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Advice on upgrading my storage server.

A

Alekoy

n00b
Joined
Feb 27, 2011
Messages
4
I want to upgrade my storage server, the current internals are lagging behind and I think a more modern motherboard and raid controller(s) will not only work faster but also use less power, something that would be nice for a box that is up 24/7

also I will re-purpose my old main computer as a VM-server to get rid of a couple of other boxes that is running all year (cctv and two download boxes) so iSCSI is a feature I want in the new OS

My current setup is:
Case:Supermicro SC846A-R900B (sata interface backplane)
Drives: 20 of the bays are currently in use, drives ranging from 750GB to 2TB
CPU: 2X Xenon 2,4GHZ
RAM: 2GB
Motherboard: Supermicro X5DP8-G2
RAID controllers: 2x 3Ware 9550SX 12-port SATA
OS: win7 (I know...)
OS HDD: old 320GB disc

And that is pretty much it :p

I plan on replacing the motherboard, CPU, RAM, Raid controllers, some of the HDDs and of course the OS.

So far I have been looking at some hardware, but it all seems like a jungle to me at the moment..

The Raid controller I have been looking at is the 24-port version of the Areca ARC1280ML
I don't know if it would be better to use two 12-port version of the same/similar card or not.
Maybe there is a better (sub $500) card out there somewhere?

Is there any performance gain in using a SSD drive for the system disc?

What software do I want to use?
In the past I have used FreeNAS, OpenFiler and probably others that I don't remember.

on the network-side of it I have a Linksys SRW2024 Gigabit managed switch, and I want to know if it would be useful to have a dual gigabit-link between the server and switch?
the CCTV and other machines on the virtual server will be transferring quite a bit of data to and from the server all/most of the time.
Maybe a direct gigabit link between the two would be better?


Any input is appreciated :D
 
Alekoy said:
Is there any performance gain in using a SSD drive for the system disc?
Click to expand...

There will be performance gain but less noticeable than that for a desktop PC, since you are not interacting with the server directly. Given how cheap SSDs are right now it doesn't hurt to get one. I assume 64GB would be enough for non-virtualized system and 128GB for low density virtualized systems.

Alekoy said:
What software do I want to use?
In the past I have used FreeNAS, OpenFiler and probably others that I don't remember.
Click to expand...

I use Solaris + ZFS.

Alekoy said:
on the network-side of it I have a Linksys SRW2024 Gigabit managed switch, and I want to know if it would be useful to have a dual gigabit-link between the server and switch?
the CCTV and other machines on the virtual server will be transferring quite a bit of data to and from the server all/most of the time.
Maybe a direct gigabit link between the two would be better?
Click to expand...

Depends on your RAID setup and its throughput. If you fill in all 24 drives with reasonable RAID configuration you most probably can handle data rates above 1Gbps so dual-link is a good idea. Well you also want to check if your clients can consume this much bandwidth (video streaming to a couple machines will not).

From a latency perspective direct link is not necessary. Since you are re-purposing old computers you are probably not looking for top top performance especially in latency aspect. Network switch's latency overhead is very small compared to the latency from NIC to HHD via the OS.
 
That is noted, thanks.
I think I will just use a single gigabit network connection, for now there will be less than 5 users connected.

How much RAM do I want when using ZFS? As much as possible, I guess..

So I need a 64-bit system and a motherboard with lots of ram-slots.

Should I go for the ARC1280ML?
any recommended CPU+motherboard combo that is recommended?
 
Note that channel bonding will not increase the bandwidth of single connections between computers. This technique was developed for single server - many clients type of scenarios. If you need more bandwidth between single hosts I suggest getting two 10 gigabit adapters, or even better 40 Gbps infiniband adapters. Those also have a significantly reduced latency.
 
Alekoy said:
How much RAM do I want when using ZFS? As much as possible, I guess..

So I need a 64-bit system and a motherboard with lots of ram-slots.

Should I go for the ARC1280ML?
any recommended CPU+motherboard combo that is recommended?
Click to expand...

about RAM for ZFS
- you need about 2 GB for the OS, the rest is used for read-caching and this is why ZFS is so fast
Usually 8GB+ gives you a fast system but that depends on expectations and use cases

best is using a server grade intel mainboard with Xeon and ECC (and Intel Nics)
if you use socket 1150, you can add up to 32 GB RAM, with socket 2011 you can go up to 256 GB on cheaper boards

ARC1280 is a bad controller for ZFS, prefer LSI HBAs without Raid functionality
use LSI 9207 from stock or
LSI 9211 or IBM 1015, both reflashed to IT (raidless) firmware
add controllers if you need more ports, SAS controllers support Sata as well

Mainboards for ZFS
- SuperMicro all the way with the cheapest Xeon
like X9SCL, X10SL7-F (with SAS, you may need an extra cheap Intel Nic) or X9SRH-7TF with SAS and 10 GbE

OS
- OmniOS gives you the newest and fastest ZFS bits, is stable with regular updates
 
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