backup server setup. Suggestions on my list please.

M

mord

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 8, 2005
Messages
379
I am building a backup server. The amount of files will be small at first and slowly build up so I want to go with a setup I can expand to meet my future needs. I don't expect to need more then 30-40 gig to start with, but ramp up to 1T within 12-18 months. Once I get to the 1T+ level I will probably go to external directly attached storage like a external SCSI RAID setup. Most of the files will be large files, so I am planning on subsystems that work optimally with files larger then 5MB. I have been building computers for a long time, but never built a serious dedicated server before. I do not expect data transfer to exceed 100Mbit/s though it may be from 10+ users at a time.

Goals:

1. data integraty
2. reliability/high availability
3. solid upgrade path
As always I am on a budget. I don't want "cheap" though. Good value, but if I gotta spend the money I will.

Keeping those things in mind here is my starting items list followed by some future upgrades. I used Newegg for my shopping list, they had all the pieces on my first list though I looked at other places.

MB - Tyan Tomcat K8E
Egg linkage for Tyan Mobo

CPU - AMD Opteron 146

RAM - 2 X Corsair 512 DDR ECC PC 3200
Egg linkage for Corsair Ram

HD - 2 X Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80G SATA in RAID 1. (20G OS part 60G data part)
Seagate linkage

Power - Sparkle FSP550PLG ATX12v/EPS12V 500W (12v-36A, 3.3v-27A,5V-29A, max 12+5+3.3=528W)

Case= Cooler Master Centurion 5

OS= Win2003 Server standard

Upgrades:
Soon - Add on anouther Raid 1 set of SATA drives probably stay with Seagate for reliability.
maybe go for a redundant PS like the Zippy MRG-6500P
As needed:
SATA RAID card + RAID10 setup using more seagates
OR
SCSI 320 RAID card + RAID10 using Seagates SCSIs
Sata cheaper but SCSI more reliable if I am having higher spin times on the drives.
more ram if needed.

I have old monitors to use.
opinions? as spec'd about 1500 + cables, mon, mouse/key, UPS.
not sure how good the tyan onboard raid is.
may get a Stacker case
 
I would go with a dedicated OS drive, and use the RAID for storage. Also, I would use a dedicated RAID controller with RAID 5 capability for increased drive reliability. You can get a 4-drive, internal, hot-swappable SATA drive cage, and a controller for about $450 ish.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816102035

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816102034

Using RAID 5 and 400GB drives, you can stuff 1.2TB in there.

To upgrade the storage from there, you'll need to add external storage.
 
Buckus said:
I would go with a dedicated OS drive, and use the RAID for storage.
Click to expand...

Agreed 100%. If anything run a 10k rpm cheetah for the os to save a little money. Trying to get 1tb of storage in u320 can crush a budget real quick. 146GB 15k rpm drives are well over $1000 each and raid controllers around the same price.

I would also consider Buckus' suggestion to go raid5 as well as a hot swap cage. An alternative would be a controller like this if you forsee storage needs scaling to multiple tb though, without backplanes you have no hot swap ability.
 
Yeah I was planning on moving all data off the 80G Raid 1 soon as I add a second raid array. Keep the OS on the 20G part and apps on the 60G Part (most likely only 3rd party monitoring software, security software and one App I will be running. However I may move all apps off onto anouther drive. Be nice to have a drive to put the swap file on beside the Storage Raid or the OS drive.

Other then efficency why RAID 5 over RAID 10? assuming I use 400G drives 4 in R5 is 1.2T in R10 its .8T and can (not will) survive 2 drive failures. I have had 2 Raid 5 arrays die on me from multiple drive failures before. Both times 2 drives went bad for non directly related reasons within 1 hour of each other. One was a 5 drive RAID and one 7 drive. One was Seagate SCSIs other was WD SCSIs. Course at the Price of SCSI I still run my SCSI arays in R5 have a .5T, 1T, and 3T SCSI RAID. SATA is cheap though.

