5u 24-drive server -- any interest?


dpc2

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Hi folks,

 

I recently found a 24-drive server that was being retired from a corporate data center, and picked it up to finally build out my unRAID Pro

array to full capacity.  While I was there I was offered a second server, and decided to pick it up.  I was thinking I might build two unRAID boxes, keep

one box for spare parts, or offer it up to the unRAID community.  So the question of the day is, is there any interest?  If there is, I'll go to work

on testing, cleaning, describing, photographing, pricing, etc. and officially put it up for sale.  Here's what I can tell you at this point:

 

24-drive box that holds 24 HD's in hot-swap bays, plus space for two more HD's "under the hood"

Can connect  14 drives as is -- 2 to SATA connectors on the motherboard, and 12 to a 3ware Model 9550SX-12MI card mounted in a PCI-X slot.

There are also cables running from the backplane to the mobo, so it should be as easy as popping in another 3ware Model 9550SX-12MI and

you'd be up to 26 discs.

 

Supermicro motherboard, dual XEON 3.0GHz CPU's, and 4GB RAM.  Three power supplies, 1GB LAN and a DVD drive.

 

Best of all is that it boots to unRAID with ease.  If there's interest here, I'll load a few discs and test more thoroughly, but I was very happy to see it

boot up from the USB port.  LAN connection works as well.

 

Only downside seems to be the noise..and the weight.  I plan to experiment with the box that I'm keeping to see if I can crank it down from jet

engine noise level to something more home-friendly.  Even so, I'll be sticking it in a remote closet. 

 

Let me know if anyone is interested, and I'll dig deeper into the details.

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

 

 

 

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Yes, I believe the 9550SX-12MI has been discontinued.  It was very expensive when new ($650?), but I've seen them second hand on Ebay for $29-75.

 

Regarding PCI-X, I have absolutely no idea.  Here's a link to the motherboard:

 

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon800/E7525/X6DAE-G2.cfm

That MB has PCI-X slots so should have similar speeds to my X7SBE (70-90MB/s parity checks with AOC-SAT2-MV8) - as long as you use  a single PCI-X slot for 1 controller or PCI-X slot 3 and either slot 1 or slot 2 but not both if using multiple controllers and NO SCSI devices.  You would probably want to use a PCIe network card since the built in GB network is run off the same lane on the PXH chip as PCI-X slot3.  The idea is to only have one controller running off each lane of the PXH chip.  Also since the PCIe x4 slot is shared with the PXH chip I would put the network card in the PCIe x16 slot to get maximum speed.  All this info came from page 1-8 of the manual for MB posted (Figure 1-9).
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Looks like the two disks in the rear corner could be removed and then an ATX power supply could be put there instead. Those 40mm fans on the current PSUs are the most likely cause of high dB levels.

 

I bet those mid-mounted fans could be easily replaced with something more quiet and efficient.

 

Nice looking handles. Cast aluminum?

 

Is an entire U being wasted on the PSUs?

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Looks like the two disks in the rear corner could be removed and then an ATX power supply could be put there instead. Those 40mm fans on the current PSUs are the most likely cause of high dB levels.

 

I bet those mid-mounted fans could be easily replaced with something more quiet and efficient.

 

Nice looking handles. Cast aluminum?

 

Is an entire U being wasted on the PSUs?

 

Jeff,

 

Yes, those two hard discs (both 160GB drives) could be pulled easily and a PSU slotted into that space.  I'd have to measure to make sure, but it looks right.  It's hard to tell where the fan noise comes from -- I could turn a few off and see which ones have the greatest impact.  The two middle fans could very easily be replaced -- they are held in by friction, so it's actually a screwless design.  Fantastic airflow and cooling, though.  At boot up, the CPU and case temps are between 15 and 20 degrees Celsius. 

 

I'd also consider leaving the drives in place as cache drives.  Would be worth checking on the write speeds to those discs, which are attached to the motherboard's SATA connectors, versus going through the RAID controller. 

 

The handles are cast aluminum, and very securely attached.  There are also simple handles on both sides and rails for rack mounting.

 

Not sure how to measure a "u", but it looks from the front like about a half u goes to the PSU and half to the DVD drive and front panel controls.  Guess that's the price of having three, presumably redundant, power supplies.

 

Dave

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That MB has PCI-X slots so should have similar speeds to my X7SBE (70-90MB/s parity checks with AOC-SAT2-MV8) - as long as you use  a single PCI-X slot for 1 controller or PCI-X slot 3 and either slot 1 or slot 2 but not both if using multiple controllers and NO SCSI devices.  You would probably want to use a PCIe network card since the built in GB network is run off the same lane on the PXH chip as PCI-X slot3.  The idea is to only have one controller running off each lane of the PXH chip.  Also since the PCIe x4 slot is shared with the PXH chip I would put the network card in the PCIe x16 slot to get maximum speed.  All this info came from page 1-8 of the manual for MB posted (Figure 1-9).

