Need advice on RAID-capable server build.

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Howdy,

I need to build a pair of machines for file-serving and backup storage
for 25 or so users - low intensity use. I'd probably want to setup the
second machine as a mirror of the first.

Originally I was thinking of simply getting a pair of Dell 750s with
RAID-1 but the price really racks up when you add components on Dell's
site. Here's what I need ...

- A Gig of RAM
- RAID controller (on board or seperate)
- CPU doesn't matter that much (2 Gighz, doesn't
need to be firebreathing monster) - AMD or Intel
is fine by me.
- Rackmount or Tower (prefer rackmount)
- ATA, SATA or SCSI - I'm open for suggestions
- DVD ROM drive
- No need to factor in the drives for now, whatever
solution comes out the most cost effective.

Need recommendations for:

- motherboards (on board RAID is fine)
- PSUs, Cases, NICs, etc ...

I'd love to have something that's under 1000$ CDN (without drives).

Thank ye all.

- Me.

yves<at>cheznousse<dot>com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Investigate 3ware RAID controllers with SATA drives:
o 4-port card
o SATA Barrcuda 7200rpm drives

Yes, SATA WD Raptor 10,000rpm drives are faster, but if you use
say 4 drives in RAID-10 you get the benefit of striping (& mirror).

3ware offers auto-rebuild, true enterprise level RAID solution.

SCSI will cost you a lot more - but has some benefits:
o SCSI has higher IOPS that SATA
---- IOPS = Multi-User I/O Per Second
o SATA has higher SDTR than SCSI
---- Sustained Data Transfer Rate, more single-user environment

So it comes down to the application.
o If it is 25 users hammering away full-tilt at a dbase application
---- SCSI will have some benefit re higher IOPS
---- RAM will be as or more important - re cache & dbase keys (2GB+)
o If it is 25 users doing routine office tasks
---- SATA will have a benefit re cost
---- RAM should still not be underestimated - re cache

So comes down to usage & data-set.

The cost is in removable hot-swap drive bays, they cost
If self-building, factor in support, O/S & other costs.
--
Dorothy Bradbury
www.dorothybradbury.co.uk for quiet Panaflo fans

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Howdy,

dorothy.bradbury@ntlworld.com sayeth ...
> Investigate 3ware RAID controllers with SATA drives:
> o 4-port card
> o SATA Barrcuda 7200rpm drives
>
> Yes, SATA WD Raptor 10,000rpm drives are faster, but if you use
> say 4 drives in RAID-10 you get the benefit of striping (& mirror).
>
> 3ware offers auto-rebuild, true enterprise level RAID solution.
<snipped some very good information>

Doroty, thanks for taking the time to answer my query!

What you are talking about is quite alot of overkill - it's not an SQL
server or anything of the sort with high transaction loads. It's
basically a small shared file server that will be mainly used to backup
user profiles daily from personnal workstations so the actual load on
the machines will be very low for a small office setting. There will be
space used for shared files between everyone involved but other than
that, if there's a gig a day of transfers I'll be very surprised.

That's why I'm not gunning for top notch performance - it's not needed.
Most SATA Mobos these days have on-board RAID0/RAID1 capability so
I was thinking of using such a mobo to build a pair of machines with
RAID1, each with a pair of 120Gig SATA drives namely for redundancy.

Since I don't need a top-of-the-line processor, I was thinking about
this combination:

Abit NF7-S2G mobo (about 90$ CDN)
AMD 2400 XP+ (about 90$ CDN)
a Gig of RAM (180$ CDN)
Generic Case without PSU (40$ CDN)
ANTEC 400W PSU (75$ CDN)
LG CDROM (20$ CDN)
WD 120GIG SATAx2 (240$ CDN)

Total = 745$ CDN

I would assemble two such machines and mirror the data off the other to
keep on hot-standby just in case the other croaks.

What's wrong with this idea?

-- Yves

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

In article <MPG.1c54aeaf47b04d7a989684@news.giganews.com>, Yves says...

> What you are talking about is quite alot of overkill - it's not an SQL
> server or anything of the sort with high transaction loads.
> Since I don't need a top-of-the-line processor, I was thinking about
> this combination:
>
> Abit NF7-S2G mobo (about 90$ CDN)
> AMD 2400 XP+ (about 90$ CDN)
> a Gig of RAM (180$ CDN)
> Generic Case without PSU (40$ CDN)
> ANTEC 400W PSU (75$ CDN)
> LG CDROM (20$ CDN)
> WD 120GIG SATAx2 (240$ CDN)
>
ROFLMAO. I love the.."What you are talking about is quite alot of
overkill" bit. You then go on to list a shitload of stuff you don;t
need like a Gig of RAM.

Youi can do what you want with a P3 machine. E-Bay has loads of old
dual P3 Compaq servers on for very little money usually with hot swap
SCSI too.


