Need some advice for my first server

[Jomanscool2]

Thinking of upgrading my gaming rig and concurrently moving 'old' parts into a multipurpose server/fileserver.

Parts I will be scraping from old rig:

EVGA 680i Motherboard
Intel e8400 processor
Hopefully getting my friends 6600gt otherwise I will likely use one of the two 8800GTS512's
(6600gt would save power + smaller + cooler)
8GB of DDR2

I would like to use the Norco 4020 case, as that thing is quite beastly, unless anyone cares to convince me otherwise.

I will need to acquire a Slim DVD drive, hard drives, PSU, and other small things.

However, what I am concerned about mostly is the SATA controller card(s). Obviously, I want to get the best performance while keeping cost down. I've seen the Areca cards, and while they seem absurdly amazing, I'm not convinced I want to drop that kind of money on a card.

I would like to use Raid 5 (or maybe raid 6) with decent performance. I doubt I will be able to fill 20 bays immediately, maybe 10 Seagate 1.5TB drives initially, then 10 2TB drives once the prices drop and I fill the 12TB or so formatted. If I keep it in two installments of hard drives, I would be able to keep it in two volumes, and wouldn't have to be bothered with expanding an existing raid.

If I did two installments of 8 drives, I could use two 8 port cards (or one 16 port card if it can handle two separate RAIDs), and I'd just have 4 on an additional 4 port card in raid 5 or on the 680i's build in controller (but that, I fear, will be painfully slow with raid 5).

From the Storage Showoff thread, I have found this Highpoint 16port Controller, which seems nice. Not sure about what the performance will be like.

This will be used for a home server, as well as at lans for a fileserver/gameserver (well see how the performance is). Will also be using it at school to host legally acquired data, like ubuntu distro's, of course

Would love some more suggestions on cards. If I was confident dropping $1300 just for the raid controller, I'd have this and this.

Just want to get all your opinions on this server. I am hoping it will last me many years.

Edit: Friend is building a similar system and is likely to just use standalone drives with no data redundancy. That is always an option, and a cheap option, but I don't think I want to risk losing 1.5TB of data all in one go.

 

[sdkoskey]

You might consider the Adaptec RAID cards too. You can get the 51645 for around $800 on e-bay. It supports SATA and SAS drives in case you want to upgrade your drives later. Also keep in mind that they'll use pcie x16 slots. Since this is a server, consider bypassing a video card all together and running your video from the built in video port on the mb. You're not going to be gaming with your server so you really don't need much performance for video.
Definitely get a RAID card though. The load off your CPU with a good RAID card is definitely worth the money.
Good luck

 

[voodoochild461]

Looks good. All of the video cards you mentioned are overkill, not sure what you're going to do with 10TB of hard drive, but more power to ya. RAID 5 at least if you're dealing with that much data.

That Norco 4020 would be great as long as you have something to put it in.
Otherwise any case with decent cooling would do fine.

What OS are you going to run?

 

[Jomanscool2]

You might consider the Adaptec RAID cards too. You can get the 51645 for around $800 on e-bay. It supports SATA and SAS drives in case you want to upgrade your drives later. Also keep in mind that they'll use pcie x16 slots. Since this is a server, consider bypassing a video card all together and running your video from the built in video port on the mb. You're not going to be gaming with your server so you really don't need much performance for video.
Definitely get a RAID card though. The load off your CPU with a good RAID card is definitely worth the money.
Good luck

Re: video cards. The 680i has no built in video, hence why I was trying to get a 6600gt for free from a friend.

The 680i has 3x pcie16 slot (1 is 8x electrical), so I should be good to go. Seems most RAID cards of higher calibers are pcie8x.

Looks good. All of the video cards you mentioned are overkill, not sure what you're going to do with 10TB of hard drive, but more power to ya. RAID 5 at least if you're dealing with that much data.

That Norco 4020 would be great as long as you have something to put it in.
Otherwise any case with decent cooling would do fine.

What OS are you going to run?

You can always have more storage space /evilchuckle. But seriously, video fills that stuff up fast. Storage space for tons of data and maybe network backups for 2+ systems.

I actually don't have anything to put the 4020 in for a while - using it as an underbed system because that is where I have room. Feel free to slam me on that. I have thought about using a different case. Probably because I don't actually need that many drives. Also it is large.

I really liked the fact that it is a server case, and therefore it is likely to be much more 'bulletproof', and the fact that I'd be able to continue expanding drives with it far into the future. Also the fact that I can do all the cable management beforehand. Only downside is that I'd be stuck to SATA, but it doesn't seem that sata will be changing too soon, so this will provide me continued expansion.

Regarding OSes.. I was probably going to use Vista/7 64bit.

I had previously used a LianLi V2100b, so I know large cases. I unfortunately cut that case to shreds to put in a watercooling system, only to learn that watercooling systems are an utter pain in the f'in a. Too bad, because I could have just used that case for this (it fit like 12HD's + 7 5.25" slots).

Suprizingly, this case is smaller than the LL, 430mm x 650mm x 176mm vs 210 x 620 x 590mm. In terms of volume, by quite a bit.

Don't have much rackmounted equipment in this house, although I have setup multiple racks.

 

[sdkoskey]

Re: video cards. The 680i has no built in video, hence why I was trying to get a 6600gt for free from a friend.

The 680i has 3x pcie16 slot (1 is 8x electrical), so I should be good to go. Seems most RAID cards of higher calibers are pcie8x.

I guess I should have looked up the specs for your motherboard before talking huh?

I've got a Sapphire HD 2400 Pro I'll sell ya for $20 shipped.

I was quoting the Adaptec cards because I put a 3805 in my server a couple weeks ago. I've only got 3 500gb drives in a RAID 5 array right now but the RAID card made a TON of difference in processing speed. I've got a Q6600 with 8GB of RAM and the server really scoots now.