Project: Galaxy 4.75

Ockie

*** Self Proclaimed Storage King ***
Joined
Mar 2, 2005
Messages
18,003
The time has commeth.


Please refer to the previous galaxy projects found here

Galaxy 5.0: (reached 25tb)
dsc06481rg9.jpg


Galaxy 4.5: (reached 16tb)
dsc06153tn6.jpg


Galaxy 4.0: (reached 12tb)
dsc05664bg7.jpg


Galaxy 3.0: (reached 9tb)
dsc045104ia.jpg


Galaxy 2.5: (Reached 5.19tb)
dsc038402vr.jpg


Galaxy 2.0: (reached 3.5tb)
dsc034803md.jpg


Galaxy 1.0: (System on far left) (Reached 2tb)
dsc028889vr.jpg




What determines the name of the project?
Good question. If a system experiences drastic physical changes, such as case, motherboard, or entire configuration, then it's a new x.0 level. If the system recieves minor changes/upgrades or just a drive configuration update, then it's a x.5 level update. Smaller upgrades are not counted for. If it's a backup system, it will be designated with a .25 (ex, 4.75 is a backup server)


The goals of galaxy 4.75:

- To increase overall storage capacity (duh)
- To keep backups of Galaxy 5.0
- To increase functionality
- To make it silent
- To make it CHEAP



This build will be very similar to Galaxy 2.0 in that it will feature a tower case using CalPC drive adapters for cost and effectiveness. The overall design of this system will be for the purpose of cost and backup space.


I realized that I do not have any archive backups of any of the pervious galaxy systems, this makes me nervous, I would at least like to store some of the important files on two locations. This Galaxy 4.75 will not give me a mirror storage solution, but it will backup most of my critical files and protect me from array failures. I am also in an interesting situation as I need to recreate Galaxy 5.0's array, so I do need this extra dump space.


This is the build parts:

Supermicro H8SSL-I Single Socket Motherboard
Supermicro IPMI Remote lights out management
AMD Opteron 146 Processor with silent fan heatsink configuration
Adaptec 16 Port Raid 5 SATA AAR-21610SA Controller PCI-X
4 x Wintec 512MB ECC REG DDR Memory (total of 2GB Ram)
Microsoft Windows 2003 Server X64
Antec Twelve Hundred Case
PC&P 750w Silencer Power Supply
CalPC 5 in 3 Hard Drive High Density Drive Cooling Units
1 x 1TB SATA Hard Drive (System) May perhaps look at small SSD for kicks
20 x Western Digital 400GB SATA Hard Drives


Expected price goal (buying everything), under $1,000 USD. Lofty goal with the system drive, but this is what I'll aim for.

Completed total Storage: 9tb


This is a picture of the case. I like the functionality, I like the blackness of the case and the fact that I got it for so cheap... not to mention I can mount 20 drives without having to relocate the power button! Yay! Price will be the biggest objective here.

P5170009.jpg

Special thanks goes to trugbilddrachen for this picture.
 
For $1000 - what parts do you already have and what are you buying?

Also, in terms of 'cheap' what do you expect your power consumption to be with 20x400gb instead of somthing like 10xt1tb?

Edit: p.s. Did you ever calculate the cost per month of running Galaxy 5.0? :eek:
 
[LYL]Homer;1032727466 said:
For $1000 - what parts do you already have and what are you buying?

Also, in terms of 'cheap' what do you expect your power consumption to be with 20x400gb instead of somthing like 10xt1tb?

Edit: p.s. Did you ever calculate the cost per month of running Galaxy 5.0? :eek:

I'm buying everything for this project. I don't have anything that I can use towards this project.

I'm not too worried about power consumption as this will be a very little powered rig to begin with (only needs to be online for archiving).

I never worked out the cost of 5.0, I only got price shocked by the electric bill... all I know is that more than trippled with 5.0 and my main rig running.
 
Ok, but are you on crack? ;) 9tb for $1000?

You probably hate me for adding up an approx cost for Galaxy 5.0 in the other thread, but here's what I'm coming up for 4.75 (some of this can probably be gotten second hand for cheap, but still...):

$106 Supermicro H8SSL-I Single Socket Motherboard
??? Supermicro IPMI Remote lights out management
$79 AMD Opteron 146 Processor with silent fan heatsink configuration
$299 (nice!) Adaptec 16 Port Raid 5 SATA AAR-21610SA Controller PCI-X
$100 4 x Wintec 512MB ECC REG DDR Memory (total of 2GB Ram)
$699 Microsoft Windows 2003 Server X64
$173 Antec Twelve Hundred Case
$140 PC&P 750w Silencer Power Supply
??? CalPC 5 in 3 Hard Drive High Density Drive Cooling Units
$170 1 x 1TB SATA Hard Drive (System) May perhaps look at small SSD for kicks
$1100 20 x Western Digital 400GB SATA Hard Drives
===========
$2866

Are you going for being low bidder on ebay for all this? :D

edit: Not trying to rain on the parade here, but If I can do 9tb for $1000 I want to know how!
 
