November 7, 201411 yr EDIT: Updated proposed build(s) Interim build: Case: Antec 900 Drive Bay Adapters: Cooler Master STB-3T4-E3 x3 CPU: Intel Q9550 Mobo: EVGA nForce 790i Ultra GPU: BFG GeForce GTX 280 SAS Cards: Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 SAS Cables: LSI Forward Breakout Cable CBL-SFF8087OCF-06M x2 RAM: 8GB G.Skill (non-ECC) Power supply: Corsair HX850 HDDs: WD Red 4TB x3 (new), WD Green 3TB x2, WD Green 2TB x2 Cache: none for now Endgame build: Case: Norco 4224 CPU: Intel G3258 Mobo: Supermicro X10SAT-O RAM: Crucial 8GB ECC CT2KIT51272BD160B Power supply:Corsair HX850 HDDs: Whatever I add on top of the originals SAS Cards: Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 x3 SAS Cables: Norco C-SFF8087-D x6 Cache: 250GB SSD Hey all, First time posting. Looking to put together a server mighty soon, need some advice. I saw a build awhile back that I really liked, and I want to update it and put a similar one together for myself. Here's the core of that build: CPU: Intel i3-2120 (3.3GHz) Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X9SCM-F-O Memory: 8GB Kingston (DDR3 1333) SAS Cards: 3x Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 Power Supply: Corsair AX850 Case: Norco 4224 I want to keep the case, or at the very least switch to one with the same amount of SAS hot-swap bays. I'll keep the PSU the same, as well. I'm looking to upgrade the motherboard (if possible), and the SAS cards. I'm new to all this stuff (server stuff, that is, not building rigs), so I don't really know where to look or what to look at. Here's what I would like to run with moving forward: CPU: Intel G3258 Motherboard: updated Supermicro; or one that fits one SSD, three SAS cards Memory: 8GB of whatever works (is ECC necessary???) SAS cards: updated Supermicro's Power Supply Corsair AX850 Case: Norco 4224 SSD: 120GB of something cheap; for the OS (if this applies to unRAID like it does to Windows) Hard drives: WD Red 4TB x3 Gonna start with three 4TB Red's to get everything built. I've got 11TB of WD Greens that I would add in after I transfer everything to the Reds. I assume this is okay, that you can just toss in different-sized drives. I'm looking for any and all advice and critiques. Want to get this built and get it built right. Looking to keep it as fiscally responsible as possible, but not cheap, if you catch my drift. I don't need any frills. This is going to be a straight server. File repository. Media storage, etc. Looking forward to learning some stuff. Thanks!
November 7, 201411 yr First off welcome to the forums. Now i might not know as much as some but i will try to help out where i can. i have bad grammur so bear with me *Links would help to know what your looking to buy.* IMHO the case is fine i believe others here have that case. the power supply is fine as well ( as long as it's a single rail) the SSD would be a good cache drive asuming your getting the plus or pro licnesse the unraid os runs off a usb stick 8gb would be plenty or you can buy the preconfig ones limetech sells. as for the memory as i was told ecc is not necessary but it does help (however you need a board that supports ecc memory if yougo with it) your choice.
November 7, 201411 yr Why not stay with the X9SCM-F and find a CPU for it? They should still be available. It also fits the cards you mention and SSd.
November 7, 201411 yr Author First off welcome to the forums. Now i might not know as much as some but i will try to help out where i can. i have bad grammur so bear with me *Links would help to know what your looking to buy.* IMHO the case is fine i believe others here have that case. the power supply is fine as well ( as long as it's a single rail) the SSD would be a good cache drive asuming your getting the plus or pro licnesse the unraid os runs off a usb stick 8gb would be plenty or you can buy the preconfig ones limetech sells. as for the memory as i was told ecc is not necessary but it does help (however you need a board that supports ecc memory if yougo with it) your choice. UnRAID runs off a USB stick? You never install it to a drive? Intriguing. Can anyone back that up? I've seen the preconfigured ones that LimeTech sells (ones I was planning on buying) but I thought they were install drives, like a bootable USB for installing Windows. This is a perfect instance of my server inexperience shining through. The cache drive you bring up may now be rendered moot by this boot-from-USB wizardry. If it's an extra cost, I may forego it. I'm definitely going with a Pro license, because I want to expand this thing. How large of an SSD would I need for a cache drive? Could it be plugged into a regular SATA port on the motherboard, with the SAS cards handling (potentially) all 24 hard drives? Why not stay with the X9SCM-F and find a CPU for it? They should still be available. It also fits the cards you mention and SSd. I could indeed do that, but the gentleman who furnished me with the details of his server told me it's a bit old and that newer (and potentially better) parts likely existed. I'd rather not spend money on products that are "out of date" if I can help it. If they're noticeably cheaper, I haven't a problem, but if I can by the "newer" ones for a pittance, I'd rather do that. Should the SAS cards not be able to fit in -- potentially -- any motherboard? They're just generic PCI-e cards in the end, right? And if possible, I'd love to build the computer around a G3258. Just picked one of those up for another build and was quite impressed. Plus it's cheap, and not overkill for what I want to do.
