Help me finalize my upcoming file server. Ridiculous storage inside

C

CanadianBacon221

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 22, 2001
Messages
1,455
I'm looking to build a file storage server for my home needs, primarily backups of other computers (I've got a few), primary storage for movies and other large files, archival purposes for valuable files, and also handling torrenting, xvid encoding, and other long-duration/ongoing tasks that require a fair amount of storage. A separate system from my primary machines is important due to the amount of storage I'll be needing from it, and the intention to continue adding space in the future

I'm hoping to finalize some of my choices here and get some input/feedback from those in-the-know on the parts I'm working with and possibly get some suggestions on alternatives if it's something I should be considering. I don't have an unlimited budget which is why I cut costs where I feel comfortable, and the drives are a big point of contention for me. See the questions section.

That being said, here's my current chosen configuration, with notes on why I chose the parts:
  • Case - Lian Li PC-6077B - $121.50
    The case design is great, and offers me the minimum 6 5.25" bays I need to house two of the quad-HDD enclosures and is a decent size. You may notice that this wouldn't leave space for the DVD-RW (the FDD isn't really a usable 5.25" space apparently), which I'm hoping I can remedy. See the questions section down below.
  • Power Supply - Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-380 - $62.00
    If you use the 2a per 7200RPM drive formula, I'll be pulling ~16A for 8 HDD's. There are two 12v rails each with a max of 16A on them, so to be safe I'll be giving each set of 4 drives it's own rail. Plenty of power for what I need.
  • Motherboard - ABIT NF8 - $85.00
    This system won't be playing games or breaking any performance records so it's quite sufficient. I chose this motherboard over the others in the guide for the onboard gigabit ethernet and onboard firewire for fast data transfers to my external drive.
  • Processor - AMD Sempron 2600+ - $72.00
    Quite adequate for encoding some xvid or other misc tasks. Since this won't be seeing many other uses, time isn't of utmost importance with encoding tasks so I probably won't be looking for anything much more powerful.
  • Videocard - Sapphire Radeon 7000 - $25.00
    It's cheap.
  • RAM - From my drawer - $FREE
    Nothing special, I've got a 512MB stick of Corsair PC2700 (or 3200 I forget) laying around that'll find a happy home in this system.
  • DVD-RW - NEC 3520A - $44.99
    This will be used for DVD ripping and burning, also allowing me to store secondary backups for mission-critical data on dual layer media in a separate location.
  • HDD Controller - Broadcom BC4852D - $365.00
    It supports everything I want and more, including 8 max drives, hotswap, online array expansion and rebuilding, and automatic detection of failed drives. BEAUTIFUL. Having to do this all online isn't absolutely mission-critical, however it's quite the added benefit I'll enjoy.
  • HDD Enclosure - I-Star BPU-340SATA - $125.00
    Took me a fair amount of time to search around and decide on these since I had no reference point or other recommendations, but these look to suit my needs quite well. I get 4 hot swappable drives in 3 5.25" bays, HDD activity lights (this I like because I'm a nerd and I love watching file server disk lights blinking away), and also a temperature alarm. Added benefit of good airflow around the drives without depending on a ton of miniscule fans. I was originally looking at individual bay slots, however these beat them by far on cost and space, and have great features to boot.
  • HDD Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 300GB (OEM) - $167.00
    I chose the 300GB model as opposed to the 400GB model due to the $300 price difference when you're counting a total of 3 drives to begin with. I'll be ramping up the number of drives as my budget and capacity needs dictate. The cost/GB is reasonable on these units, and the storage capacity is top-notch. I'm not too concerned with incredible performance or low noise here since this'll be running in my basement, so I'm always open to other drive recommendations. 5-year warranty is an absolute must since I'm investing a fair amount of money and want to trust my data with companies that trust their own hardware.

