[H]ard Forum Storage Showoff Thread

RabbiX said:
I can certainly understand the frustration with obtaining anything large from the states when you don't actually live there. The cabinet is a fairly recent purchase, and honestly it only became possible once me and the family moved to California in the last few months. Before that, we were living in Japan for the last 10 years.

While I do miss Japan (loved living there and hope to go back), I certainly don't miss some of the ridiculous prices I had to pay for shipping certain things. Attempting to ship something this size was basically out of the question, and I honestly don't want to even guess what it would have costed me. Damn thing probably wouldn't have even fit in our tiny box of a house.

I do miss my ridiculously fast and low cost internet from Japan though. Internet in the states is so bad is not even funny. I paid approximately ~$40 a month for 100Mbs speeds 10 years ago in Japan. 10 years ago....seems like the internet here (USA) has barely gotten better after all that time (sorry for going a bit off topic...but damn the internet sucks here :)).
Click to expand...

I miss Japan as well. Luckily when I lived there my dad worked for a company that did government contracts and he was able to get super cheap shipping. I remember it only costing like $50 to ship my 30 inch monitor to Japan 2nd day air from California.

That netshelter is quite a bit cheaper than the ucoustic and other alternatives. I currently have a 'server room' that my rack is dedicated to and even my own main machine is in there with some 60+ foot cables but I am actually currently looking at buying a new house and it would end up in my master bedroom's walk-in closet and in that case I need something quieter...

I have been scoping out craigslist and found a few times where ucoustic racks went for $1000-1500 on there (they are $7000+ new).

I could pretty easily afford just buying the net-shelter its just too hard for me to justify the expense when that same money could buy almost another 200TB of disk space instead.
 
houkouonchi said:
I miss Japan as well. Luckily when I lived there my dad worked for a company that did government contracts and he was able to get super cheap shipping. I remember it only costing like $50 to ship my 30 inch monitor to Japan 2nd day air from California.

That netshelter is quite a bit cheaper than the ucoustic and other alternatives. I currently have a 'server room' that my rack is dedicated to and even my own main machine is in there with some 60+ foot cables but I am actually currently looking at buying a new house and it would end up in my master bedroom's walk-in closet and in that case I need something quieter...

I have been scoping out craigslist and found a few times where ucoustic racks went for $1000-1500 on there (they are $7000+ new).

I could pretty easily afford just buying the net-shelter its just too hard for me to justify the expense when that same money could buy almost another 200TB of disk space instead.
Click to expand...


Those Ucoustic racks look to have incredible sound reduction. 28dB vs 18dB from the Netshelter and it is incredible how much of a difference that 18dB makes, so I can only imagine how good the Ucoustics are.

I honestly did consider them (and a few others), but in the end I went with the Netshelter for a couple reasons.

1. I have installed numerous APC racks for projects all over the world so I was already very familiar with what to expect.

2. Cable management. One of the things I have always liked about APC is the extra space dedicated in the racks for cable management, and their large selection of dedicated cable management accessories and PDUs that easily integrate with their racks.

In the end I guess I went with what I was more familiar with. Even though I had never seen a Netshelter "CX" in person before (places I worked at could care less about the sound of the equipment), I did know exactly what I was going to be getting as far as accessories went. The cost was still hard for me to swallow, but I'm still glad I made the purchase.

Honestly the only thing I regret about my equipment is the model of hard drives I purchased for the SAN. If only I could go back in time and correct that mistake. Granted I loved the hard drives when I used to run them in a RAID-10, but after space constraints demanded I switch to RAID-6 I now hate them. I calculate it at about $13k to correct that mistake though...so just going to live with it.
 
Nice setups everyone!

Here's mine:

Raw storage: 36TB (4x3TB raid 10 + 8x1TB raid 5 + 8 x 2TB raid 10)
Actual storage: 18.9TB

(forget exact models of components)

Case: Supermicro 24-bay
PSU: Supermicro - redundant
Motherboard: Supermicro
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
RAM: 8GB ECC
Controller Cards: 3x IBM card flashed to IT firmware - forget the exact IBM name but lspci shows this: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Falcon] (rev 03)
Hard Drives: Mix of WD blacks, reds, Hitachis and Toshibas.
Operating System: CentOS 6.5

This is used for central file storage for pretty much everything. VMs, raw files, backups, etc. I also have a drive dock attached to it to do backups to removable media, which is just a bunch of separate individual hard drives that I treat as tapes. I have a set of rsync scripts that handle everything. I pop a drive in, run the script and it runs whatever job is associated with that disk.


Here are some pics: These are older, so I may update later.



