Building a 1TB+ File Server

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PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
Thanks, Jamori, for that really informative post. You really cleared up A LOT of questions. I think I'll go with the RAID-5 array.

How much faster is gigabit ethernet? I don't even think my father's laptop has a gigabit port. I will make sure to get a gb NIC for the server though. I'll keep the gigabit switch in mind for when he gets a new computer.


Also, what are some rough numbers of real-world transfer speeds?

Let's say I was doing a continuous tranfer of a 4.3gb file in many different ways:

1. Copying the file from one internal drive to another, 40 MB/sec? I don't know how fast it is. I just used 40 as an example of what I mean.
2. Over a 100mbit ethernet connection, 12.5 MB/sec?
3. Over a gigabit ethernet connection, ??
etc
 

Dubb

Platinum Member
Mar 25, 2003
2,495
0
0
Originally posted by: PerfeK
Thanks, Jamori, for that really informative post. You really cleared up A LOT of questions. I think I'll go with the RAID-5 array.

How much faster is gigabit ethernet? I don't even think my father's laptop has a gigabit port. I will make sure to get a gb NIC for the server though. I'll keep the gigabit switch in mind for when he gets a new computer.


Also, what are some rough numbers of real-world transfer speeds?

Let's say I was doing a continuous tranfer of a 4.3gb file in many different ways:

1. Copying the file from one internal drive to another, 40 MB/sec? I don't know how fast it is. I just used 40 as an example of what I mean.
2. Over a 100mbit ethernet connection, 12.5 MB/sec?
3. Over a gigabit ethernet connection, ??
etc

the rough numbers I had moving from 100mbit to firewire networking to gigabit, (cat5e when it was 100, cat 6 on 1000, all 7200 rpm recent drives, all intel CSA gigabit connections):

100: ~10-12 MB/s
firewire: 16-17 MB/s
1000: about 30-35 mb/sec.
 

lansalot

Senior member
Jan 25, 2005
298
0
0
So, just to recap - you're wondering how long it will take to transfer a (roughly) DVD-sized file from your fathers server? And obviously you don't want to interrupt his bittorrents too much while doing that? Hmmm, what business did you say he was in again?

A couple errors need to be cleared up in this RAID5 love-fest however:

Regardless of how many drives you have in a RAID5 array, only the storage from (1) of the drives is dedicated for redundancy, yet ANY one drive in the array can fail and you can still get all your data.

Not true, no drive is dedicated for redundancy in RAID5. Redundancy is spread across all drives in a RAID5 array. Newbie error

For RAID-5, you need a minimum of (3) drives. One of the nice things is that if you buy a RAID-5 controller with 6 or 8 or 12 ports and just start with your 4 drives in it, you can upgrade the storage on the fly. So for instance you start by connecting your (4) 250GB drives in RAID5 on a controller that supports up to (8) drives. This gives you 750GB of storage to start with, and if you decide in 6 months that you need more storage, just add a 5th 250GB drive and you'll have a full 1TB of usable storage!

Not bloody likely. Unless you have been VERY careful and have managed to find a PC card that will support RAID5 re-layout on-the-fly (and most definitely DO NOT), then this will not work at all without your backing everything up, tearing down the array and recreating it, and restoring it. You sound to the layman like you know all about this stuff, but I'm afraid this is a very basic assumption that just doesn't work in the sample adapters you have provided. Nor did you point that out either. Shame on you, misleading the OP!

Further, if you have 5 drives installed in a RAID5 and online relayout and backup/recreate/restore is not an option, then ALL you can do at this point is add another complete seperate 3 drive RAID5 volume (or 2-drive R1 mirror). Which won't be part of the original volume. Consider the physical limitations of what you can add as well - if you fill 6 slots of your 8 and want to continue with another raid5, well your minimum to add is another 3 disks, and where are they going to go?

Keep in mind, though, that with any RAID solution, the entire array will perform according to the slowest / lowest storage device in it.

Well, not really either. Though your following statement
For instance, if you have (5) 250GB drives and (1) 100GB drive in a RAID5 array, it's no better than just having (6) 100GB drives -- you'll only have 500GB of usable storage.
suggests you really meant capacity rather than perfomance so perhaps this was just a simple mistake...