    I can get a better price-storage ratio and a good price savings overall if I drop to the super-cheap 250GB unit, however I'm concerned with the long-term outlook. I'd like to continue using the same model and capacity drives in the future, and 50GB isn't much for one drive, but that adds up to 350GB lost per 50GB over an 8-drive array.
Total initial investment with 1HDD Enclosure & 3 HDD's: 1401.49

Specific Questions:
  • Case - It has 6 usable 5.25" bays, including one that contains a cover for a standard CD-ROM, but the fixed floppy spot actually takes up a possible 5.25" bay. Does anyone know if it's possible to pry/cut/tear this out and use it as a standard 5.25" bay? The necessary side mounts are there, I'm just hoping I can get that fixed floppy drive outtatheway.

    Here's a picture:
    11-112-044-13.jpg


    Otherwise, I'll simply stick the DVD-RW into another machine and share it out to this one for when I need it.
  • HDD - They are just something I whipped up but by no means the best cost/GB I'm sure. Are there any other SATA 5-year warranty drives that'll offer me the best price-storage ratio with high capacity?
  • HDD Also - Is there a consensus of running a bum drive for the OS and having the array on it's own or is it better to put the OS on the array?
  • HDD Controller - I couldn't find a max capacity anywhere for this. Are there even limitations on what drive sizes and total array sizes I can have on this, or is the sky the limit?

I'm posting this for general feedback/suggestions. If you've got a recommendation on something better, or even just an alternative for anything I could consider, by all means post about it. I feel more comfortable about my purchases the more informed I am and this'll be a fair amount of money to invest on bum hardware.
 
Problem: You're going to have to mod the PSU to put drives on both rails. The way they are wired up, all of the molexs are on one rail, and the ATX/P4/PCI-E connector are on the other.
Otherwise the setup looks pretty good to me
I would definitly suggest running the OS on another small drive rather than on the array itself.
 
Vertigo Acid said:
Problem: You're going to have to mod the PSU to put drives on both rails. The way they are wired up, all of the molexs are on one rail, and the ATX/P4/PCI-E connector are on the other.
Otherwise the setup looks pretty good to me
I would definitly suggest running the OS on another small drive rather than on the array itself.
Click to expand...

Shit, good catch! I was assuming that there were molexs on both rails but that's quite the bummer to hear. I could search for other PSU's, however the price gets up there once you start looking at PSU's with 19A rails. Do you have any recommendations?
 
I dunno, I'd go with a bigger PSU just to be on the safe side. Check the PSU sticky in the psu forum. With that many drives it wouldn't be advisable to to run it off even a good 380watter, unless it's a zippy/emacs :). I run mine in a coolermaster 201 with an oldschool elan vital 600wt (2 x 300watt redundant) psu I got for free out of a 4u server i picked up. I have a spare module for it, too so it should last me a while longer. I do not fear for the power/life of drives on that front.

On my ghetto fileserver (no fancy card, just a maxtor133 + onboard, all pata) I run a 40gb seagate seperately as a boot drive. I use a small partition on it to back up my 10gb or so of personal files, pictures + docs. I also burn them to DVD regularly.

I have long fantasized about using a drive cage/hot swap, etc adapter but can't afford it. That in raid 5 with seagate drives should be mad sexy. From the pictres it looks like you could bend the internal floppy adapter bit down flat.

Maybe you could just go with a slightly bigger case?
 
Can you put a PCI-X card in a normal PCI slot? I know absolutely nothing about them and have been wondering this for a long time. I am building something very similar to your fileserver in the near future for the same thing.
 
br0k3nman said:
I dunno, I'd go with a bigger PSU just to be on the safe side. Check the PSU sticky in the psu forum. With that many drives it wouldn't be advisable to to run it off even a good 380watter, unless it's a zippy/emacs :).

Maybe you could just go with a slightly bigger case?
Click to expand...
I calculated the power draw, and it's quite sufficient in total amperage, but as stated above, it turns out that there aren't molexes on both 12v rails so I'm going to have to search out a power supply that has two usable rails or hack up a new power supply.

I'm a veteran to case modding, so breaking out a dremel isn't something I'd flinch at. I'd rather go with a smaller case and make some modifications than grab something massive. I considered the Thermaltake Armor but I'll probably only bail for that or the Lian-Li PC-7077B if I can't get my way with the 6066B.

jmanlp said:
Can you put a PCI-X card in a normal PCI slot? I know absolutely nothing about them and have been wondering this for a long time. I am building something very similar to your fileserver in the near future for the same thing.
Click to expand...
Many PCI-X cards are compatable, however I'm not sure if it's most or not because I believe some have different power draws. I know not all are, but this particular card is.



