Help me stop my foolish file serving ways

E

EGOvoruhk

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 20, 2009
Messages
178
So my current "server" is basically a Windows 7 PC that grew out of control. It's just a regular old motherboard (GA-EP35-DS4) and CPU (E3200) in a Rocketfish case with some 5in3 adapters. I had a few HDDs in there (ST31500341AS) because they were on sale, and then they kept going on sale, so I kept buying more and more, and I ended up with 16 of them

Because I kept slowing adding them in, I didn't plan ahead, so I had to buy some POS controllers, so I've got 4 SiI3132 controllers, and one SiI3112. Not the greatest, I know, but they were cheap, and like I said, it wasn't planned beforehand. Plus I'm just using the machine to serve files to a few other machines, so it's not getting much stress. The machine is also not set up in RAID, at all. I keep everything backed up via some lame software called Allway Sync. Each drive has a "backup" drive, which the software would back everything up to. It's all 1:1. I kind of liked it, because I could either pull the main drive, or the backup drive, and access it from a different terminal because it wasn't part of some array

Anyway, what I'd like to do now, is plan ahead for my new server. Here are some of my ideas. Please feel free to call me out on my idiocy/lunacy:



Motherboard: Dual slot Supermicro (w/IPMI). I won't use the second slot right off the bat, but it'll be nice to have in the future. Especially if I use virtual machines, which I plan to

Controller card: Either LSI 1068E or LSI 2008 based. Supermicro has boards with them embedded, which would save me a few dollars. Still deciding on which of the two chipsets to go with. I would also most likely be using an HP SAS Expander with it. I don't know how I want to set everything up. I was thinking JBOD, because I do like being able to pull a drive (for whatever reason)

Operating system: Windows Server 2008 R2, with a WHS Vail VM. Second choice being ESXi. Most likely it'll be 2008 though, because I use it a lot for work

Case: Norco RPC-4224. It's not out yet, but it should be within a few weeks. I don't mind waiting. I do plan on being able to expand past the 24 drives, and maybe using a second RPC-4224, which I would use to keep all the backup drives in, should anything happen to the main case/system

Another idea I was mulling over, was building two identical systems (one a backup), but keeping them physically seperated, and using the network to back one up to the other. I'm not really set in any direction, other than the one that gets rid of my current server

Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks in advance :cool:
 
I'm in a pretty similar position, though my desktop/"server" is only up to 12 drives. I planned ahead a little and bought a Supermicro SAT2-MV8 (I have PCI-X) but didn't know about SAS expanders at the time or I'd have gone that way. Newegg shipped my new desktop today, so it's time for the old system to become a dedicated server.

I've got a Tyan motherboard with 2x dual core Opterons, 8GB of ram, 2 PCI-X slots and 4 PCIe x16 slots to work with. I have a feeling that's enough expansion to last me a while. I've got a couple of cmstacker cases, which I'll keep around until they're full, then I'll switch to the 4224.

My plan, which I'm currently testing, uses ESXi, WHS Vail, and Linux. Based on what I've read about DE in Vail, I don't like how it works without duplication on, and I just can't duplicate my entire video library. I'm using Linux to do Raid 6, making the raid an iscsi target, and connecting to that from Vail. I can expand the Raid array as much as I want, then start a new array when 3tb drives are available and expand that. I know ZFS is popular around here, but its inability to expand a stripe set or remove drives from the pool is a deal breaker for me. Linux lets me manipulate each stripe set however I want, and Vail lets me add and remove stripe sets whenever I need to.

I'll probably start out with a Raid 6 of 8x 2tb drives, and 2 Raid 1s, one of 1tb drives and one of 1.5tb drives. Even with the Raid 1 sets in the pool, I'm losing 6.5TB to redundancy for 14.5TB of total capacity, which is a lot better than I'd do by turning on duplication on an 8TB and growing video library.

I considered using Hyper-V, and I have a 2008r2 license, but I feel like that would lead to more frequent reboots of the entire system and I don't want that. I won't be able to fully test ESXi until the weekend, since the Tyan board is powering my desktop until Thursday (Hurry up, UPS man!), but if it works then that will be my first choice.
 
Bump

Still looking for some advice from some people who have been doing this for a while and know what they're talking about :D
 
I have been file serving for over 15 years at home and at work. Have not lost a byte yet. The first step I would do is get rid of the windows os for the file serving. Use linux, freebsd or opensolaris. Next step would be to simplify the hardware. No need for a raid card on a non microsoft operating system. Next is to obtain a dual core (i3 or AMD) desktop machine with 4 to 8GB of ram and at least 8 onboard sata ports. Also obtain as many 2TB drives as your storage need dictates. No need to worry about TLER. That problem does not happen on software raid under linux, freebsd ... Next is to come up with a backup strategy. Remember no level of RAID is a backup. So if any of your data is irreplaceable you need to backup that. At work for me this means a multi drive LTO autochanger and using bacula for backups of all windows and linux systems. At home this would not be a good solution because of the cost. A better solution would be using external hard drives, or a second raid ( possibly on a second machine) for backups.
 