Incidentally, I'd quibble the point that for a simple file server (nothing more) that hardware raid is an absolute must - it's perfectly reasonable to use software raid5 given that the cpu will be idling its life away most of the time. Might as well give it something to do. Though my preference is for hardware raid given that you can use it for your boot volume as well of course. Downside - card dies, you need to find the same model to replace it or all your data is lost.
 

imported_Phil

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2001
9,837
0
0
Originally posted by: lansalot
For RAID-5, you need a minimum of (3) drives. One of the nice things is that if you buy a RAID-5 controller with 6 or 8 or 12 ports and just start with your 4 drives in it, you can upgrade the storage on the fly. So for instance you start by connecting your (4) 250GB drives in RAID5 on a controller that supports up to (8) drives. This gives you 750GB of storage to start with, and if you decide in 6 months that you need more storage, just add a 5th 250GB drive and you'll have a full 1TB of usable storage!

Not bloody likely. Unless you have been VERY careful and have managed to find a PC card that will support RAID5 re-layout on-the-fly (and most definitely DO NOT), then this will not work at all without your backing everything up, tearing down the array and recreating it, and restoring it. You sound to the layman like you know all about this stuff, but I'm afraid this is a very basic assumption that just doesn't work in the sample adapters you have provided. Nor did you point that out either. Shame on you, misleading the OP!

You beat me to it
Expanding a RAID-5 array cannot be done without removing all the data, Jamori, unless you have one of the extremely expensive cards that supports it.

You need to go and read up on how RAID-5 actually works (ditributed parity, striping etc) and then you'll realise why it's totally unfeasible.
 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
Originally posted by: Dubb
Originally posted by: PerfeK
Thanks, Jamori, for that really informative post. You really cleared up A LOT of questions. I think I'll go with the RAID-5 array.

How much faster is gigabit ethernet? I don't even think my father's laptop has a gigabit port. I will make sure to get a gb NIC for the server though. I'll keep the gigabit switch in mind for when he gets a new computer.


Also, what are some rough numbers of real-world transfer speeds?

Let's say I was doing a continuous tranfer of a 4.3gb file in many different ways:

1. Copying the file from one internal drive to another, 40 MB/sec? I don't know how fast it is. I just used 40 as an example of what I mean.
2. Over a 100mbit ethernet connection, 12.5 MB/sec?
3. Over a gigabit ethernet connection, ??
etc

the rough numbers I had moving from 100mbit to firewire networking to gigabit, (cat5e when it was 100, cat 6 on 1000, all 7200 rpm recent drives, all intel CSA gigabit connections):

100: ~10-12 MB/s
firewire: 16-17 MB/s
1000: about 30-35 mb/sec.

I will DEFINITELY have to look into gigabit ethernet then.
 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
Does the HighPoint RocketRAID 1820A have hardware assisted RAID-5? Does it even matter? The price is very attractive. Could someone link me to the IDE adapter? I can't seem to find it.

What about hotswap bays? I want at least 6. Could someone point me in the right direction?

I really appreciate all the help. It is really making this a lot easier for me.
 

Dubb

Platinum Member
Mar 25, 2003
2,495
0
0
Originally posted by: PerfeK
Does the HighPoint RocketRAID 1820A have hardware assisted RAID-5? Does it even matter? The price is very attractive. Could someone link me to the IDE adapter? I can't seem to find it.

What about hotswap bays? I want at least 6. Could someone point me in the right direction?

I really appreciate all the help. It is really making this a lot easier for me.

none of the Highpoints I looked at did, so they will eat CPU power to calculate the parity data.

Promise makes a good, cheap ($120) hardware card, the sx4000 lite

the newer sx4060 can expand arrays, but if you have 4 dirves to start with, there isn't much use for that...

sounds like you really want a 7506-8 or -12 3ware card. (not cheap)
 

thecoolnessrune

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2005
9,673
583
126
If its a personal filerserver. A processor just aint an issue. Put in an old Duron 1.8Ghz processor. onboard video. Get a good RAID card. Put in 512MB of memory. add a 500 watt power supply. Put in an Intel 1 Gb Ethernet server card. Put in a little 15" LCD monitor to monitor everything with. You should be good to go.
 

Quasmo

Diamond Member
Jul 7, 2004
9,630
1
76
Originally posted by: PerfeK
Thanks, Jamori, for that really informative post. You really cleared up A LOT of questions. I think I'll go with the RAID-5 array.