The server (those IBM enclosures are connected but arn't counted, as I don't really use them)


Full rack setup. The rack in the middle is mostly empty but in the future will be used for rectifiers and inverters, and other misc equipment.

The custom rack with the fans is for batteries. There are 4 12v 100AH batteries in parallel right now. Eventually want to move to a 48v system.



Closer look at power control/monitoring panel. The meter is kinda garbage though, the amp reading is not right. It just jumps all over the place. I put a scope on it and the output is pretty ugly. May try to do something custom later that can do averaging.


The inverter charger


Batteries


Cabling


More cabling


Power

not the nicest cabling TBH, but it was much worse before I built the cable management system.


Home automation stuff. There's an arduino board and separate relay controller on that shelf. I want to completely revamp that though into a self contained cabinet. Project for later.




Dark shot



Far shot, before painting racks.

Eventually I'll build a custom air exchange system and close up those walls. It will be a completely separate sealed room.
 
I'm envious of the subterranean lair you have to house all your equipment in. Makes me wish I had a dungeon to put all my stuff in too. Very cool!
 
Yeah can't imagine not having a basement. Though this house is only half basement, the other is crawlspace, but at least I can store stuff in crawlspace to make up for it.
 
Amount of total storage ~31TB Advertised

Case: Supermicro 846TQ
PSU: Supermicro 920w
Motherboard: Supermicro H8DME-2
CPU: 2x AMD Opteron 2425HE
RAM: 24GB PC2-5300
Controller Cards: 3x Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8
Hard Drives:1x 128GB Toshiba SSD Boot, 8x 3TB Toshiba DT01ACA300, 3x 750gb Samsung HD753LJ, 1x 1TB Western Digital 10EACS Green, 2x 1TB Samsung HD103UJ, 1x 1.5TB Seagate ST1500DL003,
Operating System: Windows Server 2012 Essentials with FlexRaid

The main system is a simple file/media server. Critical items are backed up to idrive.



jbnNvWC.jpg


I replaced all the fans and HSF's in the SC846 with quieter ones. Also replaced the 900w PSU's with the 920's that are quieter. It's not silent but it's not anywhere as loud as it was. (45db maybe)

ZbMFUkW.jpg

Skeletek C28U-HD Rack with HD-16U-Ex.

Top to bottom:
3x Cisco 2950 (off, only on when i need to lab)
2x Cisco 2610 (off, only on when i need to lab)
Cisco 1042 AP (Always on, need to re-mount it)
Cisco 2970G (Always on)
Cisco 2851 (Always on)
Supermicro SC846TQ server, ~31TB (Always on)
Supermicro 1u Server (Off, needs removed)
Silverstone SFF (Empty, awaiting parts)
APC 1500kva UPS (Always on, services Rack)

ckUybDc.jpg
 
Red Squirrel said:
Nice setups everyone!

....

Eventually I'll build a custom air exchange system and close up those walls. It will be a completely separate sealed room.
Click to expand...

D*mn nice!!

is this your home basement?

you are deploying cold/ambient air and hot air chamber? ir just exhoust hot air out somewhere

I wished had basment in my house.
Ok... when move to another house in the future, basement is REQUIRED! :D.
 
cantalup said:
D*mn nice!!

is this your home basement?

you are deploying cold/ambient air and hot air chamber? ir just exhoust hot air out somewhere

I wished had basment in my house.
Ok... when move to another house in the future, basement is REQUIRED! :D.
Click to expand...

Yep my own house... and I'm single. :D The hvac system will involve cold aisle / hot aisle. Basically the plan is to suck the air out of the hot aisle, and based on indoor/outdoor temp and few other factors it will either exhaust it outside or somewhere else in the house or recirculate it. Since the batteries produce hydrogen it will pass through a HRV if I want to recover the heat so the actual air goes outside. There will be a hydrogen sensor that will be able to also be a factor in what mode the system goes in. Low/no hydrogen will allow to just do a full recirc which will allow to control humidity better. Chances are I can probably run it in recirc most of the time in winter. Right now it gets like 10c down there, which is kinda cold for the equipment.

The cold aisle will have a supply air hooked up to the same system and will basically just passively draw air through wherever the dampers are set to. I have a crawlspace under my garage that gets quite cold so in summer that will be a good spot to draw from.

Not yet sure how I want to build the dampers, I'm thinking the whole unit will be an air box with paths (think kinda like a maze) and doors controlled by servos. I came up with quite a few rough designs but then I start thinking about how complicated it will be to actually build so I still need to come up with something.
 
I still need to open my servers up to get my power supply info but I wanted to go ahead and get this posted.