[LYL]Homer;1032727591 said:
Ok, but are you on crack? ;) 9tb for $1000?

You probably hate me for adding up an approx cost for Galaxy 5.0 in the other thread, but here's what I'm coming up for 4.75 (some of this can probably be gotten second hand for cheap, but still...):

$106 Supermicro H8SSL-I Single Socket Motherboard
??? Supermicro IPMI Remote lights out management
$79 AMD Opteron 146 Processor with silent fan heatsink configuration
$299 (nice!) Adaptec 16 Port Raid 5 SATA AAR-21610SA Controller PCI-X
$100 4 x Wintec 512MB ECC REG DDR Memory (total of 2GB Ram)
$699 Microsoft Windows 2003 Server X64
$173 Antec Twelve Hundred Case
$140 PC&P 750w Silencer Power Supply
??? CalPC 5 in 3 Hard Drive High Density Drive Cooling Units
$170 1 x 1TB SATA Hard Drive (System) May perhaps look at small SSD for kicks
$1100 20 x Western Digital 400GB SATA Hard Drives
===========
$2866

Are you going for being low bidder on ebay for all this? :D

edit: Not trying to rain on the parade here, but If I can do 9tb for $1000 I want to know how!



$150 Supermicro H8SSL-I Single Socket Motherboard (bundle) (ebay store)
AMD Opteron 146 Processor with silent fan heatsink configuration (ebay store)
4 x Wintec 512MB ECC REG DDR Memory (total of 2GB Ram) (ebay store)
$109 Adaptec 16 Port Raid 5 SATA AAR-21610SA Controller PCI-X (ebay store)
$149 Antec Twelve Hundred Case (microcenter)
$0 PC&P 750w Silencer Power Supply (friend donation for fixing their computer)
$400 iStarUSA 5 in 3 SATA Hot swap units (directron)
$700 20 x Western Digital 400GB SATA Hard Drives (hardforum sale)

$1,508
Current prices for me by doing some hardcore shopping. I'm working on making the prices lower could have saved 100 bucks by using a stacker instead from cooler master (refurb or wait for rebate).
 
Damn Ockie.

Why do you need so much storage bro? You got a torrent site or something running? Dayum dude.
 
Why do you need so much storage bro? You got a torrent site or something running? Dayum dude.

IIRC, he does backup clients' PCs on the server so he can always restore them just in case their setup goes kaput.

@ Ockie
You know I was trying to beat your setup by buying mostly new parts but I simply couldn't. Couldn't find a cheaper setup than that $150 CPU, mobo, and RAM bundle that included PCI-X.

Also, that's a 16Port controller. Will you be putting in the 4 extra drives in another RAID setup using the motherboad's onboard RAID? Or are you doing a giant JBOD? Or am I completely off base? :)
 
Aww, no more hardware RAID. I want to see the next project more...the replacement for system #5. I forget the brand, but there is a 5U rackmount case with 48 hot-swap bays (top loading) out there. Add a couple of internal drives and you could hit 50TB! Your electricity bill is probably as bad as mine too. 7 systems running 24/7 (one of which is a 21 drive server).
 
@ Ockie
You know I was trying to beat your setup by buying mostly new parts but I simply couldn't. Couldn't find a cheaper setup than that $150 CPU, mobo, and RAM bundle that included PCI-X.

Yeah, it's hard to get anything new with PCIX for a budget.

Also, that's a 16Port controller. Will you be putting in the 4 extra drives in another RAID setup using the motherboad's onboard RAID? Or are you doing a giant JBOD? Or am I completely off base? :)

I'm still out on the jury about this. I want to do raid 5, but since this is a backup, I'm inclined to create two raid 0 arrays to maximize space.... on the other hand, true JBOD sounds like an alternative.

I think most likley what will happen is that I will create a raid 5 array with the 16 drives and then create a raid 0 array of the 4 extra drives.

Aww, no more hardware RAID. I want to see the next project more...the replacement for system #5. I forget the brand, but there is a 5U rackmount case with 48 hot-swap bays (top loading) out there. Add a couple of internal drives and you could hit 50TB! Your electricity bill is probably as bad as mine too. 7 systems running 24/7 (one of which is a 21 drive server).

Yes, it's hardware raid.

