Technojunkie's WIP server (updated 8/21)

I don't have my server complete yet, but figured I would start with what I have then if anything helpful is mentioned I can make changes before I commit to buying something I won't use. I'm also incrementally upgrading from my existing ubuntu server so will work in phases:

 

Phase I: New Case, PSU, 1xDrive Cage, reuse old MB/CPU/RAM (Purchased)

Phase II: New MB/CPU/RAM + unraid license  (Purchased)

Phase III: 3x drive cages, PCIe SATA controllers

 

OS at time of building: 4.7

CPU/Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SLA-H-O

RAM: 2GB cheapo kingston

Case: Antec 1200

Drive Cage(s): IcyDock 5-in-3 Sata backplane

Power Supply: CoolerMaster SilentPro M700

SATA Expansion Card(s): 2x Supermicro SASLP

Cables: TBD

Fans: TBD

 

Parity Drive: WD20EARS

Data Drives: 2x 1TB WD Caviar Green, 1x .5TB Seagate something or other, 5x WD20EARS

Cache/swap Drive: 320GB Seagate barracuda

Total Drive Capacity: 20

 

Primary Use: Video/Music Streaming, CrashPlan, Subsonic

Likes: Loads of potential, motherboard has usb socket on board so there's no worry of breaking my drive

Dislikes: Not exactly rack mountable, exhaust fans and 'controller' if one fails all must be replaced.

Add Ons Used: unMenu, mySQL, screen, clean powerdown, apcupsd

Future Plans: tftp boot server, Home automation

 

Boot (peak): TBD

Idle (avg): TBD

Active (avg): TBD

Light use (avg): TBD

 

Photos will be posted later

 

1/23/2011

Phase 1 order has been placed, and I've taken an initial stab at speccing phase II. I selected the mainboard based on the abundance of PCIe slots but am open to other suggestions.

 

1/26/2011

The PSU and Case arrived today. The modular cables aren't quite long enough to get all 3 plugs connected to the icyDock module at the top of the case. Well I guess I'm going to have to order some molex plugs and make my own. I found the plug for the PSU side of the cables but all of the molex distributors that carry it have a minimum order of 3000-5000 so I guess I'll just splice the new wires into the plugs I have.

 

3/11/2011

New mainboard and drives arrived today, and I'm actually running unRAID. I started the array with just the pair of WD20EARS drives and parity sync chugged along at 59MB/sec. I suppose that's decent from the reading I've been doing on the forums. I'm copying my other data drives to the single 2TB drive and will preclear them for the array this weekend. I'll eventually get pictures on there, but I'm embarrassed by the rat's nest of wires.

 

5/10/2011

Well, I've found out that 2GB is not enough RAM to run both crashplan and subsonic. They're both java apps and java is pigging out on the RAM. I guess it's time to install a cache drive with a swap partition.

On a better note, I have avahi installed and announcing the samba shares, the web interface, and proxying an announce for my jetdirect connected laserjet4

 

7/30/2011

I've installed a cache/swap drive. I couldn't find an easy way to make permanent changes to fstab, so I put the swapon command in line 1 of the go script. I also identified the swap partition by UUID instead of device/partition so that if the drive order ever changes, the swap will still be properly mounted.

 

8/21/2011

I installed 4 WD20EARS and a SASLP-MV8. Total array size is now 12.5TB. All of the slots in my 2 5-in-3 cages are filled, so further upgrades will require more cages. (or a norco seeing as how the cages are $100, and a NORCO is $350)

 

If you figure on 2 Amps per green hard disk when they are spinning up, then 20 disks (future) would need 40 Amps of 12 Volt supply.  Your potential power supply has a nice single 12 volt rail rated for 34 Amps. 

 

Figure 5 or 6 Amps for the motherboard and disk controllers and you've got enough capacity for your initial set of 3 or 4 disks, and some capacity for initial growth, but probably NOT enough for reliably running more than 14 hard disks.

 

Granted, these days that is a lot of space, but I figured I'd point out that it might not be the correct capacity power supply at some point in the future.

 

Joe L.

Thanks for the feedback, I was using a PSU calculator here: http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/Power

 

With 20 drives, dual core athlon, 4pcie slots it specs a need of 430w. Tossing on a 20% premium so as not to tax the psu I came to ~500W and figured I'd go for a greater margin and picked 600.

