New Build / Under Construction

[crazytony]

I've decided I can't take much more of my Adaptec 2805 card so I'm working on a new build that will last 3-5 years.  I have a couple of unique issues that I have to deal with the biggest being no air conditioning so I need fans + less disk density.  Plus the storage is in a bedroom so I need relative quiet.  I can use 4-in-3s but not 5-in-3s as there is almost no room to ventilate the 5-in-3s.  During the peak of summer, the disks in my current case get to 49-52 degrees if I run a full parity.

 

I have 3 planned construction stages.

 

Stage 1:

Case:  Lian Li PC-D8000

Motherboard: Asus F1A75-V-PRO Substitute: ASRock A75 Extreme6

Power supply:  Thermaltake TR2 850W

Disks:  Seagate ST3000DM001 3TB x 6

 

Stage 2:

HBA (still very undecided):  IBM M1015 flashed to IT

Disks: Seagate ST3000DM001 3TB x 8 (14 total)

 

Stage 3:

2nd HBA (still very undecided):  IBM M1015 flashed to IT

Disks: Seagate ST3000DM001 3TB x 8 (22 total)

 

 

 

As far as the disks go:  I'm done with WD.  Their reds are far too expensive (Green 3TB: $130, Red 3TB: $240), Intellipark sucks and their RMA address is in Singapore so disk RMA is not an option (international postage is $80 for one disk!)

 

Can't wait to get started on the first stage.

 

 

 

[caseyparsons]

(Green 3TB: $130, Red 3TB: $240)

 

at Amazon:

Green: $150

Red: $185

[crazytony]

Not in Australia.

 

StaticICE has the reds for a little cheaper than my usual local supplier:

$202+shipping($10-$30)

 

Even then I'm not about to stump up $80 to ship defective disks to Singapore (or Malaysia -- can't remember).

 

Seagate I can post locally -- $15.

 

[crazytony]

I can't get the Asus (has been EOL'd in favour of the A85x).  The A85x isn't even shipping here at the moment (one motherboard from one supplier) and the support for the chipset doesn't look awesome at this point so I've had to substitute for an ASRock A75 Extreme6.

 

It might be a lucky substitute anyway:  the SAS2LP and the M1015 both use PCIE-8x.  On the Asus the first x16 port was x16 and the second was x4.  On the ASRock the first and second ports balance to x8 and x8.

 

The other nicety is they have added two more SATA3 ports to bring it up to 8 on the motherboard.  I need to check support for the ASMedia ASM1061 chip that powers the additional two ports.  It does look like it will work on the AHCI driver: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features

 

The case will be arriving in November and I have a temporary case that I can use to test the loadout until the new case arrives.  I should have everything in-hand on Monday.

 

The first thing I'm going to do is configure the array and move about 10-15TB worth of data on to it to see how well it performs and I'll do a two week burn-in/soak test.  If it is all good then I'll continue the build out.