home server - mid specced

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CountZukula

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Sep 11, 2009
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First off: there's a lot of threads and info to be found on the internet regarding NAS / general servers but as it almost never really matches what I need I'd thought to create a seperate thread for it. All parts needed will be purchased new on as low a budget as possible.

The plan: build a server containing a raid-5 array, expandable towards the future, as cheap and energy efficient as possible. It will mostly be used as a file server running OpenSolaris (ZFS) but needs to be able to run a webserver / mailserver / database / ... on a small scale (home development or small personal sites, nothing enormous). It's not the plan to make into an entertainment system of some sort, so graphics / audio processing power can be disregarded.

So far I've been looking at a 775 proc / mobo with 6+ SATA connectors and 1gbitE onboard. For the drives themselves I was thinking of the WD Green series. As far as the case goes, a cheap coolermaster caught my eye, enough bays to host 6 disks and space for 2 fans (front, back). Are there parts (mobo / proc / case) widely regarded as the optimal solution for this setup? Are the parts I was thinking of somewhat in the correct direction? Any suggestions regarding the setup (software / disk management / ...)?

thanks
 
are u planing on using zfs to create software raidz? you should probably be aware that there is no way to expand the size of the array, best you can do is create 2nd array and add it to the pool.
 
Ah, didn't know that. I read about ZFS and was sold on its transactional aspect. Could be I still opt to use it. I'd use software raid anyhow so that doesn't change anything regarding the hardware.

Also: could be that I add some disks outside of the raid array, for files where redundancy does not matter.
 
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checkout unraid or zraid or WHS for what you are looking for.

I would get a cheap low power AMD X2 with a 780 or 740g chipset motherboard and be done with it.

makes for a great low power machine
 
I run a similar setup with 6 disks. Intel DG43NB, Celeron E1400 and 2GB of cheap DDR2. I run Debian and Xen on top of it with software RAID5. Couldn't be happier. ZFS was somewhat compelling, but I didn't want to give up expansion, which I've used several times.

If you're wanting to go with OpenSolaris I'd go with an Intel chipset board, and not one of the newest, for best support. No matter what you use, make sure you get a board that can be set to AHCI mode. Also use an Intel NIC, either onboard (reason for my choice of an Intel mobo) or add a PCIe 1x one. Other than that it doesn't really matter. Don't overspend on CPU, go for something low power, even the el-cheapo Celerons or even an Atom are fast enough to do software RAID5 at GbE speeds.
 
axan said:
are u planing on using zfs to create software raidz? you should probably be aware that there is no way to expand the size of the array, best you can do is create 2nd array and add it to the pool.
Click to expand...

There are a couple ways to expand, actually. As you suggest, if you're using 6 disks in raidz (I'd suggest raidz2 instead) then you can add another 6 disks in another vdev, and end up with a pool twice as big easily. Or if you don't want to end up with a larger number of disks, you can buy 5TB drives when they become available, replace the disks in the pool one at a time with the larger ones, then export and re-import the pool (or reboot). It'll recognize the larger capacity on import.

The capability that's missing is to take a pool composed of a 6-disk raidz{,2,3} vdev and turn it into a pool composed of a 7-disk vdev. This is planned as part of the "bp rewrite" capability, which has been in the works for a few months now. That capability will also add the ability to remove a device from a pool and shrink vdevs.

ECC memory is strongly recommended, and K10 AMD chips generally come up because of the advanced power saving states they allow. I'm personally running my ZFS machine on an Intel S3210SHLC, 4GB of ECC DDR2 (cheaper than you'd think), a Q6600 and an LSI SAS controller with a Norco 4220 for the case and 6 1TB 7K1000.Bs. I'm planning to add a SAS expander and plug in more disks at some point; this will let me add more 6-disk raidz2 vdevs to my pool and expand capacity beyond my current 4TB.
 
I knew that you can replace all drives in raidz with larger ones to increase size, but it's nice to see they are working on the ability to add/remove disks from raidz sets. Lack of oce is what turned me away from zfs when I was design my file server.
 
Maybe expanding by replacing a disk is all I'll ever need. Also: maybe they'll have implemented the expansion capability when I finally need it. A small example i'm not too sure about: 4 disks of 1TB in raidz, one vdev. I want to replace one with a 2TB disk, make a 1TB partition on there and add that one to the vdev as the replacement. Can I still utilize the remaining 1TB as a stand-alone partition?

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I'm sure they'll help a lot. So far I'll be focussing on an older intel board for opensolaris compatibility, 6 sata connectors onboard and the suggested ECC memory. Will check out the suggested processors / mobo now.
 
CountZukula said:
Thanks for the suggestions so far, I'm sure they'll help a lot. So far I'll be focussing on an older intel board for opensolaris compatibility, 6 sata connectors onboard and the suggested ECC memory. Will check out the suggested processors / mobo now.
Click to expand...

You can't just use ECC memory, many (most?) boards won't support it and won't boot with it installed. As far as I know only the server/workstation chipsets will work if you want ECC. If that's your goal, something like the SuperMicro X7SBL-LN2 or -LN1 is probably suitable.
 
CountZukula said:
4 disks of 1TB in raidz, one vdev. I want to replace one with a 2TB disk, make a 1TB partition on there and add that one to the vdev as the replacement. Can I still utilize the remaining 1TB as a stand-alone partition?
Click to expand...
You *can*, but it's not recommended for performance reasons. For example, if you did the same thing for all four disks and made two raidz vdevs out of it, performance would suck on both vdevs whenever both were busy.
CountZukula said:
Thanks for the suggestions so far, I'm sure they'll help a lot. So far I'll be focussing on an older intel board for opensolaris compatibility, 6 sata connectors onboard and the suggested ECC memory. Will check out the suggested processors / mobo now.
Click to expand...
As keenan points out, look for a board that supports it. I have an Intel 3210SHLC, which supports ECC, and I'm happy with it.
 
Just noticed the S3210SHLC would be around 200 euros, which can hardly called budget anymore :). Then again, didn't really expect anything else for a server motherboard.

edit: some cheap alternatives I found, any thoughts?

mobo: Foxconn G31MX-K for +- 50 euros
cpu: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 for +- 60 euros

more expensive (20-40 euro extra) alternative motherboards, do these have any additional value over the foxconn g31 considering the fact that the server does not need to be extremely powerful and opensolaris will be run? (forget the server-specific memory :))

Asus P5QL PRO
Asus P5Ql-E
Gigabyte GA-P43es3g
 
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