November 7, 201411 yr UnRAID runs off a USB stick? You never install it to a drive? Intriguing. Can anyone back that up? I've seen the preconfigured ones that LimeTech sells (ones I was planning on buying) but I thought they were install drives, like a bootable USB for installing Windows. This is a perfect instance of my server inexperience shining through. The cache drive you bring up may now be rendered moot by this boot-from-USB wizardry. If it's an extra cost, I may forego it. I'm definitely going with a Pro license, because I want to expand this thing. How large of an SSD would I need for a cache drive? Could it be plugged into a regular SATA port on the motherboard, with the SAS cards handling (potentially) all 24 hard drives? Yes, that's one of the benefits of Unraid, that a spot isn't taken up by a HDD just for an OS. Cache drive is still handy, it will have faster write speeds than the array itself does since the parity drive is out of the equation. Also good to have a place to install addons like sabnzbd, couchpotato, torrent clients, etc. Installing that kind of stuff to the thumbdrive will wear it out fast. How big a cache drive depends on you. Mover will automatically move everything off the cache drive to it's proper place (the usage of the cache drive is invisible to you) every night, default is 3 am. So however much you would add in a day, is how big your cache drive needs to be. Mine is an old 300 GB Maxtor, though I've been thinking about going with a SSD since I could mount it outside of the hotswap bays and gain another slot for a HDD. Downside to cache is that since it outside the protected array (remember that's why write speeds are so much faster, since parity is not involved), if the cache drive fails, it will not be able to rebuild the drive like with the other drives, and you may lose that data.
November 7, 201411 yr Author Yes, that's one of the benefits of Unraid, that a spot isn't taken up by a HDD just for an OS. Cache drive is still handy, it will have faster write speeds than the array itself does since the parity drive is out of the equation. Also good to have a place to install addons like sabnzbd, couchpotato, torrent clients, etc. Installing that kind of stuff to the thumbdrive will wear it out fast. How big a cache drive depends on you. Mover will automatically move everything off the cache drive to it's proper place (the usage of the cache drive is invisible to you) every night, default is 3 am. So however much you would add in a day, is how big your cache drive needs to be. Mine is an old 300 GB Maxtor, though I've been thinking about going with a SSD since I could mount it outside of the hotswap bays and gain another slot for a HDD. Downside to cache is that since it outside the protected array (remember that's why write speeds are so much faster, since parity is not involved), if the cache drive fails, it will not be able to rebuild the drive like with the other drives, and you may lose that data. So unRAID runs on a USB stick. Got it. You also say that you've been thinking about moving a cache SSD to outside the array. So I could have 24 hard drives humming along in my hot swap bays, all connected to three SAS cards, and then have a cache SSD hooked up to the motherboard via SATA ports? As for the cache being outside the protected array... if the cache goes down, the array is still intact? I just lose whatever was on the cache and the cache drive itself? Which isn't a big deal if I copy everything over, wait for the cache to flush, and then delete it, making sure it's safe? What happens if I transfer more than the cache drive? So, I have 150GB of data to transfer, but a 120GB cache drive?