Yes, that case, I've had that case in sight for 3 years now, it used to be in the price range I was willing to spend, but when businesses started going this route for storage they gouged the price on it. The current price for that case is $5,000 alone. I am waiting for the price to either drop or someone to come out with a competitor.
 
Yes, it's hardware raid.
Having taken a second look at eBay, I guess I overlooked the two RAM chips above the processor. Definitely hard to beat that price for a 16 port controller even if it weren't hardware RAID. I guess performance won't be anywhere near what the 1280ML you have is, but that's not what this project is for. (I finally got mine...just have to sell my 1130ML now :D)

Yes, that case, I've had that case in sight for 3 years now, it used to be in the price range I was willing to spend, but when businesses started going this route for storage they gouged the price on it. The current price for that case is $5,000 alone. I am waiting for the price to either drop or someone to come out with a competitor.
Yeah, when I looked it up, it cost a ridiculous amount. If it were more in the range of $1500, it would be far more reasonable. I still find it hard to justify the cost of the Supermicro case you bought, but then again, I have a far more limited budget.
 
@Blue Fox, I was looking at the things you had for sale, but I had a hard time justifying it :) The mobo and processor is a good deal though, if I had only seen that earlier.

Just scored a Quad 750 PC&Powercooling PSU for free, woot. Gotta love friends who appreciates you building their new rig for them and helping them and giving you thier spare 750 quad :D

Project cost now down to $1,368 :D
 
Out of curiosity, why the 1TB system drive? Seems like you could save some money by going with a 500 that runs around $70 and not really give up much if any functionality.
 
Out of curiosity, why the 1TB system drive? Seems like you could save some money by going with a 500 that runs around $70 and not really give up much if any functionality.


That is why it's still up in the air. I may ditch it and go with a small drive, I may decide to fit in more than 1 and make it fit... I don't know yet... i haven't even opened the twelve hundred case yet... once I do, i will see how i can make it work.

if it is a 1tb drive, it would be just for bulk storage
 
PSU Arrived, free of charge, awesome. Had to do some serious cleaning, but looks good.
dsc00119ir2.jpg


Antec Twelve Hundred
dsc00120qx7.jpg


dsc00121zn9.jpg


dsc00122fs2.jpg


dsc00123xc3.jpg


I'm a huge fan of the top power buttons vs the stacker situation which used a bay for the power buttons.
dsc00124mz2.jpg


All black :D Oh yeah
dsc00125yk5.jpg


Great cable management opportunity
dsc00126en6.jpg


Case stripped, I think I may mod this PSU so that all the wires are custom... I'm not sure if I can work with that many extra wires and being so short on molex plugs.
dsc00127lq9.jpg


dsc00128bx8.jpg


Extras removed
dsc00129ja7.jpg
 
I just use an 80gb drive to boot the server. Don't really need much more since everything is going on one of the two RAID arrays. As for the case, I personally am not a big fan of it (then again, I don't like the Stacker or Lian-Li's similar offering either). Looks good however...though the PSU does stand out a bit. A bit off topic, but how much did going from 256mb to 2gb on the 1280ML help performance wise? What about the BBU for writes?
 
I just use an 80gb drive to boot the server. Don't really need much more since everything is going on one of the two RAID arrays. As for the case, I personally am not a big fan of it (then again, I don't like the Stacker or Lian-Li's similar offering either). Looks good however...though the PSU does stand out a bit. A bit off topic, but how much did going from 256mb to 2gb on the 1280ML help performance wise? What about the BBU for writes?

I would have loved to have a black 750 silencer, but who can argue with free stuff?

Well, right now I am leaving the boot drive options open until I can get those hard drive cages and motherboard in there. I need to figure out my options before I proceed. I think I could modify the case and fit at least 3 more drives in there, it would all be dependent on how far those hard drive units stick out this time. This case seems to be much better laid out than the stacker, but lacks surface space (ie, not box style, many designs).

The 256mb to the 2gb upgrade was more than just performance, it reduced the overall hard disk reads, so the raid controller was caching more and accessing the drives less, there was a big reduction on idling drive reads... which saves power, heat, and drive life.

The BBU unit before doesn't add performance, it adds an extra security blanket for the array in the event if the system lost power while performing a particular task.
 
Well, right now I am leaving the boot drive options open until I can get those hard drive cages and motherboard in there. I need to figure out my options before I proceed. I think I could modify the case and fit at least 3 more drives in there, it would all be dependent on how far those hard drive units stick out this time. This case seems to be much better laid out than the stacker, but lacks surface space (ie, not box style, many designs).
If you don't want to modify the case for the boot drive, I have seen adapters to mount a 2.5" drive in an expansion slot at the back. Where, I forget, but they are out there.
 
