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good hardware for disk storage server?

O

oblivionx

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 9, 2004
Messages
112
I'm looking to set up a second computer to be used purely as a storage computer. So, I'm looking for some good, decently priced hardware I can get to set it up. I want to get about 2-3TB into it, and I want to do it w/o breaking my budget (not counting the price of drives, I'll likely buy those as I see deals pop up).

Anyone have any recomendations on mobos/cases?

Right now I have an Asus p4p800 deluxe, and I've got every possible port maxed out. I don't even have physical space in my case anymore to put anything else.

I currently have
2x 36gb 10krpm sata raptors raid 0
4x IDE drives (2 on primary IDE, 2 on via RAID ide, JBOD mode)
4x external USB 2 enclosures w/ IDE drives

That comes out to be about 2 TB of space...but its way too much stuff in my main computer. I want to set up a disk storage server and start removing some of these hard drives from my main machine.

What mobos have lots of SATA / IDE ports? Also, what cases are big enough to hold a ton of hard drives? I can only fit 6 in my tower right now (I could fit more, but then the HDs get too close to each other and get too hot), and 2 of them are held up by some jury rigged erector pieces.

Or, if anyone has any other ideas on how to set this up, I'm open for suggestions.

Thanks,
Kevin
 
Yea, I've been browsing around on newegg, but I don't just want to buy random parts...I was wondering if anyone knew any specific boards that would be good for this.

Thanks
 
A big RAID 5 SATA card and a big stack of high capacity drives in a suitable case. Done and done. Get a good quality mobo that you trust, a processor faster than 1Ghz, , and 512MB ram to be safe.

I prefer highpoint cards personally. If you're going modern they have some cool PCI-E 4x cards, but you'll need a good mobo for that to fit into.
 
Asgorath said:
A big RAID 5 SATA card and a big stack of high capacity drives in a suitable case. Done and done. Get a good quality mobo that you trust, a processor faster than 1Ghz, , and 512MB ram to be safe.

I prefer highpoint cards personally. If you're going modern they have some cool PCI-E 4x cards, but you'll need a good mobo for that to fit into.
Click to expand...
thats all that needs to be said... now, go do it.
 
and if you are going to just use this machine for storage only, you can go with something that has onboard video or even a pci video card. the reason i say this is because it may be hard to find a mobo with a 4x pci-e slot (which can still be put into a 16x pci-e slot). but these boards are becoming more prevelant.

if you do go with a raid card (which is recommended), make sure you have the capability of adding more drives to be able to expand your array (you may say you have enough drive space, but the truth is, you never really do. i said that, and im up to 2TB now and i need more).
 
I just bought a rocketraid 1820a and it kicks ass.

Supports multiple rocketraid 1820a's in one system with arrays that can span controllers. Supports expanding arrays. supports raid 5. and all with a relatively low price point.
 
Asgorath said:
I just bought a rocketraid 1820a and it kicks ass.

Supports multiple rocketraid 1820a's in one system with arrays that can span controllers. Supports expanding arrays. supports raid 5. and all with a relatively low price point.
Click to expand...

note that for full performance you will need PCI-X. But this card is backwards compatible with PCI
 
Asgorath said:
note that for full performance you will need PCI-X. But this card is backwards compatible with PCI
Click to expand...

ooo, good to know as i was worried i would have to purchase a server atx board and more expensive processor. now that i dont have to do that, this will save me some money.

it helps to hang around and read everything that people post :)
 
If I were to build a fileserver right now, I'd get a desktop board with a couple of PCIe slots and a Highpoint 2320. If you need more than 8 drives in the future, you can add a second 2320 into another PCIe slot and increase the number of ports. Since it's PCIe it is less likely to be bus limited and most newer board have their GbE connection either on the PCIe or right on the SB, so there's no bottleneck in that area either.

Having said that, I am under the impression that most consumer grade GbE card are unable to push more than about 50MB/s anyway, so using a PCIe RAID card is likely overkill, since the PCI bus 'should' support at least 50MB/s. Then again, if you have a multi-homed server with multiple clients...
 
heh. my desktop just got turned into a dedicated fileserver, so Ill tell you what I did.

pulled the X2, 7800GT, and A8N-SLI premium I was running.
Put in the A8N-E I had lying around (one memory channel doesn't work, on a server, no issue). Swapped a 3200+ in, and found a $28 geforce 6200 *turbochache* at newegg.