November 7, 201411 yr First off welcome to the forums. Now i might not know as much as some but i will try to help out where i can. i have bad grammur so bear with me *Links would help to know what your looking to buy.* IMHO the case is fine i believe others here have that case. the power supply is fine as well ( as long as it's a single rail) the SSD would be a good cache drive asuming your getting the plus or pro licnesse the unraid os runs off a usb stick 8gb would be plenty or you can buy the preconfig ones limetech sells. as for the memory as i was told ecc is not necessary but it does help (however you need a board that supports ecc memory if yougo with it) your choice. UnRAID runs off a USB stick? You never install it to a drive? Intriguing. Can anyone back that up? I've seen the preconfigured ones that LimeTech sells (ones I was planning on buying) but I thought they were install drives, like a bootable USB for installing Windows. This is a perfect instance of my server inexperience shining through. The cache drive you bring up may now be rendered moot by this boot-from-USB wizardry. If it's an extra cost, I may forego it. I'm definitely going with a Pro license, because I want to expand this thing. How large of an SSD would I need for a cache drive? Could it be plugged into a regular SATA port on the motherboard, with the SAS cards handling (potentially) all 24 hard drives? Why not stay with the X9SCM-F and find a CPU for it? They should still be available. It also fits the cards you mention and SSd. I could indeed do that, but the gentleman who furnished me with the details of his server told me it's a bit old and that newer (and potentially better) parts likely existed. I'd rather not spend money on products that are "out of date" if I can help it. If they're noticeably cheaper, I haven't a problem, but if I can by the "newer" ones for a pittance, I'd rather do that. Should the SAS cards not be able to fit in -- potentially -- any motherboard? They're just generic PCI-e cards in the end, right? And if possible, I'd love to build the computer around a G3258. Just picked one of those up for another build and was quite impressed. Plus it's cheap, and not overkill for what I want to do. I understand. The X9SCM-F is a bit older, but is a tried and tested platform and has IPMI, which I find invaluable. Regarding the SAS cards: If you want 3 cards which hold 8 drives each you probably want at least 3 PCI-E 2.0 4x slots, and preferably 8x. You might want M1015 controllers.
November 7, 201411 yr You also say that you've been thinking about moving a cache SSD to outside the array. So I could have 24 hard drives humming along in my hot swap bays, all connected to three SAS cards, and then have a cache SSD hooked up to the motherboard via SATA ports? A cache drive automatically sits outside of the array, and yes you could hook it to an onboard SATA port and have all your array disks running off the SAS2LP. This is what I do currently. As for the cache being outside the protected array... if the cache goes down, the array is still intact? I just lose whatever was on the cache and the cache drive itself? Which isn't a big deal if I copy everything over, wait for the cache to flush, and then delete it, making sure it's safe? What happens if I transfer more than the cache drive? So, I have 150GB of data to transfer, but a 120GB cache drive? The array is separate from the cache drive, so if the cache drive died your array is still online and humming along. You just potentially lose what was on the cache drive. As for your last question I believe if the cache drive is full then it will start writing directly to the array. If you are buying a cache drive I would assume you will use 10GB for docker containers, and if you want to run Plex you could use up another 5-20GB depending on the amount of data you have. If you are going SSD I would suggest you look at 250GB. Or, you can just buy a larger spinner. I have a 1TB WD Black drive as my cache drive. It works great.
November 7, 201411 yr So unRAID runs on a USB stick. Got it. You also say that you've been thinking about moving a cache SSD to outside the array. So I could have 24 hard drives humming along in my hot swap bays, all connected to three SAS cards, and then have a cache SSD hooked up to the motherboard via SATA ports? Yep. As for the cache being outside the protected array... if the cache goes down, the array is still intact? I just lose whatever was on the cache and the cache drive itself? Which isn't a big deal if I copy everything over, wait for the cache to flush, and then delete it, making sure it's safe? Yeah it won't affect the array or other drives in any way, just the potential to lose what was on the cache drive. I've never seen it as a big deal, only things I could lose in that event would be stuff I could easily get again. Important things, I certainly wouldn't move it to the server then delete every other copy anyway. What happens if I transfer more than the cache drive? So, I have 150GB of data to transfer, but a 120GB cache drive? I don't know. Probably just bypass it like bkastner said, though I'm sure someone can answer definitively. Copying directly to the array isn't a bad thing, just slower since parity needs to update in real time. Speaking of which, when you are adding your drives, and copying data, you may want to wait to enable your parity drive until you have copied everything over and added all your drives. Without a parity drive adding drives will be instantaneous, and copy speeds will be roughly double what they would be with if the parity drive is enabled. Then you can enable the parity drive and will do it's thing from there.
