Weird idea for a fileserver

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[H]F Junkie
Joined
Mar 31, 2001
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What do you guys think?

The "stars" of this project.......low rpm for low heat. # of spindles should make up for low rpm. According to specs, these use a MAX of 2.5W ea. 2.5 * 28 = 70W.
Qty 28: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16822149059

disk caching. Will use 64-bit linux for OS.
Qty 4: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820141300

Hot swap. Gotta have it...7 * 4 = 28
Qty 7: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16816119012

cheap sata controlers for mdadm based raid. 2 = 16 ports
Qty 2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16815121009

big cheap case, plenty of room. 7 x 5.25" bays for the hot swap backplanes
Qty 1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16811128024

FSP generally makes good power supplies. Disks take MAX 2.5W upon spinup. Will this be sufficient? 45W proc is being used.
Qty 1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817104953

chosen for having 2 pci-x, 2 pci-e x1, 1 pci-x 16. What I/O!!!
Qty 1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16813131026

chosen for a pci-e x1 slot. We don't want to hit pci bus limits.
Qty 1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16816103058

Budget proc, low power. I had the fan die on one of these and it STILL ran without problems.
Qty 1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16819103204

What do you guys think?

I know the spindles are super slow but with 28 disks hopefully raw # of disks makes up for some of the spindle slowness. If someone knows of 2.5" 7200rpm drives that make very low heat, I'm open to suggestions even if size is smaller.

I think this would make a great, fun project for an iscsi san.
16 ports are on the pci-x bus, 9 ports on the motherboard, and 4 on the pci-e x1 card. This gives us 29, incase one of the pci-e connectors breaks somewhere, we have an extra.

I suppose I forgot a video card, but whatever is cheapest/fanless/coolest I guess. (geforce 2 mx ? 6200?)
 
Keep in mind, those mini hot swap units seem to be cheap and brittle.


Spend a little more and get supermicro mini hot swap units and use a stacker case.


In fact, since the supermicro mini hot swaps uses SFF SAS connectors, you should look at a cheap Mini SAS controller like the 2340 (16 sata drives MINISAS for $380) and use MINISAS TO SFF cables... it will look super clean.

I believe supermicro also sells a 8 mini drive hot swap in two 5.25" bays... may be worth taking a look at.
 
Robstar said:
Pointers to resalers would be great.

I have the athena 3x3.5" in 2x5.25" and they work pretty well...
Click to expand...

I also have their 3.5" versions and they did also work well.... But I also have the mini sas units and the super micro one is a far superior build.
 
Just some of my unwanted 2 cents, :D , that setup will cost almost 1,000 USD / per terabyte. I think at that price point, there are cheaper solutions.
 
I agree. 2.5W per 200GB is pretty darn close to the 1TB drives - and if you're willing to deal with WD you can even do better than that ratio. At this price point I simply don't see any advantage to 2.5" drives.

Consider using 5-in-3 enclosures in a Stacker (you can fit 4, depending on the model and how creative you're willing to get): you only fit 20 drives instead of 48, but if you use 1TB drives instead of 200GB ones you still get about twice the capacity. I'd also look for a board that is more server-oriented than workstation-oriented - if it doesn't say ASUS on it, that's a plus in my book. Why waste the money on x16 slots you're not going to use?
 
I agree with mage, instead of 28 2.5W you will be better off with 6 wd green drives
 
Perhaps you'd be better off, but I'm more interested in it for I/O/sec not total storage.

For total storage, I think you guys would be right.

As larger disks come out as well you should have much more upgrade ability on the 2.5's....
 
Well Robstar, if you are interested, I've still got 10 GP 1TB's left to sell at $200 each.
 
Notebook HD will not survive for long in a server 24/7 environment. They are not designed to be powered on 24/7 and have a MTBF far lower than desktop drives. I would highly suggest you to reconsider the drives used.
 
I am open to suggestion and on a budget. Don't LT drives have the same warranty as desktop?
 
Robstar said:
I am open to suggestion and on a budget. Don't LT drives have the same warranty as desktop?
Click to expand...

I was not referring to warranty, I am talking about the lifespan and failure rate of notebook drives in a server or 24/7 on environment. NO notebook drive is designed to operate in that environment. Since you are dealing with 2 dozens or more Notebook drive, you will be looking at high failure rate. Plus your file server will be sluggish because of the high reponse time and seek time.

Refer to this thread:
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=88806&highlight=notebook
"Remember that laptop hard drives are not rated anywhere NEAR desktop hard drives. At most laptop drives are rated around 250,000 - 300,000 hour MTBF and have a duty cycle of only 6-8 hours/day. Plus a BER rating at 1x10^12 - 1x10^13 or so.

home user drives (3.5") are normally rated around 1,000,000 hours with an 8hour duty and have a BER around 1x10^14 - 1x10^15 BER.

Server drives are => 1,200,000 MTBF, 24x7 operation, 1x10^15-1x10^16 BER.

So yes laptop drives don't really last long (nor are they designed to) if you really use them. "
 
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