Large array server for a client

[Craigmandu]

I don't know how many posts have been made about things like this (I'm new to this board). But we had a vendor quote us an enormous amount of money for a storage medium for a specific task we wanted done. Our requirements were 15TB of storage space and Microsoft SQL server with 20 licences.

So being the resourceful IT department that we are, we decided to take a hard look at about what we could do the same for if we were to suck it up and build a unit ourselves to store the same amount of info and here's what we came up with:

"RM8042 40 X HDD + 2 X OS w/ SATA II BP, SUPERMICROX6DH3-G2 M/B & 1350W" $4,800.00
"Areca ARC-1160ML 16pt MultiLane SATA RAID Controller" 3@$1025 -$3075.00
"Intel Xeon EM64T 3.4 Irwindale 800MHz FSB Socket 604 Processor Model BX80546KG3400FA - Retail" 2@$500 - $1,000.00
"CORSAIR 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 400 (PC2 3200) ECC Registered System Memory Model CM75DD2048R-400 - OEM" 4@$300 - $1,200.00
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard - 1@$800-$800.00
"Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3500641AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - 5 Yr. Warranty" 50@$350- $17,500.00 (2 - 16 Drive Raid 6 sata arrays and 1 - 8 drive Raid 6 sata array. This will create a server with 3 volumes to be used: Two volumes will have 6.5 Terrabytes of storage and one will have 2.5 Terrabytes for a Total of 15.5 useable Terrabytes of storage. 10 Drives will be held in storage to be used as replacements in case of failure.)
"NEC ND-6500A 8x Dual Layer DVD-R/DVD+R DVD+RW Slim IDE DVD/CD Burner" 1@$100-$100.00
Slim line internal Floppy Disk Drive-1@50-$50.00
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard - 1@$900-$900.00
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 User CAL's-20@$170-$3,400.00
Total for Single Array server w/database software: $32,825.00

For those of you that do this sort of thing, is this a reasonable amount for a single server solution with a 15TB storage level?

 

[IVAces]

Is there any particular reason why you went with and intel chip?
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=120773&AFFIL=pricewatch&NR=1
Dual Core Opterons will do better since SQL eats threads for lunch.
http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid=2287
That being said, SQL will eat memory for lunch too. Go for 8gb. You won't be sorry.
Also, If you are going to need the through put to write huge raid 6 volumes, you should consider a pci express card that is memory expandable and has a IO processor like the Aerca ARC-1260. Max out its memory. Check this article out.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/02/safer_6_for_raid_controllers/index.html
As for hard drives, I'm assuming that you're after performance so I would be remissed if I didn't suggest and WD Caviar RE2 400GB drives. They are designed to perform in raid arrays. Here is the article to back that up.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1926848,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

 

[Craigmandu]

No reason why we went with intel chips really, just seemed like the thing to do at the time. Never really gave a dual opteron platform much thought.

We had thought about going to 8GB of RAM, howeve this will primarily be for storage, and secondarily to use the SQL server software on. And then it will only be about 15 or 20 folks actively using the SQL server.

I would like to use PCI Express instead of PCI-X, but I haven't found a serverboard with 3 PCI Express slots that I could use, or a raid 6 level card that was PCI Express and Multilane (it has to be a Multilane card since enclosures of that size use Multilane backplanes)

I will check those hard drives out, I only used the 500's cause they are the highest currently avail.

 

[IVAces]

The dual opterons will help a bunch by giving you 8x threads.
I'd still go with at least 4gb of ram.

As for the raid card. I didn't find anything on the Multilane support in pci express. Its still an emerging technology. I'm hoping that folks will pick up on the standard.

Good luck.

 

[IVAces]

I didnt find anything else out about the pci express raid cards however, I found this link to extend a 16x bus out to 3 slots.

http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/PEPRX16.htm

If you find a card that works, great.