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No need to learn a new OS either:rolleyes:

Heres what i have been doing.

I have a 2008R2 with a VAIL hyper-v VM.
I use an Areca 1680x +HP SAS expander and 8x Hitachi 2TB drives in RAID6.
I pass this volume through to my VAIL vm.
This works very well for me.

Now i dont need the RAID card, but i decided to go this route beacuse i didnt not want to buy enough drives to duplicate 10TB of data, and opted for RAID6 instead and i leave folder duplication turned off.

So you could grab a Supermicro SASLP-MV8 (pcie) and an HP SAS expander and just pass through the single drives without raid. This will also allow you to add new drives of a larger size as they become available.

You could create a second WHS VM to backup your other WHS with the other drives or add them all and enable duplication, or make a second box and put them in RAID or a whs to backup the main WHS-Vail.

Options are kind of endless. Really it depends on 1) how many physical boxes do you want? 2) How much do you want to spend?
 
nitrobass24 said:
You could create a second WHS VM to backup your other WHS with the other drives or add them all and enable duplication, or make a second box and put them in RAID or a whs to backup the main WHS-Vail.
Click to expand...

How does duplication work in WHS?

Can I have each drive duplicate to another single drive? Basically letting me be able to either pull the main drive, or the backup, and access the data on another system?

nitrobass24 said:
Options are kind of endless. Really it depends on 1) how many physical boxes do you want? 2) How much do you want to spend?
Click to expand...

I would ideally like 2 physically separate systems, IF I could the drives set up the way I want them, and to backup the way I want them
 
EGOvoruhk ---

I think that drescherjm gave good advice.

I suspect most of your "data" is the usual junk - audio, video stuff. Backup is simple. Keep a mirror of the drive you are filling up around. When it is full, remove and store the mirror and buy another pair of drives to fill up. No need for a RAID of any type.

I suspect you don't need a lot of bandwidth. No need for RAID.

But unless you give performance numbers, anything we suggest will be wrong.
 
EGOvoruhk said:
I had a few HDDs in there (ST31500341AS) because they were on sale, and then they kept going on sale, so I kept buying more and more, and I ended up with 16 of them
:
Click to expand...

Basiclly - the best advice I can give you is to get stop buying those drives, the reason they are on sale is probably due to their high error rate (not even mentioning their faulty firmware in the beginning, but it's likely not the issue these days)

had a raid with 2 of these drives, and both got ruined at the same day (after a year i'm using them), only then when I starting googling for a fix, i've seen all the warning signs not to use these drives.

my original post was here :
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1531473&highlight=dead+drives
 
GeorgeHR said:
I suspect most of your "data" is the usual junk - audio, video stuff. Backup is simple. Keep a mirror of the drive you are filling up around. When it is full, remove and store the mirror and buy another pair of drives to fill up. No need for a RAID of any type.

I suspect you don't need a lot of bandwidth. No need for RAID.

But unless you give performance numbers, anything we suggest will be wrong.
Click to expand...

Correct, it's just audio, video, and personal data. I don't need the speed of RAID. At most, the server will be getting hit by 3 computers at a time

Nir said:
Basiclly - the best advice I can give you is to get stop buying those drives
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't plan on it. I'm going to upgrade them all to 2TB (or larger) drives once the new server is up
 
Okay, I just ordered the case (RPC-4224), and it should be here in a few days. Now for a motherboard...

I was actually looking at a Supermicro X8DTH-6F. It's dual 1366, which I won't use right away, but it'll be nice to have when (IF!?) the time comes. It's only $100-$200 more than the board I first was looking at (X8ST3-F, and the X8DT3-F), but has an onboard 6Gbps chipset (LSISAS2008) and 7 PCIe slots. I'm going to combined it with an HP SAS Expander

Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?
 
i love my norco 4020.... wish it had the SAS ports as the bunch of sata port are lame to deal with...

but this case is going to last me a long time....

i went with AMD 785g chipset Gigabyte Ultra Durable, solid caps and such.... with 3 PCIe 16x slots.... and 8 internal sata... and it was less than $100

and since AMD CPUs support ECC memory I have 4gb of ECC DDR2 in there...

add the supermicro mv8s and i have the ability to add a lot of storage for fairly cheap.


I recently added a X4 CPU something like a 840 or something for extra performance with vail and remote streaming.....

anyways....

good luck and have fun.... dont skimp on the PSU or your OS drive...


i was running single WD green 1TB and 500gb drives for OS and after 3 failures in 2 years I now have 2 RE3 320gb drives in RAID 1 for my OS.


oh and get a good UPS
 
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