Would really like to have an upgrade path to hotspare but the Tyan board I have picked out is short on expansion slots. No PCI-X or PCIe 4-8. Only PCIe 1 and PCI 32bit pluss the one PCI 16x slot for graphics. Anyone know a decent SATA RAID controler with hotspare that runs on PCI 32 bit? Sticking with Tyan I would have to jump up to a 2 CPU board and nearly double the cost of the board plus jump to a 200 series opteron to get better expansion ports. That means going to registered mem also right?
 
RAID 5 is a good balance between cost and reliability. If you want to spend more money for greater redundancy and go RAID 10, no one's stopping you.

Course you could get two external RAID 5 arrays, and then mirror them. Of course at that point, assuming 7 drive RAID enclosures, you'd be paying for 14 drives, but only get 6 drives worth of storage. So, it's really up to you and what your wallet says.
 
What's the server being used for? How many simultaneous client connections must it support? Is the server mission critical? These are the questions that determine your system specifications.

If the server is being used for file storage; there's no reason to purchase a U320 solution. Stick with SATA, it's much cheaper. The performance difference between U320 and a "professional" SATA solution is minimal. The price difference is dramatic.

If the server is "mission critical" to a business, consider a second backup solution (off-site is best). While RAID 10 provides the most redundancy against hard drive failures, it still doesn't offer protection against catastrophes (i.e. floods, fires, earthquakes, power surges). Data recovery is VERY costly and can be avoided...
 
Not meaning to sound smart, I know plenty of people use poor terminology. When I say I am building a backup server it is just that. Only backups will be on this server. It will be located at a remote location from the main file server. This backup server will be backed up to media each night also.

Figure 5-10 connections simo to start and up to 40 max in a year or so. By the time it gets to 25-30 though I will have added on multiple RAID 10 arrays or went to an external RAID array that can handle the heavier traffic. High performance is not so much of an issue, I have very large backup windows when the file servers will not be accessed for production work. Figure 14+ hours per night to run backups.

Beeing a backup server I just need to keep data safe. High availability, reliability. Those are the two that might make me lean twords SCSI, and te potentiall high number of simo clients. Though the client number would be a performance issue, that as I said I am not very conserned about. If speed does become an issue I want to have a planned upgrade path.
 
Personally, I've never even been tempted to build servers mainly because if parts go wrong you have to dismantle it yourself to fix it. That's OK with a workstation, but not with a server whose availability is important. I've had no problems with Dell servers.
 
Yeah, I have used dell servers quite a bit. When I went to spec one out I couldn't get what I wanted unless I went WAY overkill on alot of things I didn't want. A few calls to the server sales dept ended up with them suggesting a $10K server. Uh, no. 4-5K should buy what I want. I may wait a few weeks for them to change the packages on how they let you spec servers for SATA raid drives. They flat out refused to sell me a server with a SATA raid array and the OS installed on a third sata HD. Best I could do is buy one of the cheaper servers with one SATA drive then get a controller card and drives myself to add on. Now If I went SCSI on the one os drive and/or the raid aray no problem they could do it. Just not all SATA. With the Raid beeing my own bought items the service support looses alot of apeal.
 
I see what you're getting at. SATA doesn't seem to be a big part of their more robust servers at this time. I travel a lot so need a lot of IT back-up, but I've decided to slash costs recently and have finished moving down to a more modest three-site (colo/home/office) Windows / Exchange servers set-up for my own uses, and I found the Poweredge 2850 offered exactly what I wanted. At that time I was happy to be offered only SCSI for the peace of mind. But yes... SCSI drives aren't failproof so after I bought all the gear I did think "should I have gone SATA and saved my money". Come to think of it the difference between SATA and SCSI on the six servers, I could have bought myself a couple of ultimate gaming rigs with the change... Still, it's good to be able to phone up one company to take care of things when they do break down (which, touch wood, has not happened yet). Good luck hunting.
 
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