Project: Big Bang V1 (warning 56k)

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wardour

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Sep 30, 2008
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Project: Big Bang V1

I am building what will become my new home media server. I have an old opty 146 running ubuntu with 3tb attached to it (raid 5 software) (6x wd7500's). I am migrating the drives to the new case / h/w raid.

Right now the box is pretty loud, and located in our bedroom. The new server is gonna go in the closet and be as quiet as possible (while maintaining low temperature).

I have followed a lot of the storage threads around here for years, as well as the Media Server suggestions over at avs. My biggest concerns are being able to handle two HTPC's streaming at the same time in 1080p, and data being written as a pretty constant click. I see my storage needs expanding with time (I have 3tb filled now). But I think the size of hard drives will increase frequently enough for me to not need more than 20 drives. (heres wishful thinking).

So here is my solution. I am going to use silent fans throughout. I am mounting all of the drives on rubber insulator rings. I am running a low power CPU, with an easy O/C. I will be running 3 arrays. 2 will be joined as a "media volume". Any thoughts on performance hits with that approach? They will be raid 5 volumes.

I will use 4x of my older 320gb seagates as a Raid0+1(software) for the O/S / downloads.

All I need now are the 1.5tb drives I ordered on Thursday. I have my two spare 750gb drives mounted now, and I am considering trying to spread out the data on my 3tb software raid, so I can move those drives over, instead of waiting for the 1.5tb drives.

I plan to run ubuntu on it, and use KVM for any of my virtualization needs.

Specs / Part List:
  • E2180 OCed 3ghz
  • Asus P5N32-E SLI
  • Lian Li PC-V2000 Plus
  • 8gb OCZ PC-6400 Ram (Fatal1ty, found cheap on the bay)
  • 8 x 1.5TB Seagate drives
  • 8 x WD7500AAKS 750gb drives
  • 4x Seagate 7200.10 320gb drives
  • 2x Perc 5i raid controllers
  • 4x sas to sata cables
  • Samsung dvd burner
  • 5x S-Flex SFF21E fans
  • Rosewell 750watt PSU
  • 2x Lian Li EX-43 Bay converters
  • Thermalright HR-01 Plus

That about does it for current hardware. My upgrade plans, are to switch up to a faster quad core processor, and to switch the 750gb drives for 1.5tb's when money and time allow. The sheer data density you get with those new seagates is amazing.

I also decided to sleeve everything, since I had all the stuff. Figured it would make the build look nicer.

Pictures:

My old fileserver
IMG_1734.JPG


SAS cable before I sleeved them
IMG_1698.JPG


Post Sleeving
IMG_1716.JPG


Front With trial fit of bays (lots of pushing and cussing)
IMG_1699.JPG


Here are the raid cards in and hooked up (note: the battery backups are velcroed to the ceiling of the case)
IMG_1729.JPG


The drive cages are ready for drives
IMG_1732.JPG


Front minus racks
IMG_1731.JPG




My work area...
We moved since my last build and everything was packed up. So lots of digging ensued.
IMG_1720.JPG



Not gonna outpace ockie anytime soon, but I do have dual 8346's on the way. might go crazy, buy a board and some reg memory, and go 8 cores with this. Still not sure on that one.

Will update when the drives arrive. I am also shopping for a better PSU.
 
So yesterday I fired up the machine to just see how everything was running. Within 15 minutes those Raid cards actually caused my graphics card to overheat. Amazing, in 20 years of working around hardware, I have never had cards get that hot. Definitely going to need to fabricate a more elaborate cooling solution for them.

Also swapping out the graphics card for a silent solution tonight.

Just received an order of fans, and thermal epoxy, now to scrounge up some old heat sinks.
 
Man this thread isn't getting any love.

My 1.5tb drives just arrived, After I get those installed, I am gonna need to manufacture some sort of heat sink for the raid cards. So I will have pictures for that.

Guess not many fans for linux. Maybe an OSX server hackintosh is in order? Or do I need to build a case out of recycled patch panels and an aquarium? I get it, too vanilla.

Granted making a near silent 20 drive file server seems challenging to me, especially seeing that these percs put out HUGE amounts of heat. Anyone else cooling these cards successfully?
 
Actually, got a really good question. Anyone have any suggestions for watercooling the raid cards? Waterblock suggestions, etc. (I assume most of the heat is coming from the Intel IOP).
 
Not to detract from your work, but I think everyone is jaded with Ockie's massive builds around here. ;) Looking nice so far, keep up the good work! I've never personally seen anyone here watercool a raid card - could be a first!
 