Total Space Across Five Servers - 78,606GB
Total Usable Space – 62,872.5GB

ADMIN – Home Automation & Security DVR, also hosts 2 VMs, running Mac OSX for Home Automation & Win2K8 for WSUS, runs 24x7 (9,369GB Total Space, 7,138.5GB Usable, 59GB SSD Boot Volume, 698GB Mirrored Scratch Volume, 931GB Volume for Nightly Backups, 5.45TB Storage Pool with Application Installers and ISOs, 7 Drives in a FlexRAID Snapshot Configuration, 1 used for Parity)
Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64-bit SP1
Case: 4U IPC Chassis from Plinkusa.net
Power Supply:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66GHz Yorkfield 45nm Technology
RAM: 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P43-ES3G (Socket 775)
Controllers: (2x) Rosewill RC-209 PCI SATA
NICs: (3x) Realtek PCIe GBE Teamed for 3Gbps
Graphics: 512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 580 (NVIDIA)
Storage:
59GB OCZ-AGILITY4 ATA Device (SSD)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD7501AALS-00J7B0 ATA Device (SATA)
698GB Seagate ST3750640AS ATA Device (SATA)
931GB Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 USB Device (USB)
931GB Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10 EADS-11M2B1 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10 03FBYX-01Y7B0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1397GB Seagate ST315003 41AS SCSI Disk Device (SATA)

ADMIN2 – Backup Exec 2014 Server & Spiceworks Mostly 24x7 (8,900GB Total Space, 6,225.2GB Usable, 59GB SSD Boot Volume, 698GB Mirrored Scratch Volume with VMs, 5.45TB Storage Pool with Archived Files, 7 Drives in a FlexRAID Snapshot Configuration, 1 used for Parity)
Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64-bit SP1
Case: 4U IPC Chassis from Plinkusa.net
Power Supply:
CPU: Intel Pentium D 840 SmithField 90nm Technology
RAM: 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2
Motherboard: MSI MS-9618 (LGA775/PRESCOTT)
Controllers: (2x) Rosewill RC-209 PCI SATA
Adaptec SCSI Card 29320LPE Ultra320 SCSI
NICs: HP NC360T PCIe GBE Teamed for 2Gbps
Graphics: 8MB ATI RADEON 7000 Series (ATI)
Storage:
55GB TOSHIBA MKNSSDCR60GB ATA Device (SSD)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD7500AZEX-00RKKA0 ATA Device (SATA)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD7501AALS-00J7B0 ATA Device (SATA)
931GB Seagate ST310005 20AS SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10 03FBYX-01Y7B0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DL 004 HD204UI SCSI Disk Device (SATA)

ARCON – Archive 1 Server, On When Needed (11,320GB Total Space, 10,303.7GB Usable, 59GB SSD Boot Volume, 698GB Mirrored Scratch Volume, 9.55TB Storage Pool with Archived Files, 9 Drives in a FlexRAID Snapshot Configuration, 1 used for Parity)
Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64-bit SP1
Case: 4U IPC Chassis from Plinkusa.net
Power Supply:
CPU: Intel Pentium D 840 SmithField 90nm Technology
RAM: 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2
Motherboard: MSI MS-9618 (LGA775/PRESCOTT)
Controllers: (2x) Rosewill RC-209 PCI SATA
NICs: HP NC360T PCIe GBE & Intel Pro 1000 Teamed for 3Gbps
Graphics: 8MB ATI Standard VGA Graphics Adapter (ATI)
Storage:
55GB TOSHIBA MKNSSDCR60GB ATA Device (SSD)
465GB Western Digital WDC WD50 00AADS-00S9B0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
465GB SiImage Volume A SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD7500BPKT-60PK4T0 ATA Device (SATA)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD75 00BPKT-60PK4T0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10 EZEX-00KUWA0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10 EZEX-00KUWA0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1397GB Seagate ST315005 41AS SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1397GB Western Digital WDC WD15 EADS-00R6B0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1397GB SAMSUNG HD154UI SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20 EURS-73TLHY0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-1CH164 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)

ARCAM – Archive 2 Server, On When Needed (12,633GB Total Space, 9,847.5GB Usable, 59GB SSD Boot Volume, 698GB Mirrored Scratch Volume, 9.55TB Storage Pool with Archived Files, 6 Drives in a FlexRAID Snapshot Configuration, 1 used for Parity)
Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64-bit SP1
Case: 4U IPC Chassis from Plinkusa.net
Power Supply:
CPU: Intel Pentium D 840 SmithField 90nm Technology
RAM: 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2
Motherboard: MSI MS-9618 (LGA775/PRESCOTT)
Controllers: (2x) Rosewill RC-209 PCI SATA
NICs: HP NC360T PCIe GBE & Intel Pro 1000PM Teamed for 3Gbps
Graphics: 8MB ATI Standard VGA Graphics Adapter (ATI)
Storage:
59GB OCZ-AGILITY4 ATA Device (SSD)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD7500BPKT-60PK4T0 ATA Device (SATA)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD75 00BPKT-60PK4T0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20 EZRX-00D8PB0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-9YN164 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-1CH164 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20 EURS-73TLHY0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20 EURS-73TLHY0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-1CH164 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)