November 7, 201411 yr Author I understand. The X9SCM-F is a bit older, but is a tried and tested platform and has IPMI, which I find invaluable. Regarding the SAS cards: If you want 3 cards which hold 8 drives each you probably want at least 3 PCI-E 2.0 4x slots, and preferably 8x. You might want M1015 controllers. Tried and tested is important, but I'm here to see if there's anything that is tried and tested, but also a bit newer. As for the SAS cards, the person I got the build from had this exact setup with no issues. So I'm confident everything should be on the up and up. If you want to point me in the direction of an equivalent mobo with M1015 controllers, I'm all ears and very appreciative. The array is separate from the cache drive, so if the cache drive died your array is still online and humming along. You just potentially lose what was on the cache drive. As for your last question I believe if the cache drive is full then it will start writing directly to the array. If you are buying a cache drive I would assume you will use 10GB for docker containers, and if you want to run Plex you could use up another 5-20GB depending on the amount of data you have. If you are going SSD I would suggest you look at 250GB. Or, you can just buy a larger spinner. I have a 1TB WD Black drive as my cache drive. It works great. I see. Is there any real advantage to having an SSD vs. a WD Black vs. a regular WD Red as the cache drive? For the array itself? Speaking of which, when you are adding your drives, and copying data, you may want to wait to enable your parity drive until you have copied everything over and added all your drives. Without a parity drive adding drives will be instantaneous, and copy speeds will be roughly double what they would be with if the parity drive is enabled. Then you can enable the parity drive and will do it's thing from there. That's a great tip. I'm assuming that setting up unRAID and choosing to proceed with the parity drive is pretty easy stuff. I'm pretty new to all this.
November 8, 201411 yr I see. Is there any real advantage to having an SSD vs. a WD Black vs. a regular WD Red as the cache drive? For the array itself? ... That's a great tip. I'm assuming that setting up unRAID and choosing to proceed with the parity drive is pretty easy stuff. I'm pretty new to all this. For the cache drive, it is just what is obvious - size and speed. The cache drive acts independently of the array and has performance characteristics that are unimpeded by array overhead. So an SSD is fast and small, a Black is large and reasonably fast, and a Red is large and slower than the others. For the array, the performance of read operations can usually be characterized by the single drive being read while write operations are more complex because multiple drives are involved. Deciding to postpone using the Parity drive is really easy - it's done via the WebUI and you simply don't select one of the available devices as a Parity drive. Later on you stop the array and select a Parity drive to protect the array, and restart it. You can do lots of more complicated things with unRAID, but that's one of the easy ones.
November 8, 201411 yr Author I see. Is there any real advantage to having an SSD vs. a WD Black vs. a regular WD Red as the cache drive? For the array itself? ... That's a great tip. I'm assuming that setting up unRAID and choosing to proceed with the parity drive is pretty easy stuff. I'm pretty new to all this. For the cache drive, it is just what is obvious - size and speed. The cache drive acts independently of the array and has performance characteristics that are unimpeded by array overhead. So an SSD is fast and small, a Black is large and reasonably fast, and a Red is large and slower than the others. For the array, the performance of read operations can usually be characterized by the single drive being read while write operations are more complex because multiple drives are involved. Deciding to postpone using the Parity drive is really easy - it's done via the WebUI and you simply don't select one of the available devices as a Parity drive. Later on you stop the array and select a Parity drive to protect the array, and restart it. You can do lots of more complicated things with unRAID, but that's one of the easy ones. Excellent! Thank you! I'm not looking to get too complicated; just mass storage with a safe amount of parity. unRAID only does 1 parity drive, correct? What happens if I have multiple drives buy the farm?
November 8, 201411 yr So I could have 24 hard drives humming along in my hot swap bays unraid only sees 24 drives TOTAL and since your planing on getting the pro version that would mean: 1 drive for parity (Must be your largest drive or equal to your largest data drive) 1 drive for cache the remaning drives for data ( can be any size and speed ) i would put the parity and cache drives on the mother board sata's and use the cards for the data drives. i would only start with enough drives so you can swap your data you have over then you can add those drive to the array without lossing your data their is some good posts here that walk you though some stuff the wiki imo is alittle out dated but does give you an idea of what to do. I'm sure if any of the info i'm suggesting is in error i will be corrected. I don't have the links atm but I'm sure if a mod is around he could point you in the best direction
November 8, 201411 yr Author unraid only sees 24 drives TOTAL and since your planing on getting the pro version that would mean: 1 drive for parity (Must be your largest drive or equal to your largest data drive) 1 drive for cache the remaning drives for data ( can be any size and speed ) i would put the parity and cache drives on the mother board sata's and use the cards for the data drives. i would only start with enough drives so you can swap your data you have over then you can add those drive to the array without lossing your data their is some good posts here that walk you though some stuff the wiki imo is alittle out dated but does give you an idea of what to do. I'm sure if any of the info i'm suggesting is in error i will be corrected. I don't have the links atm but I'm sure if a mod is around he could point you in the best direction Apparently unRAID Pro supports 25 drives: "Pro - Supporting up to 25 devices (1 Parity, 23 Data, and 1 Cache)" Regardless, thanks for the reminder. Why would you put the cache and parity on the motherboard's SATA drives, exactly?
