MaxMe: My New Server


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Anything you like - there are no Marvell-based SATA 3 drives, so no advantages around advanced garbage collection.  However since the nature of the cache drive is that it would never be filled anyway (constantly emptied) any drive will do the trick.  Just pick a size that will cover the most you'd possibly transfer in a 24 hour period if you want all your transfers to be done at maximum speed.

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Actually....

 

If you are getting a SATAII SSD for unraid.. see if you can find a Kingston SSDNow+ (it has to be a plus version)...

they have an auto advanced garbage collection for systems that dont support trim..

 

We use these in our Macbooks at work just for this reason.

I kept telling myself I wanted one for my cache drive, but they sort of vanished overnight at the same time as the flooding in Thailand.

 

see here for some details http://www.scribd.com/doc/58523351/Kingston-SSD-Garbage-Collection

Keep in mind, this is all from the SATA2 (SATAII) generation of SSD's.

I do not believe the SATAIII (Sandforce chipset) Versions have this feature (I could be wrong).

 

For newer SATAIII SSD's, I would get the Corsair Performance Pro SSD'd

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Thanks.

 

Sorry to bother but I have another question.

 

I installed unmenu and for all drives (5 Hitachi 4TB) it does show the HPA? message.

I did some check:

1) before I assigned the drives to unRAID all of them reported in syslog to be 3.907.018.584

2) After I assigned them to unRaid (formatted and parity done) from the syslog I can see in the same size (3.907.018.584) in the drive inventory section and the size 3.907.018.532 in the mdcmd/md section

3) In the standard web interface  I can see all the driver reported as 3.907.018.532

4) in the unmenu web interface the size reported is also 3.907.018.532

5) if I run hdparm -N i get "HPA setting seems invalid (buggy kernel device driver?)" message

6) in the syslog I also get another message by unmenu "WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. (Minor Issues)"

 

Do I have to worry about that, could it be a false warning by unmenu?

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

EDITED_1: 5 Drive - 1 Parity and 4 Data

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Actually....

 

If you are getting a SATAII SSD for unraid.. see if you can find a Kingston SSDNow+ (it has to be a plus version)...

they have an auto advanced garbage collection for systems that dont support trim..

 

 

Is that the SSDNow V+?

 

Both the following SSD drive have the "garbage collection" function

SATA2 - Drive SSDNow V+100 - 64 GB – 96 GB – 128 GB – 256 GB – 512 GB (Looks like isn't available anymore)

SATA2 - Drive SSDNow V+180 - 64 GB – 96 GB – 128 GB – 256 GB

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Here are some statistics of my server during preclear (2 x 300GB) and parity check (5 x 4TB).

 

Chart01_ParitySpeedStandard.png

 

Chart03_ParityRealSpeed.png

 

Chart02_ParitySpeedvsRealSpeed.png

 

Chart04_SystemStats.png

 

Chart05_ParityTemp.png

 

Chart04_PreclearTemp.png

 

So... it seems I solved the temperature problem (changed the three 120mm fans).

Now I'm working on few details inside the case before starting to really use the server...

 

 

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I decided to go to the Virtualization path... :P

 

I shall start probably tonight, for sure I will follow the Jonhm post...

Any advice is welcome...

I plan to run just UnRaid,  Windows7 (at least at the beginning).

I will use only one drive (300GB) for datastore and a flash drive for Esxi installation.

I think the small HD shouldn't be a problem as far as my configuration stay so simple.

 

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would you mind sharing/posting your vba procedures?

Not at all... but consider it is quite a mess (I'm not a programmer).

I will post it as soon as I made a small guide (you need to create an adhoc view in unmenu with a specific list of column in a specific order)

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Max, I did virtualization too with ESXi 5.0.  I installed it directly to a 320GB 2.5" drive attached to the motherboard.  This drive is also my datastor, I'm running:

1. Windows 7 (because I had a spare copy)

2. Windows Server 2008 (something I'm studying)

3. Windows XP (originally using this to do remote management)

4. Ubuntu

5. LAMP

6. unRaid

7. VMware management VM

 

I don't have any issues, but beyond antivirus and OpenOffice I don't have much installed on any of these VMs. 

1, 2 and 6 have thin provisioned 80GB virtual drives.

3 and 4 have 40GB thin provisioned drives

5 and 7 have 10GB thin provisioned drives

6 has 2GB thick provisioned

 

The only time I have a slow down is when I start all 7 at the same time.  Once they are all running and their services are started I don't have any issues.

 

There might be a way to attach a datastor to unRaid (NFS or something along those lines) but I haven't investigated that line of thought to a solution yet.  If I did that I would just have unRaid start on the attached drive and move the rest off to unRaid.

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You can define a NFS-based datastore, but I wouldn't recommend it.  If you *did* do that, I'd specifically do it to a disk share and NOT a user share.

 

I wouldn't recommend it because the parity calculations of a constantly changing vmdk file would likely cause performance to be rubbish.  Also there's the fact that there appears to be issues with NFS at the moment.  Just use a dedicated datastore drive :)

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You can define a NFS-based datastore, but I wouldn't recommend it with unRAID.  If you *did* do that, I'd specifically do it to a disk share and NOT a user share.

 

I wouldn't recommend it because the parity calculations of a constantly changing vmdk file would likely cause performance to be rubbish.  Also there's the fact that there appears to be issues with NFS at the moment.  Just use a dedicated datastore drive :)

 

Just to clarify, NFS for datastore is excellent, but unRAID is not a top performing NFS platform with full random read/write IO.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So at the end I decided to build my new server. (I should blame this forum the most for make me do it :D)

 

I decided to go for a "beast" kind of server (inspired by Raj's Prototype Designs).