MEDIA – Media Server, On When Needed (36,384GB Total Space, 29,357.6GB Usable, 59GB SSD Boot Volume, 698GB Mirrored Scratch Volume, 28.6TB Storage Pool with Media, 21 Drives in a FlexRAID Snapshot Configuration, 2 used for Parity)
Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64-bit SP1
Case: Norco RPC-4020 4U Rackmount Server Chassis
Norco RPC-2008 2U Rackmount Server Chassis
Power Supply:
CPU: Intel Xeon X3360 @ 2.83GHz Yorkfield 45nm Technology
RAM: 8.00GB
Motherboard: Supermicro X7SBA
Controllers: Rosewill RC-209 PCI SATA
Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI-Express x4 SAS RAID Controller
(2x) Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA II Controller Card
NICs: Intel Pro 1000’s Teamed for 3Gbps
Graphics: XGI Technology (eXtreme Graphics Innovation) XGI Volari Z9-Z9s-Z9M
Storage:
59GB OCZ-AGILITY4 ATA Device (SSD)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD75 00BPKT-00PK4T0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
698GB Western Digital WDC WD75 00BPKT-00PK4T0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1397GB SAMSUNG HD154UI ATA Device (SATA)
1397GB SAMSUNG HD154UI ATA Device (SATA)
1397GB SAMSUNG HD154UI SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1397GB Seagate ST1500DL 003-9VT16L SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1397GB Seagate ST1500DL003-9VT16L ATA Device (SATA)
1397GB Seagate ST315003 41AS SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1397GB Western Digital WDC WD15EARX-00PASB0 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1397GB Western Digital WDC WD15EVDS-68V9B0 ATA Device (SATA)
1397GB Western Digital WDC WD15EVDS-68V9B0 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DL 003-9VT166 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DL 003-9VT166 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DL 003-9VT166 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DL 003-9VT166 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DL 004 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-9YN164 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-9YN164 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-9YN164 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EURS-73TLHY0 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EZRX-00D8PB0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EZRX-00DC0B0 ATA Device (SATA)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EZRX-00DC0B0 SCSI Disk Device (Fibre)

The network closet is located in one side of my garage. When building our house, I added a mini-split so I could direct AC to that room. This keeps all the noise outside of our general living area. Five servers are connected to three Ultra 1200 battery backup units, all mounted in a HP standard 19” equipment rack.

All servers boot from SSD, and even on the older Smithfield processors, boot and system drive access is very quick. All servers have a 750GB mirrored scratch volume which is used as temporary storage. Once data is backed up to tape/drive or both, the data is then moved to the snapshot FlexRAID on that server where the data remains static. All servers are configured with WOL (wake on lan) for remote access. Using Windows 2008 built-in backup utility, for the servers that are on, a nightly backup will run just for the boot volume. If I have a system failure, recovery is quick and painless using a Windows recovery disk. Just point to the backup drive on the network and restore the boot volume.

Much of my data is backed up to both hard drives and tapes. I had a plethora of 500GB drives that I accumulated over the years and decided to use them as an alternative near-online backup since I really had no place for them in my servers. I have a seemingly endless supply of Ultrium 3 tapes from work as we recycle our old media. Drives filter down from my Media server to the other servers as I increase my storage capacity through the purchase of larger drives. I’ve consigned myself to no further expansion other than what this one rack will allow, either through larger hard drives or some other modern technological wonders.

All servers have 2-3Gbps teamed network links and are connected to a Cisco SLM2024 gigabit switch in the back of the server rack. That Cisco SLM2024 has a 4Gbps LAG (link-aggregation) connection to two other Cisco SLM2024 gigabit switches, both of which are fiber connected.

Media can be streamed to four TVs in our household, all simultaneously, 1080p, same movie, with no problem. After going through many iterations of media servers, I decided on the Intel NUC BOXDN2820FYKH0 Intel HD Graphics Integrated Mini / Booksize Barebone System. This micro PC sports a Celeron dual-core processor with a TDP (thermal design power) of 7.5 watts. Pairing each of these NUCs with a 120GB SSD drive and 8GB DDR3 memory, they are not only highly energy efficient, but excellent performers at a very low price point. A Logitech USB keyboard with trackpad completes each media extender, and my wife who is somewhat technology challenged, loves this setup.