November 8, 201411 yr A few random thoughts after reading this thread ... => Connecting the cache and parity drives to motherboard ports simply ensures they have max bandwidth, in case you're using a card that becomes bandwidth limited when all drives are accessed [i.e. an 8 drive card on a PCIe x4 slot will be bandwidth limited by the 4 lanes with modern high-density drives]. It's not absolutely necessary ... and in fact makes no difference in normal operation (since you're not accessing all drives at once except during parity checks and disk rebuilds). => ECC memory isn't "necessary" ... but it's definitely a good thing. You're building a fault-tolerant server -- having a fault-tolerant memory subsystem provides one more level of protection for your data. It's even more important if you're planning to install more than 2 memory modules, as the reliability of unbuffered memory is notably lower with more than 2 modules installed (due to bus loading). => I'd use one of the X10 series Supermicro boards ... the X10SAT-O board has 3 PCIe x16 slots for 3 add-in cards; or the uATX X10SL7-F-O has x8 and x4 slots (with x16 and x8 connectors) and 14 on-board SATA ports. Either of these would work well. I'd use an E3 series Xeon, although a 4th gen Core i3 that supports ECC would be okay if you don't need the extra "horsepower". The G3258 would also work nicely, and it has ECC support as well, so would work nicely with these boards. => For use as a cache, both SSDs and modern high-capacity spinners (any drive with sustained data rates > 120MB/s) will both be network limited, so the higher speed of an SSD is only an advantage when you're writing small files, where the near-instantaneous "seek" will let those writes finish quicker. For larger files, that small "startup" gain is insignificant. But if you're going to be running resident apps (e.g. Dockers) in UnRAID, the higher speed of an SSD is nice to have. I wouldn't use an SSD any smaller than 250GB these days ... they've dropped dramatically in price over the past two years - you can get a quality (Intel, Crucial, Samsung) 250GB unit for ~ $125 or less. => Initially populating your array before you assign a parity drive does indeed let it finish much quicker. Two caveats: If you do this, do NOT assign a cache drive either (no reason to cache writes that are already happening at disk speed); and remember that these writes are NOT fault-tolerant, so any failure in UnRAID will result in data loss. Obviously you should have backups of your data anyway, and almost certainly do when you're initially populating the array [the files have to be copied from somewhere ] ... but don't forget to assign a parity drive when you're finished. Personally, I want ALL data written to UnRAID to be fault tolerant when it's written, so I don't use a cache ... but it IS ~ 3 times faster if you use a cache.