--
Conor

An imperfect plan executed violently is far superior to a perfect plan.
-- George Patton

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Conor wrote:
> Abit NF7-S2G mobo (about 90$ CDN)
> > AMD 2400 XP+ (about 90$ CDN)
> > a Gig of RAM (180$ CDN)
> > Generic Case without PSU (40$ CDN)
> > ANTEC 400W PSU (75$ CDN)
> > LG CDROM (20$ CDN)
> > WD 120GIG SATAx2 (240$ CDN)
> >
> ROFLMAO. I love the.."What you are talking about is quite alot of
> overkill" bit. You then go on to list a shitload of stuff you don;t
> need like a Gig of RAM.

Okay - so 512Ms should suffice then (?) - no need to be rude about it.
Of course, keyboard bravery seems to be the word of the day here on
usenet.

> Youi can do what you want with a P3 machine. E-Bay has loads of old
> dual P3 Compaq servers on for very little money usually with hot swap
> SCSI too.

I was hoping to go with new equipment but thanks for the idea.

- Yves

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Conor wrote:
> ROFLMAO. I love the.."What you are talking about is quite alot of
> overkill" bit. You then go on to list a shitload of stuff you don;t
> need like a Gig of RAM.
>
> Youi can do what you want with a P3 machine. E-Bay has loads of old
> dual P3 Compaq servers on for very little money usually with hot swap
> SCSI too.

I'm planning to do something very similar to the original poster (see
<URL:http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=slrncu34ip.55k.ylee%40pobox.com>)
and certainly wasn't planning on buying 1GB. That said, Would a P3
really be sufficient for

--
Read my Deep Thoughts @ <URL:http://www.ylee.org/blog/> PERTH ----> *
Cpu(s): 3.0% us, 1.8% sy, 94.6% ni, 0.0% id, 0.0% wa, 0.3% hi, 0.3% si
Mem: 515800k total, 475764k used, 40036k free, 16016k buffers
Swap: 2101032k total, 19268k used, 2081764k free, 188736k cached

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Conor wrote:
> Youi can do what you want with a P3 machine. E-Bay has loads of old
> dual P3 Compaq servers on for very little money usually with hot
> swap SCSI too.

I'm planning to do something similar to the original poster (see
<URL:http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=slrncu34ip.55k.ylee%40pobox.com>)
and certainly wasn't planning on buying 1GB of memory. That said,
would a dual P3 really be sufficient for software RAID with eight
drives?

--
Read my Deep Thoughts @ <URL:http://www.ylee.org/blog/> PERTH ----> *
Cpu(s): 3.0% us, 1.8% sy, 94.6% ni, 0.0% id, 0.0% wa, 0.3% hi, 0.3% si
Mem: 515800k total, 475764k used, 40036k free, 16016k buffers
Swap: 2101032k total, 19268k used, 2081764k free, 188736k cached

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

> I'm planning to do something very similar to the original poster (see
> <URL:http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=slrncu34ip.55k.ylee%40pobox.com>)
> and certainly wasn't planning on buying 1GB. That said, Would a P3
> really be sufficient for

Haven't checked the link, but yes, a P3 would be fine:
o P4s are very clock-inefficient remember
---- P-M is based on the P3 architecture (improved)
o P3 have 512KB cache, short-pipeline, fsb133 bus
---- so PC133 memory will cost a bit
---- however 256MB would probably be fine (depends on O/S & use)
o P4 have a much deeper pipeline, so need far more cache
---- you need 1.5-1.8x the P3 clockspeed for an equivalent P4
---- not quite the case re memory-bandwidh, but for general use

The P3 platform is under-rated - and low wattage too.
--
Dorothy Bradbury
www.dorothybradbury.co.uk for quiet Panaflo fans

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

> It's basically a small shared file server that will be mainly used to backup
> user profiles daily from personnal workstations so the actual load on
> the machines will be very low for a small office setting. There will be
> space used for shared files between everyone involved but other than
> that, if there's a gig a day of transfers I'll be very surprised.

So it is a simple file server:
o 256MB, light processor (P4-Celeron or P3/Tualatin, AMD Sempron)

I don't like RAID-1 on motherboards:
o It can use proprietary format (re loss of board)
o It is not auto-recovery (requiring manual, error-vulnerable recovery)

All RAID-1/0 on motherboards does is just have a Boot BIOS.

So I would consider, depending on O/S chosen...
o Windows s/w RAID
o Linux s/w RAID

As commented, you don't need 1GB of RAM - frankly 256MB will do,
384MB would be a good compromise. Sparkle/FSP-Group/Forton PSU,
Antec just rebadge someone else's PSU - a branding relabelling job.

I would go for Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm drives over WD, however
that is down to preference/experience - Barracuda are well proven.
--
Dorothy Bradbury