I run XBMC “Gotham” on the NUCs and use the fantastic software, Media Center Master to “prep” my media before presenting it to XBMC. All extenders connect to and use a single MySQL database. This allows us to stop any show on one TV and resume it on another.

http://i.imgur.com/0PVbCXR.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4oJBaaD.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/yG7dV9i.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/pjHUR06.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/IVZVer5.jpg
 
RabbiX said:
Those Ucoustic racks look to have incredible sound reduction. 28dB vs 18dB from the Netshelter and it is incredible how much of a difference that 18dB makes, so I can only imagine how good the Ucoustics are.

I honestly did consider them (and a few others), but in the end I went with the Netshelter for a couple reasons.

1. I have installed numerous APC racks for projects all over the world so I was already very familiar with what to expect.

2. Cable management. One of the things I have always liked about APC is the extra space dedicated in the racks for cable management, and their large selection of dedicated cable management accessories and PDUs that easily integrate with their racks.

In the end I guess I went with what I was more familiar with. Even though I had never seen a Netshelter "CX" in person before (places I worked at could care less about the sound of the equipment), I did know exactly what I was going to be getting as far as accessories went. The cost was still hard for me to swallow, but I'm still glad I made the purchase.

Honestly the only thing I regret about my equipment is the model of hard drives I purchased for the SAN. If only I could go back in time and correct that mistake. Granted I loved the hard drives when I used to run them in a RAID-10, but after space constraints demanded I switch to RAID-6 I now hate them. I calculate it at about $13k to correct that mistake though...so just going to live with it.
Click to expand...

you picked the correct choice on netshelter cx. No need to tweak and DIY.

my DIY rack is getting full. Need to find a reasonable good candidate 24U rack and none to find in craiglist.


Red Squirrel said:
Yep my own house... and I'm single. :D The hvac system will involve cold aisle / hot aisle. Basically the plan is to suck the air out of the hot aisle, and based on indoor/outdoor temp and few other factors it will either exhaust it outside or somewhere else in the house or recirculate it. Since the batteries produce hydrogen it will pass through a HRV if I want to recover the heat so the actual air goes outside. There will be a hydrogen sensor that will be able to also be a factor in what mode the system goes in. Low/no hydrogen will allow to just do a full recirc which will allow to control humidity better. Chances are I can probably run it in recirc most of the time in winter. Right now it gets like 10c down there, which is kinda cold for the equipment.

The cold aisle will have a supply air hooked up to the same system and will basically just passively draw air through wherever the dampers are set to. I have a crawlspace under my garage that gets quite cold so in summer that will be a good spot to draw from.

Not yet sure how I want to build the dampers, I'm thinking the whole unit will be an air box with paths (think kinda like a maze) and doors controlled by servos. I came up with quite a few rough designs but then I start thinking about how complicated it will be to actually build so I still need to come up with something.
Click to expand...
thanks for the detail explanation.
do yoy plan to take outside air for intake or just do air circulation?
for 48V system, could you explain on how to do DIY and parts ? I am interested to know,
 
cantalup said:
you picked the correct choice on netshelter cx. No need to tweak and DIY.

my DIY rack is getting full. Need to find a reasonable good candidate 24U rack and none to find in craiglist.



thanks for the detail explanation.
do yoy plan to take outside air for intake or just do air circulation?
for 48V system, could you explain on how to do DIY and parts ? I am interested to know,
Click to expand...

If you get rid of air you need to replace it, so there is an intake and exhaust. Essentially when it's going through the HRV (heat recovery ventilator) the air passes through fins that are staggered and act like a heat exchanger. You can think of a HRV as a cube with 4 vents, two inputs and two outputs. One input would be from hot aisle, then the opposite output goes outside, then the other input is the outside air intake, and then the other output to the cold aisle. This would be "recirc" mode in essence. The air itself is changed but the heat is retained. Though there probably will be a true recirc mode too, the HRV will probably be used at certain intervals or when hydrogen levels reach a certain point.

For the 48v system I'm not sure yet what I want to do, as I can't seem to find too many places that sell rectifiers or inverters other than ebay. I'd want something where I can get a warranty, some basic level of support etc. That's a project for the further future though. My guess is I'd probably be looking at like 3k for a half decent system. I'd want redundancy on it so I'd be looking at hot swap rectifier modules most likely. I do work for a telco so I'd have to inform myself where they buy their power equipment. I do know one place in town that would probably sell it too. What's tough with stuff like this is you can't really shop much to get an idea of prices before you buy. Companies that buy this kind of stuff choose a specific product because it's what they want, not because it's the price they want.
 
