ZFS media storage machine... decent inexpensive hardware?

Tengis

Tengis

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What to look for? Ideal target for how much ECC ram?

Im going to be building a machine here soonish and trying to get an idea of what kind of computer hardware I should go for. The only thing Im really set on doing is getting ECC ram.

Thoughts?
 
Seems like my best bet may be to buy a used system on ebay or something. I can get a system powerful enough with 8-16gb of ram pretty cheap.
 
How much storage so you intend to have? Zfs is not very processor intensive but does love memory. Most guides will suggest at least 1gb of ram per tb of raw drive space. I have 15tb of raw space and it's using nearly all 32gb in my server (see Sig for specs).
 
I was planning on having about 9tb of storage to start with. Been waiting on some decent drives to go on sale somewhere other then newegg before I make my purchase... their APO shipping prices are fucking insane.
 
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Used system? Let me guess, FB-DIMMs, too?

With recent processors and 1.35V RAM, a used system is almost never worth it and you'll be paying in the long run for increased power usage. Carefully check what you are actually getting.

Edit: 9 gigs is a USB key from the garbage bin.
 
What would be the processor/motherboard of choice then for a ZFS build?
 
Tengis said:
I was planning on having about 9tb of storage to start with. Been waiting on some decent drives to go on sale somewhere other then newegg before I make my purchase... their APO shipping prices are fucking insane.
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9TB in usuable space or raw space? How many drives were you planning on acquiring? What raid mode were you going to run? RaidZ1?

9TB is a tough number... if you're thinking 3x 3TB, that gives you 9TB, but if you want any redundancy (i.e. RaidZ1 mode), then you will only get 6TB usable at the end (RaidZ1 allows one disk to fail and be able to rebuild the array, but usable capacity is Raw - Size of largest drive). If you go up to 5x 3TB (as I have), you get close to 12TB usable (even though there's only 6TB more raw space).

If you are looking to do this on a budget, a basic AM3+ based AMD setup should work great for you, since they will support up to 32GB across 4 ram slots (4x 8GB). Socket 1155 on the intel side should also support 32GB but has a higher cost of entry. If you're into picking up older server hardware, that should be just fine as well and likely support higher memory capacities. However, as long as you're focused on media serving/streaming, I don't think ram will be much of an issue for you (compared to using as a general file server in an office environment).
 
I'll probably do 5x3 then. Any particular Amd motherboard you would recommend?
 
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Tengis said:
I'll probably do 5x3 then. Any particular Amd motherboard you would recommend?
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If you just want a "good little ZFS server", a HP microserver is perfect for 5 drives. Does the whole ECC thing. Won't win you any performance awards..but around Christmas time..you can usually snag one for $200.
 
Tengis said:
I'll probably do 5x3 then. Any particular Amd motherboard you would recommend?
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The only AMD boards I've purchased lately have been quad G34's... but overall, you just need enough SATA ports for the drives you want to run, memory slots for your memory and a compatible socket... perhaps checking compatibility with whatever Linux/Solaris distro you're going to use would be good?
 
The newest AMD processors dont support ECC memory right? When did they change that? I remember reading something about ECC support when Bulldozer came out but Im pretty sure the newest processors dont.
 
Not sure if you have gotten this all sorted out or not but if you are looking for a got started box for this check out these supermicro 24 bay 4u servers over on this thread. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1770557

They are pretty wicked little boxes for the $$$ and can be upgraded to dual 6x Istanbul cpus from ebay for <$50 if you find the right auction. And they have a ton of drive expansion possibilities, with registered ecc ddr2.

I hope this helps.

As an alternative I have a synology d1512+ and the thing is baller with 5x 3tb wd reds, but a lot more $$$.
 
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