• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Storage Server (10+ hdds) Recommendations

B

basic6

n00b
Joined
Aug 28, 2011
Messages
7
I'm looking for a storage server that can fit 10 SATA drives. Does not have to be new.

I've found a few servers on Ebay, like this HP Proliant DL180 G5:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Proliant...104503?pt=COMP_EN_Servers&hash=item53f4213cb7

But I'm trying to find out if this server hardware can do what a cheap home user RAID enclosure does and it seems there are some problems. Apparently this server won't recognize 3 TB or 4 TB drives, so it wouldn't work for me.

Also, I've heard that many storage servers have a vendor lock-in that forces one to use onboard hardware RAID and prevents direct access to the drives (JBOD). In this case, the documentation says "HP Embedded SATA RAID Controller (integrated into the south bridge) supporting SW RAID 0,1" (page 4) and I'm wondering if "supporting RAID 0, 1" means "preventing direct access". I'd be using ZFS for data protection, so the operating system should see the drives individually (I don't want hardware RAID).
http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=c04286566

I'm wondering if there are used (affordable) servers that aren't too old to support 4 TB drives and don't prevent drive access (without hw RAID)?

Could I remove such a hw RAID vendor lock-in and/or enable 4 TB support?

Are there other obvious issues? Maybe someone has installed a similar server (for home use as well) and can share some ideas.



(I'm looking for an actual server rather than an external (multi-bay) SATA enclosure with port multiplier because I've had enough bad experiences with one (one drive fails -> all drives in the box, including the 4 working drives have read/write errors and appear to be bad). I would hope that there are other enclosures with port multipliers that keep working even when one drive fails. Anyway, I'm not looking for a SATA port multiplier.)
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
What are your performance requirements?

What software do you plan running on it?

Just curious, have you considered using a SAS epander at all? SAS expanders are much more reliable that SATA port multipliers. They also don't just mark all drives as bad, each drive is uniquely identified. Going that route may be much cheaper for you.

As far as using the DL180G5, you could not utilize the factory RAID card with a SAS HBA like the M1015 flashed to IT mode. You would need the proper cables to go from the M1015 to the built in SAS backplane, but they aren't hard to find at all.

Also, that server you linked is stupid expensive for no reason. Go with this one.
 
Last edited:
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I personally just bought one of THESE without a RAID card in it.

I'll be using multiple drives from 2TB-4TB, and just now need to research what card to use that keeps it affordable.

If you go with one of those, I made an offer (a bit low) that he counteroffered with $250. So you might be able to make an offer and save a few bucks.

EDIT: I'll be installing either Server 2008 on it, or just straight up Win7 if it'll run it, and then using SnapRAID or something similar to run the drives.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
A Supermicro system sounds right for you. We use SuperMicro 36 bay 4U rack mount servers running Server 2012 R2 for mass storage and are extremely happy with them. Supermicro does not have any vendor locking on their drives or any other hardware component.
 
I don't have specific performance requirements. Stability/reliability (like in the case of a single disk failure) is more important than performance. It doesn't have to be datacenter-like fast.

My initial plan was Debian with ZFSonLinux, but I'm thinking of changing this plan in favor of FreeBSD because its ZFS implementation is in the kernel and it's somewhat more robust. But if FreeBSD happens to have driver issues, I'll go with Debian/Linux.

Some time ago, I have actually bought a Supermicro SAS HBA PCIe x4 (AOC-SASLP-MV8), which (together with 2 SAS/SATA fanout cables) allows me to connect 8 SATA drives. Works nicely (even hotswap).
There's this Intel Expander Card (RES2SV240) I've heard about, which apparently has 6 ports (rather than 2 like the Supermicro one). Maybe this would work. But what cables would I need then? Do I need SAS (SFF-8087) connector cables from the card to the backplane?

I really like that Supermicro 16Bay Server X7DBE. Jeffman, it would be interesting what kind of storage card you get for this thing.
If I buy this server and the Intel card I mentioned (plus a few cables), I should be fine, right (even 4 TB drives should work)?