The parts for my new NAS finally came this week and it's all successfully passed burn-in.

Raw storage - 36TB (6 x 6TB raidz2)
Actual storage - 21.8TB

Case: Fractal Design Node 304
Motherboard: ASRock E3C224D2I
CPU: Intel Core i3-4160
RAM: Kingston KVR13E9K2/16I
PSU: Corsair CX600M Modular
OS Disk: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16GB
Storage Disks: 6 x Western Digital Red 6TB WD60EFRX
OS: FreeNAS

This is an upgrade from a Synology DS413 with 4 x 3TB Hitachi in RAID5. There's a big jump in cost from a 4-bay Synology to one that takes 6 drives, so I build the above for AU$850 without disks.

The case is a little cramped and is pretty bad for cable management, but I knew that before I purchased it. It's only marginally bigger in volume than the Synology DS413.

0NqpCbK.jpg


xAHNVP0.jpg


xA4PIRO.jpg


4zoeKKt.jpg


BygiRmD.jpg
 
m0po said:
The parts for my new NAS finally came this week and it's all successfully passed burn-in.

Raw storage - 36TB (6 x 6TB raidz2)
Actual storage - 21.8TB

Case: Fractal Design Node 304
Motherboard: ASRock E3C224D2I
CPU: Intel Core i3-4160
RAM: Kingston KVR13E9K2/16I
PSU: Corsair CX600M Modular
OS Disk: SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16GB
Storage Disks: 6 x Western Digital Red 6TB WD60EFRX
OS: FreeNAS
Click to expand...

Hey M0PO, how are the network transfer speeds in and out of it?
I am chasing to see what FreeNAS can really do with RAIDZ2 read/write wise.
 
I only have gigabit so it saturates it, however a speedtest on the box gave me ~550mb/s read and ~350mb/s write.
 
RabbiX said:
Those Ucoustic racks look to have incredible sound reduction. 28dB vs 18dB from the Netshelter and it is incredible how much of a difference that 18dB makes, so I can only imagine how good the Ucoustics are.

I honestly did consider them (and a few others), but in the end I went with the Netshelter for a couple reasons.

1. I have installed numerous APC racks for projects all over the world so I was already very familiar with what to expect.

2. Cable management. One of the things I have always liked about APC is the extra space dedicated in the racks for cable management, and their large selection of dedicated cable management accessories and PDUs that easily integrate with their racks.

In the end I guess I went with what I was more familiar with. Even though I had never seen a Netshelter "CX" in person before (places I worked at could care less about the sound of the equipment), I did know exactly what I was going to be getting as far as accessories went. The cost was still hard for me to swallow, but I'm still glad I made the purchase.

Honestly the only thing I regret about my equipment is the model of hard drives I purchased for the SAN. If only I could go back in time and correct that mistake. Granted I loved the hard drives when I used to run them in a RAID-10, but after space constraints demanded I switch to RAID-6 I now hate them. I calculate it at about $13k to correct that mistake though...so just going to live with it.
Click to expand...


Well look what I scored off craigs list for $1000 :)



A 24 U netshelter CX! Its old as it still says kell systems instead of APC (APC appears to have acquired them).

Its only 24U but that is enough for all my equipment that is on 24/7. Hopefully I avoided the scattered shit near my washing machine that was to the left :) as I was trying to avoid my mess from getting in the picture :)

Its sitting in my garage for now. I am currently in the process for getting a loan for a new house and may be moving in a few months so I think I will just wait until I get the new house (if that happens) rather than try to install and use immediately.

RabbiX it was thanks to you that I decided the 18 DB reduction was probably acceptable especially if it ends up in my master closet behind closed doors.
 
Last edited:
houkouonchi said:
Well look what I scored off craigs list for $1000 :)



A 24 U netshelter CX! Its old as it still says kell systems instead of APC (APC appears to have acquired them).

Its only 24U but that is enough for all my equipment that is on 24/7. Hopefully I avoided the scattered shit near my washing machine that was to the left :) as I was trying to avoid my mess from getting in the picture :)

Its sitting in my garage for now. I am currently in the process for getting a loan for a new house and may be moving in a few months so I think I will just wait until I get the new house (if that happens) rather than try to install and use immediately.

RabbiX it was thanks to you that I decided the 18 DB reduction was probably acceptable especially if it ends up in my master closet behind closed doors.
Click to expand...

I looked at the same one. Remembered the little scratch mark on the picture. But decided I did not want to make the 2 hour drive to santa monica. I am interested in finding one of these or building something similar
 
aznattic said:
Could be wrong but I spy a GTR in the background :)
Click to expand...