 

Thanks, Bob.  That's informative...and encouraging!

 

I also found this thread useful, as these guys seem to have similar hardware:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=8705.0

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2 to SATA connectors on the motherboard, and 12 to a 3ware Model 9550SX-12MI card mounted in a PCI-X slot.

 

Let me know if anyone is interested, and I'll dig deeper into the details.

have you tried assigning drives connected to the 3Ware card yet?

I'd be interested, as I've seen that card advertised for a very good price on ebay, and I also have a server class dual xeon MB with PCI-X slots ready to put it in. 

It would add a lot of SATA ports on a single card if it works with unRAID well.

 

Joe L.

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2 to SATA connectors on the motherboard, and 12 to a 3ware Model 9550SX-12MI card mounted in a PCI-X slot.

 

Let me know if anyone is interested, and I'll dig deeper into the details.

have you tried assigning drives connected to the 3Ware card yet?

I'd be interested, as I've seen that card advertised for a very good price on ebay, and I also have a server class dual xeon MB with PCI-X slots ready to put it in. 

It would add a lot of SATA ports on a single card if it works with unRAID well.

 

Joe L.

 

Joe,

 

I played around a bit with the server before I sold it to amatt.  In my limited time with the machine, unRAID seemed to work just fine.  I went into the BIOS on the two cards and assigned any installed discs as "single discs".  The discs were then recognized in unRAID and I could assign them without any issue. 

 

The only potential issue I saw was that the BIOS gave a warning message along the lines of "changing this disc to a "single disc" will result in all data being erased".  I didn't investigate any further to find out what that really meant, but I'd want to be 100% sure of what was going on before moving an existing array with data into that box and connecting the discs to those controllers.  I'm sure there's a way to do it, but I'd want to figure it out before moving any data disc.  Starting a new array from scratch would be no problem.

 

I have a second server with a similar configuration that I'm just starting to work with.  I'll let you know if I encounter any issues.

 

Dave

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2 to SATA connectors on the motherboard, and 12 to a 3ware Model 9550SX-12MI card mounted in a PCI-X slot.

 

Let me know if anyone is interested, and I'll dig deeper into the details.

have you tried assigning drives connected to the 3Ware card yet?

I'd be interested, as I've seen that card advertised for a very good price on ebay, and I also have a server class dual xeon MB with PCI-X slots ready to put it in. 

It would add a lot of SATA ports on a single card if it works with unRAID well.

 

Joe L.

 

Joe,

 

I played around a bit with the server before I sold it to amatt.  In my limited time with the machine, unRAID seemed to work just fine.  I went into the BIOS on the two cards and assigned any installed discs as "single discs".  The discs were then recognized in unRAID and I could assign them without any issue. 

That is good news indeed.

The only potential issue I saw was that the BIOS gave a warning message along the lines of "changing this disc to a "single disc" will result in all data being erased".

That would be the case with ANY raid array disk if changed to be accessed as an individual disk.  The data on the original RAID stripes would be lost.
I didn't investigate any further to find out what that really meant, but I'd want to be 100% sure of what was going on before moving an existing array with data into that box and connecting the discs to those controllers.  I'm sure there's a way to do it, but I'd want to figure it out before moving any data disc.  Starting a new array from scratch would be no problem.

I would be migrating from scratch... (for most of the drives) and others would be on PCI cards running at 66Mhz PCI-X slots for  older IDE drives.    I have two servers... The older one would be getting the newer PCI-X based MB.  It would end up with PCI bus running at double speed, making the parity check bearable, especially once more of the drives were consolidated to SATA drives.

I have a second server with a similar configuration that I'm just starting to work with.  I'll let you know if I encounter any issues.

 

Dave

Thanks.

 

Joe L.

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Joe,

 

I've been experimenting and have found no issues between the cards and unRAID.  Just be sure to go into the 3Ware card's BIOS and define any drive as a single disk, and unRAID recognizes all of them without issue.  I haven't tried a 3TB drive -- not clear if I need to update the card BIOS for 3TB or not.  As my second server, it could be a very long time before I need to add 3TB drives.

 

The only issue I have noticed is that the drive temps are not displayed in the unRAID GUI.  I haven't been able to run smartctl via telnet either -- can't seem to figure out the combination of arguments.

 

My parity drive is on the motherboard SATA bus, and all data drives are connected via the 3Ware cards.  Running parity now with just one disk and the GUI is showing speeds of 70-75 MB/s.

 

Dave

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