November 8, 201411 yr Author AWESOME POST! A few random thoughts after reading this thread ... => Connecting the cache and parity drives to motherboard ports simply ensures they have max bandwidth, in case you're using a card that becomes bandwidth limited when all drives are accessed [i.e. an 8 drive card on a PCIe x4 slot will be bandwidth limited by the 4 lanes with modern high-density drives]. It's not absolutely necessary ... and in fact makes no difference in normal operation (since you're not accessing all drives at once except during parity checks and disk rebuilds). So... does that mean that PCIe x16 slots aren't necessary in the end? You say I'm not accessing all drives at once, so does that mean that if/when I've got 3 SAS cards completely saturated with 24 HDDs, PCIe lanes don't matter since I won't ever be accessing all 24 drives? => ECC memory isn't "necessary" ... but it's definitely a good thing. You're building a fault-tolerant server -- having a fault-tolerant memory subsystem provides one more level of protection for your data. It's even more important if you're planning to install more than 2 memory modules, as the reliability of unbuffered memory is notably lower with more than 2 modules installed (due to bus loading). => I'd use one of the X10 series Supermicro boards ... the X10SAT-O board has 3 PCIe x16 slots for 3 add-in cards; or the uATX X10SL7-F-O has x8 and x4 slots (with x16 and x8 connectors) and 14 on-board SATA ports. Either of these would work well. I'd use an E3 series Xeon, although a 4th gen Core i3 that supports ECC would be okay if you don't need the extra "horsepower". The G3258 would also work nicely, and it has ECC support as well, so would work nicely with these boards. The X10SAT-O seems like it has everything I want. Thanks! I'd like to go with a Xeon, but they're just so much more expensive than the G3258. What are the benefits of a Xeon chip vs. a standard chip like the G3258? => For use as a cache, both SSDs and modern high-capacity spinners (any drive with sustained data rates > 120MB/s) will both be network limited, so the higher speed of an SSD is only an advantage when you're writing small files, where the near-instantaneous "seek" will let those writes finish quicker. For larger files, that small "startup" gain is insignificant. But if you're going to be running resident apps (e.g. Dockers) in UnRAID, the higher speed of an SSD is nice to have. I wouldn't use an SSD any smaller than 250GB these days ... they've dropped dramatically in price over the past two years - you can get a quality (Intel, Crucial, Samsung) 250GB unit for ~ $125 or less. Haven't delved into unRAID apps at all, so I can't speak to that right now. I was thinking of a WD Black for the capacity, but I may look into ~250GB SSDs. I suppose I'll have to look into the apps first to see if it's really worth it. => Initially populating your array before you assign a parity drive does indeed let it finish much quicker. Two caveats: If you do this, do NOT assign a cache drive either (no reason to cache writes that are already happening at disk speed); and remember that these writes are NOT fault-tolerant, so any failure in UnRAID will result in data loss. Obviously you should have backups of your data anyway, and almost certainly do when you're initially populating the array [the files have to be copied from somewhere ] ... but don't forget to assign a parity drive when you're finished. Personally, I want ALL data written to UnRAID to be fault tolerant when it's written, so I don't use a cache ... but it IS ~ 3 times faster if you use a cache. I may go the same route as you and skip the cache entirely. I'm not interested in speed for any other reason than being interested in speed. It's so alluring...
November 8, 201411 yr So... does that mean that PCIe x16 slots aren't necessary in the end? You say I'm not accessing all drives at once, so does that mean that if/when I've got 3 SAS cards completely saturated with 24 HDDs, PCIe lanes don't matter since I won't ever be accessing all 24 drives? No, PCIe lanes do matter when you're doing parity checks or drive rebuilds. But in normal use you're only accessing 1 drive (for reads) or 2 drives (for writes) at a time [unless you have multiple systems accessing the server at once]. As long as you have at least PCIe x4 bandwidth, you're fine with 8 port cards (although x8 bandwidth is better). What are the benefits of a Xeon chip vs. a standard chip like the G3258? A Xeon chip will provide higher performance, more cores, and has better virtualization support [both VT-x and VT-d, whereas the G3258 only supports VT-x]. If you don't need the higher performance, and aren't going to use any virtual machines that require pass-through support, then those aren't features you need.
November 9, 201411 yr => I'd use one of the X10 series Supermicro boards ... the X10SAT-O board has 3 PCIe x16 slots for 3 add-in cards; or the uATX X10SL7-F-O has x8 and x4 slots (with x16 and x8 connectors) and 14 on-board SATA ports. Either of these would work well. I'd use an E3 series Xeon, although a 4th gen Core i3 that supports ECC would be okay if you don't need the extra "horsepower". The G3258 would also work nicely, and it has ECC support as well, so would work nicely with these boards. Those X16 slot on the X10SAT seem nice, but are in fact 1 x16, 1 x4 in a x16 slot and 1 x8 in a x16 slot. At least according to the manual. They are PCIe 3.0 though.
November 9, 201411 yr Yes, the slots aren't all x16 => but 4 PCIe v3 lanes is FAR more than you need for 8 SATA drives to run at full bandwidth. The key is they're all x16 physical slots, so there's no problem using any card you may want to. If you use a 16 or 24 port card, you'll want to be sure it's in the x16 or x8 slot ... but if you're using 8 port cards it doesn't matter.