Not wrong, surprised you can tell from just the partial at the angle :p Other than computers/storage cars are my other money sucker :)


halfelite said:
I looked at the same one. Remembered the little scratch mark on the picture. But decided I did not want to make the 2 hour drive to santa monica. I am interested in finding one of these or building something similar
Click to expand...

Well I am glad you left it for me :) Indeed its the same one as I bought it from the guy in Santa Monica. For me it was a 1.5 hour drive due to traffic (1 hour drive if no traffic).

His asking price was too much at $1500 (full rack ucoustics have sold out of state for that) so I offered $1000. I think it was worth my time and renting the uhaul van to go pick it up (which was about another $130 in rental fees + gas). No freaking way it would fit in any of my cars.
 
houkouonchi said:
Not wrong, surprised you can tell from just the partial at the angle :p Other than computers/storage cars are my other money sucker :)




Well I am glad you left it for me :) Indeed its the same one as I bought it from the guy in Santa Monica. For me it was a 1.5 hour drive due to traffic (1 hour drive if no traffic).

His asking price was too much at $1500 (full rack ucoustics have sold out of state for that) so I offered $1000. I think it was worth my time and renting the uhaul van to go pick it up (which was about another $130 in rental fees + gas). No freaking way it would fit in any of my cars.
Click to expand...

cheers for getting a del on nethselter cx, $1000 is prety good price.

I would took it, If I were you.

Do not forget to grab mechanical diagrams from APC, which help you to enjoy your netshelter CX.
 
halfelite said:
I looked at the same one. Remembered the little scratch mark on the picture. But decided I did not want to make the 2 hour drive to santa monica. I am interested in finding one of these or building something similar[
Click to expand...

you can build it with less $$$, but not nice as netshelter CX,

as long as you got tools and time. the best candidate could be old long-depth telcom rack (hard to find) , or 19-24U server rack( can be get on craiglist..

you can buy sound damper from ebay..

try to look on mechanical diagrams of netshelter CX, you will get and Idea, since you just follow netshelter CX air intake ( from bottom to the side and merge to the front) including power distribution (get some APC PDU from ebay for less $$$ vertically).
pay attention on fans and exhaust air flow direction. get something 120mm supermicro pwn fan and PWM controller fan. or if you are in love on arduino; you can make automatic fan controller that based on temperature (front, back, ambient, and other sensors).

making one is very possible.
making nice finish is possible but not easy(for me).


^^^
those are just my experience..
 
m0po said:
The case is a little cramped and is pretty bad for cable management, but I knew that before I purchased it. It's only marginally bigger in volume than the Synology DS413.
Click to expand...

I would suggest you get some sata connectors and some 16AWG wire and build your own sata power cables, it would help cut down on clutter. Helped a lot in my PC-D8000 and in such a small space it should be a big improvement for your 304.

wfiaeFq.jpg
 
cantalup said:
you can build it with less $$$, but not nice as netshelter CX,

as long as you got tools and time. the best candidate could be old long-depth telcom rack (hard to find) , or 19-24U server rack( can be get on craiglist..

you can buy sound damper from ebay..

try to look on mechanical diagrams of netshelter CX, you will get and Idea, since you just follow netshelter CX air intake ( from bottom to the side and merge to the front) including power distribution (get some APC PDU from ebay for less $$$ vertically).
pay attention on fans and exhaust air flow direction. get something 120mm supermicro pwn fan and PWM controller fan. or if you are in love on arduino; you can make automatic fan controller that based on temperature (front, back, ambient, and other sensors).

making one is very possible.
making nice finish is possible but not easy(for me).


^^^
those are just my experience..
Click to expand...

Thanks for that information. Making the nice wood finish is the easy part. I have a friend that makes custom cabinets so I will have him make the finish parts. Its the guts and inside that I would have to do.
 
Dephcon said:
I would suggest you get some sata connectors and some 16AWG wire and build your own sata power cables, it would help cut down on clutter. Helped a lot in my PC-D8000 and in such a small space it should be a big improvement for your 304.

wfiaeFq.jpg
Click to expand...

wicked nice setup, I have the same case sans the sata backplate, did you get them somewhere for a good deal?

Everywhere I found they cost an arm and a leg.
 
Preview of what's to come...
sP1020914.jpg


Still waiting on a few drives to show up. But 72TB, 1u, <200w 2012r2 storage spaces.

Yes the pics are self hosted but 6 years later the old ones are still up in the last showoff thread.
 
1U? Nice! Should be quiet too I think.

storage spaces has shit write speeds, fyi. IIRC no matter what it writes at the speed of a single disk.
 
Jaxon said:
What 1U enclosure are you using? I'm intrigued....
Click to expand...

I am also curious.