 

The building and the setting has been fun and rewarding, but let's start with the lists:

 

Components - List:

Item - DescriptionLink#Note

Case - Norco RPC-4224>>124 HDD in the frontal bays. The plan is to add the cache drive not using them

Motherboard - ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer>>

17 PCIe 2.0 at 8X, plenty of room for expansion

CPU - Intel Xeon DP E5620

>>

1Should be more than enough to cover all the possible Add-On and media decoding

RAM - Kingstone ValueRAM - KVR1333D3N9K3/12G

>>

2I grew up in the '80 were we used to say: there is no such thing as too much RAM - 24GB Total

PSU - Enermax Platimax 1500

>>

1Plenty of power, no redundancy, soon I will have a UPS

SATA Controller - Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8

>>

3I won't need anything more for long time, 24 HDD ready

Fanplate - Norco 120mm fan wall bracket>>1Keeping the noise down

Fans - CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-C12P SE14>>1Keeping the noise down

Fans - Fanplate - Noctua NF-S12B ULN>>3Keeping the noise down

Fans - Case - Noctua NF-R8>>2Keeping the noise down

Video Card - ASUS EN210 >>1No Video on the motherboard just a cheap card without cooling fan

Hard Disks - Data - Hitachi Deskstar 7k4000 4TB>>522x4=88TB, and 2 parity disk, waiting for that upgrade to UnRaid

Hard Disks - Cache - Western Digital Velociraptor 2,5" SATA2>>2For cache, plugged in raid0 on motherboard SAS connector

Case Accessories - Air Slot RZ065>>7Just nicer than the standard one

Case Accessories - Scythe Bay Rafter 2,5 to 3,5 HDD Mounting>>1To mount the 2 WD Cache HDD without using the front bays

Case Accessories - NZXT Premium Cable 3pin fan Y cable>>14 fan plug on the motherboard vs 5 needed, the splitter solve that

Case Accessories - Lian Li Power Supply Rubber PT-PP03B>>1noise control

Case Accessories - Inline SATA To 2xMolex splitter>>1Keep everything properly connected reducing the cable cluttering

OS - unRAID Server Release 5.0-beta14>>1PRO Licence

 

 

Components - Pictures:

The Norco Case

ASUS Motherboard

Kingston RAM

width=300http://www.norcotek.com/product_images/rpc-4224b.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.forumpcs.com.br/galeria/albums/userpics/20281/000000088286.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.nix.ru/autocatalog/memory_modules_kingston/113461_3159_draft.jpg[/img]

Enermax PSU

SATA Controller

Fanplate

width=300http://www.enermax.com/files/ProductPicture_eng/PP_Pic/1285.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.supermicro.com/a_images/products/Accessories/AOC-SASLP-MV8.gif[/img]

width=300http://cybershop.ri-vier.nl/images/Accessoires/120mm-fwp.jpg[/img]

Noctua CPU Cooler

Noctua 120mm Fan

Noctua 80mm Fan

width=300http://www.noctua.at/images/products/fullsize/noctua_nh_c12p_se14_2.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.noctua.at/images/products/fullsize/nf-s12b_1.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.noctua.at/images/products/fullsize/noctua_nf_r8_1.jpg[/img]

ASUS Video Card

Hard Disks - Data

Hard Disks - Cache

width=300http://www.mobilx.hu/images/detailed/en210_silent_di_512md3_v2(lp)_00.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.hitachigst.com/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/Deskstar_7K4000_4f036682bcca3.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.boendiy.com/image/pro_img/Western-Digital-WD3000BLFS.jpg[/img]

Slot Covers

2,5" HDD Mounting

Fan Cable Splitter

width=300http://www.revoltec.net/revoltec.net/data/media/_pms/rz065/scaled/rz065_m.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/acc/058/images/bayrafter2.5-main2_400.jpg[/img]

width=300http://a248.e.akamai.net/origin-cdn.volusion.com/2thoc.9vr6n/v/vspfiles/photos/PC-CB%203P%20Y-2.jpg[/img]

Power Supply Rubber

SATA To Molex Adapter

unRAID

width=300http://lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/upload/image/pt-pp03b/pt-pp03b-01.jpg[/img]

width=300http://www.overclockers-store.com/images/large/INLINEsataTO2molex_6fRnFA6x071x_large.jpg[/img]

 

Hello Max,

 

I was wondering, isn't this a overkill?

 

Got couple of questions:

 

- Why using a xeon, why not i5 or i7?

 

i noticed that the motherboard's SATA support only 3 Gbps.  Why did you go with this one, while you spend sooo much on this build?  Why didn't you pick a board that supports 6 Gbps?

 

i'm a newbie with unRAID.

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I would go with more powerful fans for the drives.  The Noctua NF-S12B ULN is very low power and will not move much air.  You need to think about the static pressure that the fan can deliver as well as volume.  The NF-S12B FLX or NF-P12 are both still very quiet but will be much more effective at moving air past the drives due to their blade design.  You can still slow them down if needed (like other Noctua fans they come with speed reducers) and they will still be better than the fan you have chosen.  ( Refer to the Noctua website for the technical details if needed - www.noctua.at )

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I would go with more powerful fans for the drives.  The Noctua NF-S12B ULN is very low power and will not move much air.  You need to think about the static pressure that the fan can deliver as well as volume.  The NF-S12B FLX or NF-P12 are both still very quiet but will be much more effective at moving air past the drives due to their blade design.  You can still slow them down if needed (like other Noctua fans they come with speed reducers) and they will still be better than the fan you have chosen.  ( Refer to the Noctua website for the technical details if needed - www.noctua.at )

I think he already swapped fans to P12's. He was having heat issues right from the start.

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