GMcDonnell, if Supermicro servers have no vendor lock, I should definitely buy Supermicro (not the HP).
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I am eying THIS card right now, which from what I've read HERE says that if you upgrade it to firmware/BIOS version 5.2.0 Build 17335 (or later), it'll work with 4TB drives. Plus it'll let you fill all 16 bays in the server, and it's $100 cheaper than the Intel card you linked. It even comes with all the cables. My next part to look into is if it'll work as an HBA and pass the drives through to the OS, as I don't want to run a hardware RAID, I want to run SnapRAID.

I think that's the one I'll end up purchasing. He has multiples, in case you go that route.

The guy selling that server has a few to pick from, one is around $400 and has a RAID card in it already, and one is about $30 cheaper, but comes with one processor instead of two, and one power supply instead of a 2nd for redundancy.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Bummer, from what I've read that Adaptec card is RAID only, and will not pass through.

Time to keep digging.
 
Well, guess I'll go with something like an IBM M1015 or an LSI 9240-8i. It seems it'll do what I want, and pass the drives through to the OS as individual drives.

LOTS to consider here. LOL!
 
Not that I would need it (I think), but the LSI LSI00244 (9201-16i) is a SAS HBA PCIe x8 (not x4) and it has no hardware RAID, just JBOD and has some good reviews (on Newegg) from people using it for ZFS on FreeBSD. But with $370 it's also pretty expensive.

The M1015 looks nice but I keep reading that people flash other firmware on it. How come? Don't these cards work out of the box? Wouldn't other firmware introduce stability issues?
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
basic6 said:
The M1015 looks nice but I keep reading that people flash other firmware on it. How come? Don't these cards work out of the box? Wouldn't other firmware introduce stability issues?
Click to expand...
People typically flash to the IT firmware to make it a pure HBA, removing any RAID functionality, which is recommended but not strictly required for ZFS. I have multiple M1015 running in different Ubuntu servers with ZoL, without any issues.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
zrav, well I don't need hardware RAID functionality either, but why remove this functionality if you don't have to use it? I would expect the operating system to see all the drives individually (JBOD) as long as I don't use/configure hardware RAID. Can you confirm this, do you see all your drives normally (as if they were attached directly) on your Ubuntu servers (rather than having to use RAID0 arrays or something)?
 
The idea is to remove unneeded software layers between the disk and the OS if the feature is unneeded, possibly increasing reliability and/or performance. But AFAIK there hasn't been hard evidence supporting this for the LSISAS2008 controller. Yes, it supports setting drives to JBOD mode even with the IR firmware. Beware that not every LSI controller supports JBOD mode!
 
I ended up with two of THESE, that I got on a best offer of $95 each. I went for these ones because they are in the USA and I can get them quicker than something in China or Hong Kong.

All in all, about $500 (A bit over that after breakout cables, like $525 total) for a 16 bay hot sway server with 2 quad core Xeons, 16GB of ECC DDR2, and all the parts needed to run it. Just need to buy some breakout cables and I'm done.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Just to chime in: With the LSI2008 in my workstation I bothered with flashing IT mode and wiping the BIOS primarily to speed up boot times. I can always flash back if my needs change.
 
I'm looking at the the HP DL180 G5 again. GMcDonnell said that Supermicro has no vendor locks (as opposed to HP). But together with 2 LSI MegaRAID 9240-8i, 4 TB drives should be working fine (in JBOD mode).

Except that it's a PCIe x8 card and, according to documentation, the server has 2 "PCI-Express x8 connector slots (x4 electrical - Standard)".
I'm wondering if performance would be extremely bad?
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Performance would be fine if you used the low profile slot (8x) for 8 drives and 1 full height (4x) slot for 4 drives.

Don't know if that's possible or not, you would need specs on the backplane; assuming it is direct wired not an expander.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top