How much faster is gigabit ethernet? I don't even think my father's laptop has a gigabit port. I will make sure to get a gb NIC for the server though. I'll keep the gigabit switch in mind for when he gets a new computer.


Also, what are some rough numbers of real-world transfer speeds?

Let's say I was doing a continuous tranfer of a 4.3gb file in many different ways:

1. Copying the file from one internal drive to another, 40 MB/sec? I don't know how fast it is. I just used 40 as an example of what I mean.
2. Over a 100mbit ethernet connection, 12.5 MB/sec?
3. Over a gigabit ethernet connection, ??
etc
I can transfer a 4.7GB file over GBit ethernet in 4 minuets. It's so freaking sweet. It blows away the 10/100 connection I had. For this setup it is a must.
I'm in the same field as you (video editing) I want to eventually setup the same thing. Gonna setup a raid 5 system, and then hook it up through gigabit ethernet. You might want to look at Anand's look at raid 5 setups to choose your controller card. I'm to poor right now so I have to wait.
 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
We have decided to just buy 2 520gb SATA drives instead of messing with the Lacies. Which 8 port SATA RAID card should we get for RAID-5?

What's the main difference between Opterons and Athlon 64s? Would I benefit from ECC RAM? Stability and low power usage are extremely important here.

Right now I'm thinking about the following parts:

CPU: Athlon 64 S939 3000+
Motherboard: Chaintech VNF4 Ultra
RAM: 512mb (512x1) Corsair Value RAM

= $270

Should I go with a cheap Opteron on the s940 instead?
 

Quasmo

Diamond Member
Jul 7, 2004
9,630
1
76
also when setting up the array you want to make sure you use one IDE cable per drive (master / slaving) will kill your performance to the max.
 

imported_Phil

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2001
9,837
0
0
Originally posted by: PerfeK
We have decided to just buy 2 520gb SATA drives instead of messing with the Lacies. Which 8 port SATA RAID card should we get for RAID-5?

What's the main difference between Opterons and Athlon 64s? Would I benefit from ECC RAM? Stability and low power usage are extremely important here.

Right now I'm thinking about the following parts:

CPU: Athlon 64 S939 3000+
Motherboard: Chaintech VNF4 Ultra
RAM: 512mb (512x1) Corsair Value RAM

= $270

Should I go with a cheap Opteron on the s940 instead?

RAID-5 requires a minimum of three drives.
You'd either have to settle for RAID-1 and "lose" the capacity of one entire drive, or run as RAID-0, which is pretty unsafe for a fileserver.

Three 300Gb drives should do it, which will give you a capacity of 600Gb with RAID-5. Three 400Gb drives will give you 800Gb, etc.

Don't worry about hot-swap bays, they're pretty damned expensive and require three CD-ROM-sized bays for a 5-bay unit.
 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
Phil, that was a typo. I meant to type six 250gb drives. I don't know how I messed that up.

I want, no, I need, hot swappability. I don't care how much they cost. I need hot swap bays for 6-8 SATA drives. Can someone point me in the right direction?

I don't need care about hardware assisted RAID now that I have decided on the 3000+. It will only be serving and running bit torrent so CPU usage isn't an issue. I just need a good 8 port SATA RAID-5 card. I will spend up to $600 here.

Quasmo, we're not in the video editing business. We're using the server as a backup-backup of my father's music library which doubles as the music library of two radio large stations. They use SCSI rackmoounts for storage there.

Are there any s939 boards with passive cooling? How about s940?

Could someone recommend a nice hotswap friendly case? Money is not an issue but I do not need redundant power supplies. I am using an Enermax Noistaker 420 (18A x2).

Here are the preliminary specs:

Enermax Noisetaker 420

Athlon 3000+ (64-bit support [for the unforseeable future], only 65W, very cheap!)

Chaintech VNF4 (I really want a motherboard with passive cooling though. Noise is a SERIOUS issue)

Samsung Spinpoint 80 GB system drive (nice and quiet)

(6x) Seagate 7200.8 SATA 250 GB drives

Corsair Value 512mb (512x1) [Dual Channel doesn't matter, does it? Should I just get 256x2?]