Running 4 seagate 7200.8 300GiB drives for the array, on a highpoint 2320 controller.

Haven't swapped out cases yet, Im going to get something like a stacker or aerocool mastige when I get a chance and some funds open up.

Only problem now is finding additional drives, as the 7200.8 series is rather old and unavailable anymore. Anybody know where to find um?
 
GLSauron said:
heh. my desktop just got turned into a dedicated fileserver, so Ill tell you what I did.

pulled the X2, 7800GT, and A8N-SLI premium I was running.
Put in the A8N-E I had lying around (one memory channel doesn't work, on a server, no issue). Swapped a 3200+ in, and found a $28 geforce 6200 *turbochache* at newegg.

Running 4 seagate 7200.8 300GiB drives for the array, on a highpoint 2320 controller.

Haven't swapped out cases yet, Im going to get something like a stacker or aerocool mastige when I get a chance and some funds open up.

Only problem now is finding additional drives, as the 7200.8 series is rather old and unavailable anymore. Anybody know where to find um?
Click to expand...
Just buy any 320g drive you like. You'll lose 20gs of capacity and it won't cost you anything.
 
Okay, thanks for the suggestions guys.

Here is where I'm at so far in terms of parts..

Asus A8N-VM
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131570
I choose VM since it has onboard video, and also onboard raid5, and some pci-x slots for a raid card later

Athlon 64 3200+
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103535

2x 512 PC3200 Kingston
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820144114

thermaltake case
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811133163

4x seagate 300gb
http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4795199?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

What do you guys think? If anyone has another case suggestion thats not quite so expensive, let me know. I will get a raid card later down the line.

Also, the hds are right now 90 for 300gb sata, which I think is decent...is that good or should I wait longer?

Thanks
 
oblivionx said:
Asus A8N-VM
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131570
I choose VM since it has onboard video, and also onboard raid5, and some pci-x slots for a raid card later
Click to expand...

It doesn't have any PCI-X slots. Don't confuse PCIe or PCI Express with PCI-X; they're very different. You get PCI-X only on server MB's. Sorry for the lecture if this is just a typo -- I've gotten irritated over time with this mistake being made by many advertisers -- looking for a PCI-X MB, finding a gazillion mislabeled PCIe boards...

Besides that, the build looks OK to me with a few qualifications: (1) Budget for a decent PSU for driving many HD's. (2) NVRAID 5's write performance isn't great in my experience. Changing RAID implementations is non-trivial. If that performance matters, and you expect to do a conversion to another RAID card without a separate backup, then consider budgeting for that at the onset.

There are also AM2 versions of the MB, which might be more future-friendly (this probably doesn't matter).

Another alternative to consider, if you're going the on-board RAID route, would be one of the newer boards with a larger number of SATA ports (6 or 8), and dropping in a cheap PCI video card if necessary.

Also budget for a GbE switch if you don't already have one.
 
you dont need such a fast CPU for a file server.

Decent raid cards will do the work and you would be fine with a 1ghz or so CPU - i currently run a 960G server off a p4 1.4ghz / 512mb system with a single PCI IDE controller card and 7 harddrives and cpu usage never goes above 15% and it only does when i move large files from a drive on the controller to an IDE port drive.

heck , grab a celeron D for $30 i saw in hot deals, would work fine.
 
Thanks for the clarification on the PCI-X,E etc notation...It's been a while since I've done hw shopping and I wasn't aware of the differences.

I don't need a PSU as I already have an extra antec 450 or 480W lying around. I also have an extra AGP radeon 9800 pro, though if I'm looking at PCI-express mobos, then I probably won't find an agp port.

Do you guys have any mobo recomendations with that many sata / ide ports? I already have 2TB of HD space, so I think it will be a while before I need considerably more, and I think my first set of drives is just going to be onboard.

Also does anyone know of any decent cases that are slightly cheaper, but still have lots of bays / fans? Looks don't really matter (unless its hideous)

Finally, what do you guys think of 90bucks for the 300gb sata drives? Good price to buy 4?

