Hardware suggestions for RAID Media & Development Server w/Virtualization
Greetings,
My 2 TB RAID 5 NAS recently failed and I'm looking to build something a bit more robust. Initially, I had intended to go with just a simple RAID 5 array with a media server. Now I'm thinking more along the line of RAID 1 or 10 on LVM (or maybe ZFS?) with virtualization for all the servers. The only thing I've picked out so far is WD Red HDs and the case: iStarUSA D-406-B6SA-RED-ND Red Steel 4U Rackmount Server Case 2 External 5.25" Drive Bays I'd like suggestions on RAID type, Filesystem, Motherboard, Processor, Memory & Expansion Cards if necessary. Possible Software: XBMC, (something for transcoding), asterisk, mysql, php, apache, some X10 automation software, and whatever else I can think of RAID Type: Much of what I'm reading these days suggests avoiding RAID 5 due to the increasingly large size of disks and the likelihood of read/write failures during the rebuild, thus causing total failure. So RAID 10 or RAID 6 come up instead, as well as talk of LVM and ZFS (which seems to be a Solaris thing). I've also heard of using an SSD cache drive in RAID systems. Number of Drives: I'd like to be able to make use of all the bays available if need be so 12 SATA channels and eSATA would be nice for outside peripherals. Most likely this will require an expansion card. Motherboard/Processor: I'd like a nice balance of efficient power consumption with the ability to expand. Enough SATA or expansion to handle 12 SATA + eSATA, USB 3, etc. Maybe a single low power processor that could be upgraded to something more powerful if I need more juice...or maybe a single processor on a dual board to upgrade later? Server or consumer grade board? Is it worth the difference? Intel or AMD? XEON, Semperon, i5, i7 or what? Maybe I'm going about this wrong and should split up to multiple physical servers but I figured even more power consumption. And with virtualization I would be able to avoid all the servers upsetting one another. My apologies if this is a lot of questions and a lot of options, but I suspect things will get narrowed down very quickly as probably some of these thoughts are right out. Thanks in advance for your responses. |
I wouldnt try to combine a media server and a development machine in most cases.
Do you really need 12 SATA ports and 12 HDDs? That is a lot of space and a lot of drives. You wotn find many motherobards with more than 6 SATA ports, and the extra ports are likely to be nasty slow marvel controllers (and this goes for most of the cheap PCIe SATA cards as well). IMO you might be better off with a NAS or low power consumption media server for your media files, and a 2nd machine for the heavy lifting. |
Thanks for the quick response. I agree I wouldn't try to mix both machines either, that's why I thought perhaps a VM environment would work out, then they are virtually separate machines. Though perhaps even in that case it would be best to maintain separate physical machines for the main and development servers. Still ultimately as things came out of development I'd like to put them on the main server in multiple virtual machines. Or do you think the media server should be an entirely stand alone server? If so what would be reasonable to run on it? As I mentioned apache, mysql, etc are often already on the media servers as well as things like Asterisk and X10 & Automation Servers.
As for the need for 12 SATA ports, no I don't need it. I would just like to know that I could utilize the space the case has if needed. I presume there is little difference between running expansion cards for more SATA ports or onboard SATA ports. If that is the case, the question becomes not do I need 12 but rather is there any reason I can't have 12? On the NAS and second machine for heavy lifting concept. My NAS just died, the actual board rather than the drives. This is a pain because I can't replace just the board, I have to buy a new NAS. This led me to wanting to build a NAS so I can easily replace parts, which led to me all the other things commercial NAS drives do; media server, web server, asterisk, etc. Which in turn led me to building my own NAS server that does these things. And finally the idea of virtual machines came in and here we are. |
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If you decided to use the cheap + nasty 2 port PCIe controllers you'd need 6 of them to get to 12 SATA ports, which is as much as good motherboard. To get soemthing that isnt cheap and nasty is going to be $100+ even for 4 ports, and more like $250-300 if you want a decent hardware RAID controller. Going to 8 ports will increase costs a lot. You could also have problems with fitting the HDDs into some of the bays, cabling issues, heat isues, etc.. Its best to just get the storage space you need with some extra for your projected needs for the next 1-2 years. Getting any more storage space than that means you are paying more $$$ for no result. Are you getting this rackmount just because of the number of drive bays? You could get something with almost as many drive bays and better 120mm fan mounts for 1/3 the cash- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811321003 |
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Here is an example of a possible build though a slightly different, but similar case that I'm considering. Comparable drive density and includes the PS. This guy is utilizing 3 SATA exp. cards.
http://www.servethehome.com/supermic...hassis-review/ |
If you had of said in your 1st post you actually wanted hotswappable SATA/SAS drives, I probably would have just left this whole thread alone....
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For various reasons, I wouldnt try running a mdadm RAID arrary over several different SATA controllers. IMO you would be best off with a 4-5 HDD RAID arrary, possibly 1 SSD for the OS + possibly 1 DVD-RW. You should get a huge amount of space that way with 2-3TB drives, far more than your old 2TB NAS. I spose I should really go into why the marvel controllers are so crap....heres the short version. Low throwput, reliablity problems, nasty design, nasty drivers (linux or windows). You could well save power by having 2 machines, depending on your usage patterns, what hardware you get etc.. If you only have 2TB of data on your NAS, a big HDD or 2 in the non media server would provide a nice backup solution as well. I'd still have at least 1 more backup solution though. |
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So how would you propose to get better energy efficiency out of two computers? Leave the NAS server on all the time and only run the other when needed? |
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131817 |
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The other 4 ports are from an addon controller. Quote:
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OK, so here's what I'm looking at right now, probably running Open Media Vault:
SUPERMICRO CSE-842TQ-665B Black 4U Rackmount Server Chassis SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SAE-O ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1150 Intel C226 DDR3 1600 Intel Xeon E3-1220 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.5GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Server Processor Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory w/TS Hynix C Model KVR16E11/4HC WD Red Disks in Software RAID (type undecided) SSD for System Drive Expansion slots leave plenty for an add-on SATA card, if I'd like to add another 5x3 SATA Dock. And current 6+2 SATA will be enough for initial setup. Still need to decide on optimal RAID setup. |
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