I deployed a bunch of fat-twin supermicro's that will take 8x3.5 inch hot-swap disks per 1u but each chassis is 4u (with 4 machines).

I have never seen a 1u server stand-alone that can take 8x3.5 inch disks... well atleast not hot-swap.
 
The chassis is fairly quiet but it's hard to tell with all the other servers. Write speeds will be fine, there are multiple SSD's being used for cache. It's a Supermicro chassis, will wait on posting specs till I take some pics.
 
For the love of GOD!!!!! Thats a lot of storage for some of you guys. While I am just about tro purchase my 1st 1TB drive...:D
 
low96hb said:
For the love of GOD!!!!! Thats a lot of storage for some of you guys. While I am just about tro purchase my 1st 1TB drive...:D
Click to expand...
Seriously?:eek: This isn't oftOCP, brah!
You may as well turn in your [H] card in and get banned for that infraction!:D:D:D
Ban him, ban him, ban him!:cool:
 
houkouonchi said:
Well look what I scored off craigs list for $1000 :)

http://box.houkouonchi.jp//IMG_0555.JPG

A 24 U netshelter CX! Its old as it still says kell systems instead of APC (APC appears to have acquired them).

Its only 24U but that is enough for all my equipment that is on 24/7. Hopefully I avoided the scattered shit near my washing machine that was to the left :) as I was trying to avoid my mess from getting in the picture :)

Its sitting in my garage for now. I am currently in the process for getting a loan for a new house and may be moving in a few months so I think I will just wait until I get the new house (if that happens) rather than try to install and use immediately.

RabbiX it was thanks to you that I decided the 18 DB reduction was probably acceptable especially if it ends up in my master closet behind closed doors.
Click to expand...

NICE! What a great find and awesome price!

I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine. I love the 24U design as well with the wood top. I wish all my stuff would have fit in that size since I technically like it better, but I really wanted a shelf to put misc stuff on so I had to upsize.

If you have any questions about things let me know.

I will say that when I originally built my storage servers, I was trying to make them as quiet as possible (fans with the minimum CFM to cool the internals). Unfortunately, they did not have enough airflow once I moved them to the new cabinet. I ended up replacing most of the fans with some 120/80mm units that were twice as loud and moved twice as much air. The great thing was with this rack, you couldn't even tell the sound difference with the doors closed. Although I should clarify that the main issue was the Areca Raid card which already run hot as hell...overall the internal temps dropped like 30c with the change so the ~$100 n fans was worth it.

3x Delta AFB1212HHE-F00 120mm
2x EVERCOOL EC-8038 Series FAN-EC8038H12BA 80mm

If your supermicro cases are bare bones servers then they probably already came with high CFM fans which I'm sure are fine. If you just bought a chassis and installed everything yourself, something to consider if you think its necessary.

Not trying to scare you since it does vent the air great, but if you are coming from an open rack and already have active cooling on it like I did, just something to think about since there was a slight increase in temps.
 
Last edited:
Here is my rig, small compared to most of you guys -



Picture was taken a couple months ago, 2 more disks were added to fill the 2nd RAID card..

Running Windows Server 2012 R2 (One of only a couple Windows machines left in my network, iSCSI features and storage spaces are really nice)

21TB Raw

AMD FX 6300 @ 3.5GHz
8 GB DDR3
3x WD Green 3TB
6x WD Green 2TB
1x Samsung 120GB OS Drive

It lives here in my basement rack -



Posting more pics of the rack in the Network Pics Thread if you're interested.
 
Wow - awesome cabinet!!! I'm blessed to be able to house all my gear in my mechanical room with a solid core wood door - keeps the wife from killing me. If I didn't have that option, then this cabinet would be so the way to go.

Thanks for the info.


RabbiX said:
Not far off, but not quite that bad either.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816225171

Spent a full year saving up for it....and I would still buy it again if given the choice. It has ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made for my aural sanity. Granted if you do not have to share the same space with your ridiculously loud equipment there would be no point, but the cabinet is about 3ft from my head in the office (which both me and the wife share). The previous few years of that 80dB fan whine was starting to drive me bat shit crazy. You basically could not even have a conversation in the room with someone without yelling at all times it was so loud (The networking equipment is the worst).

If it helps put it in some kind of perspective, each storage node cost more to build at the time than the single cabinet. Given the topic of this thread, and all the equipment porn being shown off here, I'm honestly surprised the price of a mere cabinet is even considered. For instance, one of the systems I see on display easily looks to have $20k+ in just hard drives :). Hell I've installed many SANs at work over the years and a single one of the smaller 24 drive units cost more money than every thing in my entire rack combined (including the cabinet).

All that said...I freaking love my cabinet :D
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top