November 9, 201411 yr Author No, PCIe lanes do matter when you're doing parity checks or drive rebuilds. But in normal use you're only accessing 1 drive (for reads) or 2 drives (for writes) at a time [unless you have multiple systems accessing the server at once]. As long as you have at least PCIe x4 bandwidth, you're fine with 8 port cards (although x8 bandwidth is better). Gotcha. A Xeon chip will provide higher performance, more cores, and has better virtualization support [both VT-x and VT-d, whereas the G3258 only supports VT-x]. If you don't need the higher performance, and aren't going to use any virtual machines that require pass-through support, then those aren't features you need. Can't imagine I'd need the higher performance for a file server. No VM's, either. G3258 it is! Yes, the slots aren't all x16 => but 4 PCIe v3 lanes is FAR more than you need for 8 SATA drives to run at full bandwidth. The key is they're all x16 physical slots, so there's no problem using any card you may want to. If you use a 16 or 24 port card, you'll want to be sure it's in the x16 or x8 slot ... but if you're using 8 port cards it doesn't matter. Good to know. As long as it will work, I'm good to go. Just looking at pure storage, here. One a separate note, what should I be looking at for SAS cards? I was thinking the Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8. Although dikkiedirk mentioned the Intel M1015. The M1015 is considerably more expensive, though. Won't be buying these right now, but just wondering how they are. Newegg has neither product in stock, which makes me think they're a little old, or that newer iterations exist. Could anyone comment? Also, what's the best HDD to use? I'm a WD guy through and through, so want to stay with them. What's better, Greens or Reds? Again, just a file server. Might be more in the future, but the primary goal here is mass storage.
November 9, 201411 yr Lots of folks use the SAS2LP cards, as well as the M1015s. Either will work fine ... if I was buying one it'd be the Supermicro. They're indeed a bit dated, but they're still available, and are rock-solid reliable cards with plenty of bandwidth => faster than any disk you're going to attach to them, and that's really all that matters. I also like WD drives -- the only drives I've bought for my servers in the last couple years are WD Reds. Haven't moved to 6TB units yet, but those will be the next drives I buy.
November 9, 201411 yr Author Lots of folks use the SAS2LP cards, as well as the M1015s. Either will work fine ... if I was buying one it'd be the Supermicro. They're indeed a bit dated, but they're still available, and are rock-solid reliable cards with plenty of bandwidth => faster than any disk you're going to attach to them, and that's really all that matters. I also like WD drives -- the only drives I've bought for my servers in the last couple years are WD Reds. Haven't moved to 6TB units yet, but those will be the next drives I buy. Thanks for the help garycase! Question about the parity drive: it has to be the largest drive (or the same size as the largest); can you change your parity drive in the future?
November 9, 201411 yr ... can you change your parity drive in the future? Sure. You can update it to a larger drive anytime you want. Because of the restriction that it has to be >= the size of any other drive in the array, it's a good idea to use a drive as large as what you plan to use in the near term (i.e. if I was building a new server now I'd use a 6TB unit) ... but you can certainly start smaller if you want (e.g. 4TB) ... and in the future you can change it to whatever size you may want to start using (e.g. 8TB, 10TB, 16TB, etc.).
November 10, 201411 yr Author Sure. You can update it to a larger drive anytime you want. Because of the restriction that it has to be >= the size of any other drive in the array, it's a good idea to use a drive as large as what you plan to use in the near term (i.e. if I was building a new server now I'd use a 6TB unit) ... but you can certainly start smaller if you want (e.g. 4TB) ... and in the future you can change it to whatever size you may want to start using (e.g. 8TB, 10TB, 16TB, etc.). Awesome again. Thanks! Updated my potential build, and edited the OP. EDIT: Updated proposed build(s) Interim build: Case: Antec 900 CPU: Intel Q9550 Mobo: EVGA nForce 790i Ultra RAM: 8GB G.Skill (non-ECC) Power supply: taking suggestions; must be able to power 24-25 SATA drives, good quality build HDDs: WD Red 4TB x3 (new), WD Green 3TB x2, maybe one or two others Cache: none for now Endgame build: Case: Norco 4224 CPU: Intel G3258 Mobo: Supermicro X10SAT-O RAM: 8GB ECC RAM (taking recommendations) Power supply: taking suggestions; must be able to power 24-25 SATA drives, good quality build HDDs: Whatever I add on top of the originals SAS Cards: Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 x3 Cache: 250GB SSD
November 10, 201411 yr I'd use a Seasonic X series or a Corsair HX or AX power supply => 750w with a single 12v rail is plenty. These would be good choices: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151120
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