Geforce 4mx4000 PCI card w/ passive cooling


The $75 difference between a socket A and a socket 939 really doesn't matter. The same goes for the motherboard. $50 is petty cash. I have no problem sacrificing a lil skrilla for a little headroom for future endeavors.
 

eXx08

Banned
May 28, 2005
2,363
0
0
If money is no problem and you want good silent cooling than go with water cooling. I'm not quit sure if they have a adapter for like a HDD or somthing but it sure to hell is alot coller and quieter. Go with the Zalman one that is external and it has like a big tower thing.
 

21stHermit

Senior member
Dec 16, 2003
927
1
81
Originally posted by: jamori
You should *really* look into RAID-5. It's perfect for your needs.

Regardless of how many drives you have in a RAID5 array, only the storage from (1) of the drives is dedicated for redundancy, yet ANY one drive in the array can fail and you can still get all your data.
Comforting

Keep in mind, though, that with any RAID solution, the entire array will perform according to the slowest / lowest storage device in it.
For instance, if you have (5) 250GB drives and (1) 100GB drive in a RAID5 array, it's no better than just having (6) 100GB drives -- you'll only have 500GB of usable storage.
A major question answered, pick a size and stay with it. I think I now know why 250GB HD's are the current "sweet spot" $/GB.

Anyway, I hope I've been helpful. Let me know if you have any questions.

Nick

Nick,

I read and reread your excellent RAID 5 discussion. Please a few questions:
_Does the large RAID "drive" have effectively a single drive letter? That's my biggest HD problem, moving large (say 50GB groups) file blocks to different drives.
_Does the software "help" you move from the old non-RAID to the RAID-5?
_Do you need to start with newly formated HDs?
_How do you know a drive has failed? Does the software tell you?

Thank you for your help.

Hermit
 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
Originally posted by: 21stHermit
Originally posted by: jamori

_How do you know a drive has failed? Does the software tell you?


I would like to know this also. Will an LED light up on the hot swap bay? How will I know if it has started to rebuild on a hot swap after a drive failure?
 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
Originally posted by: thekillerjks
If money is no problem and you want good silent cooling than go with water cooling. I'm not quit sure if they have a adapter for like a HDD or somthing but it sure to hell is alot coller and quieter. Go with the Zalman one that is external and it has like a big tower thing.

Not interested. I don't have any experience with water cooling and I won't even be around to help my father who has no experience with the internals of computers. While it would be nice, I want to keep things simple.
 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
He is asking me if he will be able to mount the server as a network drive (assign a drive letter) and have full write/read/delete access. Will he?
 

21stHermit

Senior member
Dec 16, 2003
927
1
81
Originally posted by: PerfeKI want, no, I need, hot swappability. I don't care how much they cost. I need hot swap bays for 6-8 SATA drives. Can someone point me in the right direction?
Hot swap rack: SuperMicro 5 HDs in 3 bay rack


Also, I think you'll find a S939 will consume less power, hence cooler/quieter, than the older Socket A CPU's because they use 90nM features. Good article over at X-Bit Labs on Winchester, now Venice, power use.


 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
Originally posted by: 21stHermit
Originally posted by: PerfeKI want, no, I need, hot swappability. I don't care how much they cost. I need hot swap bays for 6-8 SATA drives. Can someone point me in the right direction?
Also, I think you'll find a S939 will consume less power, hence cooler/quieter, than the older Socket A CPU's because they use 90nM features. Good article over at X-Bit Labs on Winchester, now Venice, power use.

That's one of the main reasons why I chose the V3000+.
 

PerfeK

Senior member
Mar 20, 2005
329
0
0
Originally posted by: PerfeK
He is asking me if he will be able to mount the server as a network drive (assign a drive letter) and have full write/read/delete access. Will he?

Bumping so someone can hopefully answer my question.
 

dowxp

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2000
4,568
0
76
Originally posted by: PerfeK
Originally posted by: PerfeK
He is asking me if he will be able to mount the server as a network drive (assign a drive letter) and have full write/read/delete access. Will he?

Bumping so someone can hopefully answer my question.

sure why not, assuming windows... btw just burning in my own file server, though it is a rack that is going into a DC

http://downloadanime.org/server2

going on a gig-e x-connect to

http://downloadanime.org/server

 

Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
34,472
1,657
126
Originally posted by: Pariah
You can't mix the SATA and PATA in a hardware RAID array, since no card supports both without using adapters which is simply a bad idea. Stick with PATA if that's what he has, the controller will be cheaper too.

This card supports both SATA and PATA with RAID (or so it says)
 
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