3127.html

Neb said:
Where did you find that Supermicro case for $600 or so? Please tell me because I'll get one at that price! Unless the SAS expander card is also ridiculously expensive for you as well

Swapping out fans I take it? How quiet is it now with the new fans in?

Actually if you look at ti like this.

Norco 4220 - $385
3ware 9690sa-4i - $330
HP Expander - $200
6x norco SAS cables - $80
total - 995 (with raid controller, 665 without)

Supermicro sc846e1 - 1200
3ware 9690sa-4i - 330
Sas Cable - 15
total - 1545.

So yes it is a bit more but it also better than the norco by about 100 fold. it's a true server grade product.

Neb · Mar 19, 2010

lcdguy said:
Actually if you look at ti like this.

Norco 4220 - $385
3ware 9690sa-4i - $330
HP Expander - $200
6x norco SAS cables - $80
total - 995 (with raid controller, 665 without)

Supermicro sc846e1 - 1200
3ware 9690sa-4i - 330
Sas Cable - 15
total - 1545.

So yes it is a bit more but it also better than the norco by about 100 fold. it's a true server grade product.

I know all about Supermicro's products and their quality since I've worked with them before. I just don't see the pricing as "a bit more"

The way I see it:

Norco 4220 - $385
HP Expander - $200
6x norco SAS cables - $80
Power supply - $100
total - 765

Supermicro sc846e1 - 1200
Sas Cable - 15
total - 1215.

Just my personal opinion, but the supermicro at 1.6X the cost of a norco....that's a bit tough for me to rationalize.

That being said, love the awesome pictures of the new gear

lcdguy · Mar 19, 2010

I know but i had a bad first experience with the norco's not to mention i have heard of people having issues with hot swapping drives on the norco chassis. One feature i did like about the norco chassis was the ability to mount either a 3.5 or 2.5 form factor drive in the caddies.

lcdguy · Mar 19, 2010

here are the benchmarks i ran on my 8 disk raid 10 array in HDtach, Hdtune, and iometer.

First up for hd tach and hdtune is my boot drive. it's a quick little sucker (it's a laptop HDD) These tests were performed with the following settings.

HD Tach - Long 32MB test
HD Tune - Size 8MB, Accuracy around 75%
IO Meter - Queue Depth was set to 8 with one test set to 4, 256KB since that's my stripe size. with varying rations as indicated below.

Next up is the Raid array. Also the iometer tests were only run on the raid array.

IOMETER RESULTS

QD - 4
Sequential/Random - 95/5
Read/Write - 50/50
256KB

QD - 8
Sequential/Random - 95/5
Read/Write - 50/50
256KB

QD - 8
Random/Sequential - 100/0
Read/Write - 100/0
256KB

QD - 8
Random/Sequential - 100/0
Read/Write - 0/100
256KB

QD - 8
Random/Sequential - 0/100
Read/Write - 100/0
256KB

QD - 8
Random/Sequential - 0/100
Read/Write - 0/100
256KB

And that's only running on 8 disks/spindles. I can't wait to run this test again later in the year when i have all 24 bays populated.

JJ Johnson · Mar 31, 2010

You're going to run a 24 disk RAID 10 system where fully half of the drives are doing nothing but mirroring the other half? Why??? Did someone leave you some money that they told you to burn?

theinv · Apr 1, 2010

WOW. What an amazing server!

Are you using it on a rack? If yes, can you tell me which rack you are using? Thanks.

pjkenned · Apr 1, 2010

JJ Johnson said:
You're going to run a 24 disk RAID 10 system where fully half of the drives are doing nothing but mirroring the other half? Why??? Did someone leave you some money that they told you to burn?

Actually, there are a lot of storage server companies that do this. Virtually zero processing overhead so in some benchmarks this is a way to keep high performance. I'm fairly sure I saw a EMC test config with raid 1 used not too long ago.

JJ Johnson · Apr 1, 2010

pjkenned said:
Actually, there are a lot of storage server companies that do this. Virtually zero processing overhead so in some benchmarks this is a way to keep high performance. I'm fairly sure I saw a EMC test config with raid 1 used not too long ago.

Depends on the purpose of the server. Sure, RAID 1 for a handful of disks. Not 24. Not for a home file server.

Neb · Apr 1, 2010

Well he's running raid 10; good mix of performance and redundancy imo. Personally I'll just run raid 6, but it all depends on the purpose of the server and your needs.

pjkenned · Apr 1, 2010

JJ Johnson said:
Depends on the purpose of the server. Sure, RAID 1 for a handful of disks. Not 24. Not for a home file server.

I'm not saying I would do it... but I have seen it done on larger arrays, and a lot higher performing arrays. Then again, 12x Current-gen hard drives putting out 100MB/s each = 1.2GB/s or about a 10gbps link worth of data. Some people have relatively big home server budgets where 4x aggregated gigabit links will not suffice.

New File Server

n00b

Weaksauce

2[H]4U

[H]ard|Gawd

[H]ard|Gawd

n00b

Gawd

n00b

[H]ard|Gawd

2[H]4U

Limp Gawd

n00b

2[H]4U

n00b

n00b

Gawd

Limp Gawd

[H]ard|Gawd

Gawd

2[H]4U

[H]ard|Gawd