Vertigo: Where can I find information on these supplies that tells me what's on each rail? I can look up stats and see separate 12v rails for many power supplies and their amperage and whatnot, but no specific information or pictures as to what's on them.

I'd consider the TruPowerII 480, but I don't know where to find out what's on each rail.
 
CanadianBacon221 said:
Vertigo: Where can I find information on these supplies that tells me what's on each rail? I can look up stats and see separate 12v rails for many power supplies and their amperage and whatnot, but no specific information or pictures as to what's on them.

I'd consider the TruPowerII 480, but I don't know where to find out what's on each rail.
Click to expand...
AFAIK, all dual-rail PSUs are wired like I described. You're best bet is to stay away from the very newest PSU designs and look for an ATX1.3 or EPS12V with a single +12v rail. My suggestion would be either a single rail Enermax or a Vantec Stealth. Enermaxes traditionally have a very strong +12v rail, I used to run a 300w way back and it was a great supply for the time, just not big enough for my needs now. Same with the Vantec Stealth, but I ditched it because of noise. It powered my dualie + 6 drives and asked for more, but with three fans, none of which are quiet, it was too loud for my tastes... so I went with another loud supply, Turbo Cool 510 EX :p
 
Vertigo Acid said:
AFAIK, all dual-rail PSUs are wired like I described. You're best bet is to stay away from the very newest PSU designs and look for an ATX1.3 or EPS12V with a single +12v rail. My suggestion would be either a single rail Enermax or a Vantec Stealth. Enermaxes traditionally have a very strong +12v rail, I used to run a 300w way back and it was a great supply for the time, just not big enough for my needs now. Same with the Vantec Stealth, but I ditched it because of noise. It powered my dualie + 6 drives and asked for more, but with three fans, none of which are quiet, it was too loud for my tastes... so I went with another loud supply, Turbo Cool 510 EX :p
Click to expand...

That's pretty bad news. I don't know what the point of splitting the amperage equally between two rails is if one rail is going to go largely unused!

I'll keep looking into it ... but a big thanks for the heads up and recommendations!
 
Well, in the modern, non-file server system, the +12v rail is getting hit pretty hard by both the graphics card and the CPU, together easily drawing 100w+ of +12v power themselves ;)
 
If I were you, I'd look at this SuperMicro server case for $397+shipping. It has 8 hot swap SATA bays built in and a 645watt PS that I'm sure is capable of powering 8 HD's plus a beefy CPU/MB combo.

It's about $35 cheaper than your case/drive bay/ps combo. The black version costs a few $ more.

The 'bad news' here is that the PS has a 24 pin ATX power connector, not a 20 pin. A converter cable for $5 fixes that.

If you wanted to go with a server MB with a native 24 pin connector, the SuperMicro P4SCI would be a decent solution, as it has builtin video and PCI-X slots so you'd be able to use the full bandwidth of the RAID card. It also has 2 gigabit Intel NIC's(one on the CSA bus, the other is PCI). A celeron CPU would be a good cheap alternative to the Sempron.

HDD Controller - I couldn't find a max capacity anywhere for this. Are there even limitations on what drive sizes and total array sizes I can have on this, or is the sky the limit?
Click to expand...

There is a 2tb limit on array size. If you want to have a drive show up in Windows larger than 2tb, I think you have to concatenate them in disk management. It's not very recommended to do this either.

If you did regular RAID 5 across 8 300gb drives, that would give you 2100gb, which would put you right at this limit, if not a little over.

8 of those 300gb drives right now is $1360, while the 250gb version of the same drive comes out to $1008 for 8 drives($126 per). You'll be paying an extra $44 per drive for the extra 50gb. If you went with 8x250gb in RAID 5 you'd end up with 1.75tb.