I just got a tube of thermal epoxy, which I could use in conjunction, or just fabricate a mount. How hard is it to "undo" a thermal epoxy job? Any tricks to it, or is it pretty permanent?
 
Langer said:
For watercooling your RAID cards I'm goig to suggest you look ito the CoolerMaster Aquagate Duo.

I recently used bits of one to create a watercooled Pico-ITX board, and I was very impressed with how compact it was.
I'm certain that you could easily fabricate a couple of mounts in order to create a very small WC loop.
Click to expand...

Those are bad ass. I just ordered them, to give it a shot. The next question, is can I use it in conjunction with another circuit (basically ditch their radiator, reservoir), and buy a higher grade radiator / pump. I might as well cool the CPU. Granted, with all those hard drives, I am not going to be able to go fanless. Though those S-Flex fans are dead quiet.
 
I'll give you some Ubuntu lovin'

Nice work so far, I've been wanting to upgrade my fileserver for a bit, and even more so with all the server builds/re-builds going on here.

I think you should be more than fine with that setup to stream 2 simultaneous 1080p videos/content. I've done it on mine... and it's a software RAID on some cheesy CompUSSR branded IDE "RAID" card (*cough* Fake RAID *cough*) so software for me - Q6600, 4 GB, HP Branded ASUS G33 board.

:)
 
wardour said:
Those are bad ass. I just ordered them, to give it a shot. The next question, is can I use it in conjunction with another circuit (basically ditch their radiator, reservoir), and buy a higher grade radiator / pump. I might as well cool the CPU. Granted, with all those hard drives, I am not going to be able to go fanless. Though those S-Flex fans are dead quiet.
Click to expand...


You can loose the radiator, I did - replaced it with a 40mm tiny rad to go with the Pico.

You could use an extra pump, but for cooling the RAID cards it'd be overkill - one of the waterblocks (the one that I used in my Pico mod) is a waterblock/pump.

As for resevoire it's integrated into the rad, it's a rad/res combo thing.

The Aquagate loop is as follows:
"rad/res" combo unit ---> "waterblock/pump" combo unit ---> "waterblock" ---> repeat
 
I'll post some more pics tomorrow. I just got the new 1.5tb drives setup as raid5, running through LVM, and using XFS for the file system. Jumped through a few hoops optimizing it for my purposes. I found out something fairly startling as I started scping from my old file server to the new one (clearing off my 7x750gb linux raid so I can move it to hardware). The network card on my old AMD board is only putting out about 32MB/sec. Compared to the new server to my HTPC where I was able to transfer at around 80MB/sec.

My other plan was to use the dual nics, with one nic for HTPC A, and the other for HTPC B. Which would pretty much elevate the possibility for that to bottleneck me.

With a 40mm radiator, wouldn't I need to use a noisy 40mm fan? The case itself has a spot above the PSU for dual 80mm fans, but most 80mm fans are also noisy, as compared to 120's. Any suggestions?

I am really impressed with how quiet the 1.5tb drives are. The loudest drives in the rig ATM are the 320gb 7200.10's.

I am also slightly concerned about the performance issues with using LVM to effectively bind 2 h/w raid arrays. So I am probably just going to need to divide the data. Anyone have any experience working with multiple raid cards in linux as 1 volume?
 
wardour said:
With a 40mm radiator, wouldn't I need to use a noisy 40mm fan? The case itself has a spot above the PSU for dual 80mm fans, but most 80mm fans are also noisy, as compared to 120's. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Scythe Mini Kaze Ultra 40mm are actually silent. I'm using 9 of them in my PrometheusCU mod and I'm amazed at how quite they are. (Besides I'm also using 7 3000RPM 120mm Scythe Ultra Kaze fans... so I don't think 40mm fan noise should be a concern for me)

As for suggestions, I made a mistake earlier:
prometheus-picowc4.jpg

On the stock Aquagate rad the fans are only 70mm, and they are very very quiet.

I'm only pushing the Aquagate solution because you can pick one up off of ebay for <$50
 
When I get home tonight, the old file server data should all be migrated to the new rig (33MB/sec) and 3.6TB equates to quite a long wait. I currently have a fan pointed right at the raid cards, and thats keeping them cool enough for now.

Hopefully this built (20xhd's) will do me until I move someplace where I can go back to rackmount.

Does anyone have any recommendations for running power. The cables out of the PSU I have now are fairly awkward (distance / number / type ) of connectors. Right now I am just using splitters that go from molex to 2xsata.

I don't like that the PSU glows, so I might be looking for a different PSU (PC power and cooling, corsair). My criteria are Best usage of power (active PFC, low temperature, quiet), enough power to have no trouble with 20xdrives.

After that I start shopping for a UPS for the beast.
 
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