If you don't want to modify the case for the boot drive, I have seen adapters to mount a 2.5" drive in an expansion slot at the back. Where, I forget, but they are out there.

Yeah, they are made by sunbeam tech, I believe it's called the "wherever rack". They work great, but I'm thinking of smoothing up this server to 10tb to make it even, so I may need more space than that :)
 
Yeah, they are made by sunbeam tech, I believe it's called the "wherever rack". They work great, but I'm thinking of smoothing up this server to 10tb to make it even, so I may need more space than that :)
Close, but not quite. The one I thought of actually sits perpendicular to the motherboard like an expansion card. Though that would work too.
I think Blue Fox is talking about these, though I've only seen them for Mac, not for PC.
http://www.welovemacs.com/thdm020g.html
lovemacs_2006_305871617
That's not it. It doesn't draw power from a PCI bus (or connect to any for that matter). It just holds the drive in place, nothing more.
 
thanks for that link, ockie. Those mounts are cool and that internal usb to external usb thing would be useful also.
 
This?
http://atechfabrication.com/products/drive_mounting_kits.htm

I'm quite interested now, that looks really really neat.
That would be it. Now I remember that website after looking at their HTPC case selection. I've considered it myself to maximize usable space for 3.5" drives. With the Antec case you bought, the drive should still be fine without any active cooling as it sits right by the side fan (not that it puts off much heat to begin with).
 
I think mr ockie is going to look for a 2.5" drive and buy that bracket, that is beautiful.
 
I presume since cost is important, you'll be picking up a SATA drive and not SAS. Just going to get the smallest 7200rpm 2.5" drive you can find? Too bad you can't buy OEM velociraptors from WD without the heatsink.
 
good God, another one?!

;) sweet....gonna have to clone a galaxy later on for my own back ups =P
 
You have to look for a drive? Just go get a velociraptor, you know you want to! ;)
 
I went with a 100gb laptop drive and a slot bracket adapter for it.

Now, one last piece to the puzzel.... drive mounting units. I called CalPC and it turns out that they have increased their prices for the drive mounting units I originally bought for $30 or so a pop, they now want $50 a pop + shipping.

With that kinda price, I might just as well go for the gold and get hot swaps... but that would push the project cost up $200 more than using those fixed drive units. One the one hand, it's great to have the hot swaps (you also get sata cables with them, lol) but on the other hand, it's a lot of money for the upgrade for a backup rig.

What do you guys think?
 
That sux that they raised their price. I guess if you really want to fuzz out on cheapness you could go for 4 in 3's.
 
That sux that they raised their price. I guess if you really want to fuzz out on cheapness you could go for 4 in 3's.

I bought 20 drives, gotta use them all ;)

I have some 3 in 2's laying around, hot swap too, but Id need to buy a few more, which would not only be less drive count, but also more expensive than 5 in 3's
 
Damn. Only $50 more than the Antec 1200 + CalPC 5in3 bays. And you get hotswap capability. Only issue is where the hell are you going to put that thing?:)

Shit now I want one for myself.
 
Damn. Only $50 more than the Antec 1200 + CalPC 5in3 bays. And you get hotswap capability. Only issue is where the hell are you going to put that thing?:)

Shit now I want one for myself.

I have a 72u cabinet rack, just waiting to be full of servers!!

I know, I was thinking about ordering one!!
 
http://www.servercase.com/miva/miva...ode=SC&Product_Code=BR2U19&Category_Code=Acce


Some cheap internal 5in3 adapters. Pretty basic functionality, not even a fan, but you could probably jury rig one if need be.

Considering you can get 3 or 4 of them for the price of 1 5in3 hotswap bay, it seems like the way to go to keep under budget.

Yeah, I am not a big fan of those

I was looking for cheap solutions for rackmount servers, and God, this case is great for the price: 20 3.5hds with hot swap for $300!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219021
http://www.norcotek.com/RPC4020.php


Oh what the fusk! They finally came out with them. Sigh... right when I buy the new stuff.... great.

Now where did I leave that credit card at..... :D This thing is godly cheap.


Pics coming up in the next post.
 
Anyone notice this in the specs?
Something tells me someone just babelfished the translation :rolleyes:

Norco was never good at translations :) But thier products are fairly solid.



Anyways, some updates:

Installed the Power Supply and cleaned up the cables
Installed the motherboard + mem + cpu + HSF
Installed a pair of 4" cold cathodes for added image (hey, I was bored)

All I am waiting for now is the raid card, drives, hot swaps to arrive and we are golden.

dsc00134dz4.jpg


dsc00139ag8.jpg


dsc00141bt8.jpg


dsc00142dx2.jpg


dsc00143ap0.jpg
 
Back
Top