 

Can you tell me where you found the 34 amp figure? I don't see it on the product page. I realize that I'm not getting the whole 600W out of the 12v rail but 600watts*.80(efficiency)/12volts=40 amps. According to CoolerMaster's Website this supply is capable of 40A on the 12v rail. I'm not trying to discount your statement, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong no big deal. I'd rather build this right from the get go, I just want to make sure my understanding isn't flawed..

 

I can still change my order  and could go to a 700W supply for about the same cost I just didn't think I really needed that much.

 

** edit **

OK after further research I think that calculator was bunk. Using the figures from WD regarding caviar green startup load of 1.75A that comes to 35A to run the whole array. That's a little too close for comfort to be running the PSU at even for bursty periods so I'll go ahead and grab the 700W thanks again for making me think about it.

I clicked on the link you supplied and the initial image in the video on the newegg page says 34 Amps 12 volt rail.

 

Each "green" drive uses about 2 Amps when spinning up. Each non-green about 3 Amps.  You can do the math.  20 green drives = 40 Amps capacity needed, for JUST the drives.  Add on a the demands of the motherboard and you'll be needing more that a 34 AMp supply for 20 drives.. 

 

The power supply is NOT the place to skimp in the server.  When you get close to its limits all kinds of things become unstable as the power supply is unable to meet the demands of the system. 

 

As I said, no issue now... but I do not think it is enough for your full set of 20 drives.

 

Joe L.

LOL you beat my edit. but yes thanks again for the info.

LOL you beat my edit. but yes thanks again for the info.

No problem...  the rule of thumb of 2 Amps per "green" drive is a good one.  Odds are higher that with wear it will take more current to spin the disks up, certainly not less. 

 

Don't want to be so close to the limit so it acts up in a year or two.

 

Joe L.

OK Phase I parts are in transit. I'm now soliciting input for phase II.

If you can find it, I really like this combo for a budget-friendly 20 drive server:

 

Mobo: SUPERMICRO MBD-C2SEE-O

CPU: Intel Celeron 430

RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR3 1066

 

Unfortunately that mobo is being discontinued, so it is a bit hard to find at the moment.  Don't pay more than about a $100 for it.  Check eBay, though, maybe you'll get lucky.

I gave up on trying to find the supermicro board a few weeks ago, partly because it's becoming scarce, but mostly because a large part of my brain was saying there's got to be a newer solution that works as well or better. I have a first cut at mobo/processor listed above. I selected the Mobo primarily because of the abundance of PCIe ports.

After further research, I realized the Gigabyte board I originally chose will not work for me. I'm looking at the SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SLA-H-O but am concerned about the maximum of 2GB RAM. I realize I can't run VMWare on this, but is this going to impact the rest of my intended use?

 

MySQL (for xbmc clients)

Off hours transcoding

Subsonic server

OPDS server (via calibre or lucicat whichever I can get running)

Apache for reverse proxy

CrashPlan

No, I don't recommend it.  An Atom processor is not nearly fast enough for all the add-ons you want to run.  The transcoding alone would probably take days.

How about if I drop transcoding? That was more of a 'nice to have' than an absolute requirement.

 

I'm pretty sure that it can handle MySQL/Apache as I've used lower power units before for the same purpose. I don't use any of the transcoding functions of subsonic, Crashplan does all of the heavy work on the client side, and OPDS is very lightweight as well.

Hmm, possibly.  I don't really know enough about the other add-ons to answer conclusively.  It sounds like you have a good idea of how they work, so your opinion probably outweighs mine.

 

My only suggestion is that if you want a server that is capable of ANY add-on you throw at it but still boasts the power efficiency of an Atom, then look no further than the i3 processor.  It is a bit more expensive, but it really is quite ideal - best of both worlds.

Well my new Motherboard/RAM and 2 drives arrived yesterday, I now have a machine capable of booting from usb, so I purchased my unraid pro license last night.

 

So aside from installing a few addons all I really have to do now is add drives as I need them

I configured a cache/swap drive today. I opted to create an actual partition on the cache drive instead of using a file. Is there a way to permanently modify fstab? For the time being I have the go script running swapon.