Thanks
 
something like this maybe? Im looking at getting one. Lots of room with tons of bays to grow in the future.

Im gonna need a SATA power splitter too. Little things like that *DO* add up.

also, consider getting an add-in raid controller. If the onboard controller dies you are going to be stuck trying to find an exact replacement board. Same thing with an add-in of course, but might be available longer.
 
Also note, that when you are building a big file server with a lot of hard drives another feature that higher end raid controllers have is staggered spinup times. Hard drives don't pull that much current on the 12V rail normally, but when they first spin up they hit your power supply HARD! That staggered spinup time lets you have a much lower wattage power supply and still be safe.

Also, if you can get hard drives that use normal molex connectors instead of the SATA power connector. The SATA power connector's only real advantage over a standard molex is it supports hotswap. If you're wondering why that is it is because it has more pins and is designed so that it always has a ground. There is no such guarantee with a standard 4 pin molex. But if you aren't doing hotswap, then you can cheap out and go with the 4 pin molex.
Just a thought so you don't have to buy a big bag of adapters.
 
oblivionx said:
Asus A8N-VM
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131570
I choose VM since it has onboard video, and also onboard raid5, and some pci-e slots for a raid card later
Thanks
Click to expand...

I must say that I bought that board for my dad's PC and am not really happy with it for one reason: No VCore adjustment. Before you say "I won't be overclocking bla bla", I was thinking about undervolting in order to save on power. If you run this system as a FS, where you don't have the 'need for speed' I'd see how low you can get the VCore and still have it fold. Saves on the electricity bill :)

Also, why not get AM2? the price is the same/ cheaper.

That masstige looks nice, pair that with a couple of supermicro cse35's and you'd get 15 HDD in the front.
 
Asgorath said:
Also note, that when you are building a big file server with a lot of hard drives another feature that higher end raid controllers have is staggered spinup times. Hard drives don't pull that much current on the 12V rail normally, but when they first spin up they hit your power supply HARD! That staggered spinup time lets you have a much lower wattage power supply and still be safe.
Click to expand...
Excellent point. Im gonna have to enable that when I move to dif case and another drive. It really does help.
 
Unless you go with a server MB, usually you have to compromise on the built-in video, number of SATA slots, or built-in GbE. The new nForce 5 MB's tend to have at least 6 SATA slots, and built-in GbE, but no built-in video (the ones that do have only 4 SATA). You might look into getting an AM2 MB and a cheap Sempron or some other discounted CPU (once the prices drop). As likely, you'll find some deals in Intel MB and CPU combos (possibly with hotter (older generation) CPU's).

The Thermaltake with a window has a $25 MIR and free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133154

A cheaper option for a case would be something like an Antec SLK3000B with a Thermaltake iCage (or another such device -- Lian Li, Coolermaster, and SuperMicro at least make them; Coolermaster's don't fit in all cases; the ThermalTake will fit the Antec; I'm not sure about other cage+case compatibility.)

Antec SLK3000B + iCage + 1 120mm fan = 8 drive slots with 2 120mm intake fans, 1 covering 3 and 1 covering 5, + 1 optical + 2 floppy drive slots. iCages are what are used in the ThermalTake towers to provide drive cooling (1 is included).

If you can use iCages in an Aerocool, it'd work better than in the Antec -- the outside grill works as a filter, and you'd be able to have more drives. Fewer external slots than the Thermaltake and Coolermasters though, so you'd get at most 3 cages + 1 external drive, so couldn't do both optical + floppy with that many cages.

Coolermaster cases have similar designs, and more drives in each cage, but I haven't used them (I've only used the Antec and a Thermaltake tower for such purposes so far).
 
semprons. But IIRC they are s754 only, not available in s939. Not sure on AM2. edit
 
I was looking at that case originally, but I chose to go with the aluminum one even though its more expensive because according to the review that thing weighs like 50lbs...which is a problem since I move almost every year.
 
unless you are actually crunching some numbers (and with a 2.x-3.x Ghz Id hope you are), you dont really need 1GB of ram. Mine will be kept busy with video encoding the like, and I already had the ram ;)
 
I don't buy off brand memory. Too many bad experiences. Stick to the known players.

Kingston
Crucial
Corsair
 
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