While the 300gb is not the most cost effective here, it's really up to you if the extra 50gb is worth $44 per drive.
 
alrox said:
The 'bad news' here is that the PS has a 24 pin ATX power connector, not a 20 pin. A converter cable for $5 fixes that.
Click to expand...
No need for that cable; the extra 4 pins can just hang over the edge, provided there is the 1/2" around the connector on the motherboard. JohnnyGuru did some testing over in the PSU forum and found that there was a measurable effect from the added contact resistance of those convertor cables ;)

That case is indeed a beefy solution :eek:
 
If you don't quite have the money for that Supermicro, I LOVE my CM Stacker: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119039

I've got 11 hard drives running in it (8x seagate 200gb PATA, for data storage, 3x IBM 18.2gb SCSI drives running a RAID1 with one backup drive, for system backup as the drives are rather old with no warranty), and it keeps them all cool. It's a great case, has WHEELS! which make it so much easier to move, and is extremely well designed.

I've currently got an Antec True430 in it, running those drives + a tyan thunder 2500 EATX mobo + 2x P3 1ghz + 3ware 7500-8 + Intel gigabit network card + 2gb ECC SDRAM and it doesn't break a sweat.

Also, if you've got power problems in your area, I'd recommend a UPS too. I'm using a Belkin F6C-900-UNV ($70 at Belkin.com with coupon code 12345, max wattage to handle is 540w) and so far it's handled everything. With over 1TB used on my 1.4tb array, I really, really don't want to lose any data due to power outages.
 
Are you sure you want to spend $250 on a hot swap enclosure? You are not going to be pulling drives out on a daily basis in a RAID 5 (hopefully not even on a monthly :) )

As for the 8 x 300 thing... maybe you want to run 7 in a RAID 5 with 1 as a hot spare. This would let you achieve a 1.8TB with a hot spare (so it will rebuild the array if you are not home).

BTW, we use those iStar enlcosures at work... very nice construction... trays are very nice and go in straight.

Edit: Agree with above. Get a UPS... don't want your computer going down while there is 64MB of data sitting in your drive buffers :)
 
Thanks for the input guys, you've been a great help. Now onto business ..

That Supermicro case is absolutely fabulous, although it's incredibly HUGE, but that's to be expected for a case that doubles as a 4U rackmount! With 46A on the 12v rail, I wouldn't have to worry myself about power for quite some time!

The motherboard I linked takes the 24-pin power, so no problems there.

I did my homework on the controller card, and learned that it DOES indeed support arrays above 2TB, so it's a worthwhile investment for the future, even if Windows XP won't play nice with disks that size at the moment.

Here's an AWESOME read on SATA SCSI: http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/557/

And yes, I won't be neglecting a UPS, I never run a system without one.
 
Another advantage of the Stacker is the second PSU bay. Putting the hard drives on a seperate PSU solves a number of potential power issues.
 
Zamboni said:
Another advantage of the Stacker is the second PSU bay. Putting the hard drives on a seperate PSU solves a number of potential power issues.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm reconsidering the true need to set aside 16A for the HDD's alone. It's a general concept but I don't think it really applies since that 16A is maximum draw if they all start at once.

With mpeg4v3 saying he's got 11 drives on an Antec 430W, and the fact that my controller supports staggered spin-up, I'll probably just get a 480 and stop worrying about it.

edit: additionally, I think I'm going to ditch the hotswap enclosures and instead stick with the 300GB drives, since it seemed like one or the other to me. I'll probably do what alrox said and use the 8th as a hot spare.
 
You may want to look at these hot-swap enclosures instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121405
Supermicro 5-in-3. Allows 5 drives in 3 bays instead of 4. Also cheaper than the one you had spec'ed (not as pretty though). The fan also seems to be easily replaceable in case it dies or if you want something quieter.

If you're comfortable with Linux you may want to ditch the RAID controller and instead use Linux software RAID. That's what I've been using for many years on my server (currently an amalgam of drives in RAID 5 and RAID 1 tied together with lvm) and I've never had any problems - replaced many drives over the years and software RAID rebuilds the array in the background; l haven't tried hotswapping though since I'm running PATA. It also reduces the points of failure (if your RAID controller dies you are out of luck until you can replace it, unless you keep a spare around, which is expensive - with software RAID you just need to have a regular old SATA card around, which is cheap).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top