IamSpartacus Posted November 20, 2017 Share Posted November 20, 2017 (edited) The main priority of this project is to downsize the number of nodes I'm running on my network from 4 (2 storage, 2 compute) to 3 (1 storage, 2 compute) and basically move my current local backup server to the other side of the site-to-site VPN (more on this later) I have between my house and my parents'. I will have to upgrade both the pfSense box in my home (Site A) and the pfSense box in my parents' home (Site B). For a quick rundown of my nodes see below: The above nodes are acting as follows (bottom to top) 1. Bulk Storage Array #1 - media storage, VM snapshots, surveillance storage, software/personal data 2. ESXi02 - Multitude of VM's including Bulk Storage Array #2 (backups up Array #1) 3. ESXi01 - Main compute host. Runs media servers and other related services. 4. FreeNAS - VM shared storage server. The build plan going forward is as follows: Eliminate FreeNAS server and move flash storage back into ESXi boxes for local datastores Migrate ESXi02 into the chassis running FreeNAS in order to completely eliminate the current physical chassis running ESXi02. Move all bulk drives running in ESXi02 and migrate them into a new offsite storage server. Build new offsite storage server in U-NAS NSC-810a with aforementioned drives from Bulk Array #2 Upgrade pfSense Site A (thinking i3-6100 build) to handle Gigabit VPN Move hardware in pfSense Site A (c2758) to pfSense Site B. Upgrade drives in Bulk Array #1 from Seagate 8TB SMR's to WD Gold 10TB drives. There will be lots of new hardware coming in (some is here, some is on the way) and lots of existing hardware coming out. Stay tuned for more specifics and pics of each build coming soon :cool:. Edited November 20, 2017 by IamSpartacus Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted November 20, 2017 Author Share Posted November 20, 2017 Reserved Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted November 20, 2017 Author Share Posted November 20, 2017 (edited) Chassis for Offsite Backup Server. U-NAS NSC-810a. Being that this is the "larger" model that supports mATX, I expected it to be bigger but it's barely any bigger than the NSC-800 I did a build in a few years back. Pleasantly surprised by that. Edited November 20, 2017 by IamSpartacus Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted November 20, 2017 Author Share Posted November 20, 2017 (edited) Few items arrived that this weekend. ASRock Rack E3C236D2I Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10SDV-4C-TLN2F Western Digitial Gold 10TB drives. Also just got in this Akasa A-ITX17-M1B Fanless chassis. I have to say it's pretty badass and really well built. Also got in a Cooljag 1U HSF for my Xeon D-1521 board. Edited November 20, 2017 by IamSpartacus Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted November 20, 2017 Author Share Posted November 20, 2017 Added some of these 2.5" SSD Hotswap bays to my 4U iStarUSA Trayless chassis. This allows me to put my 2 cache drives in theses hot swap bays and free up 2 of the 3.5" trays for data disks. Not an immediate need but figured while I'm re-configuring things I might as well get these in since I don't like downtime :D. Right now I'm in the process of copying all my data back to a fresh array of the WD Gold 10TB drives. Once that is complete, I can start moving the drives in my current backup server into the newly built off-site backup server which I'm going to start building over the next 1-2 days. Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted November 20, 2017 Author Share Posted November 20, 2017 Installed Xeon D-1521 board along with a Cooljag 1U HSF and cut some thin plastic strips to ensure proper airflow over hard drives. Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted December 1, 2017 Author Share Posted December 1, 2017 So I wound up deciding on using the i3 in my backup NAS and the Xeon D-1521 in pfSense. The project was delayed by those small missing parts you never think about (I/O shields, power supply extension cable, etc.). Firewall is now up and running on the Xeon D-1521, the C2758 board is now installed in the Akasa case ready to be deployed at my parent's house, as is the backup NAS which isinstalled with drives and data has been fully replicated. Forgot to take pics of the firewall swap but not much to see there really. Even though the NSC-810a case is designed for mATX cases, I'm glad I went with Mini-ITX. It accomplished exactly what I wanted which was give me more room to work with compared to the NSC-800 I used a few years back. As you can see I'm pretty terrible at cable management so it paid off. Quote Link to comment
HellDiverUK Posted December 12, 2017 Share Posted December 12, 2017 Nice stuff, I had one of the U-NAS cases a while back (the 8-bay miniITX version) and it was an exercise in frustration. In 30 years of building PCs, I've never seen such an annoying case. Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted December 12, 2017 Author Share Posted December 12, 2017 4 minutes ago, HellDiverUK said: Nice stuff, I had one of the U-NAS cases a while back (the 8-bay miniITX version) and it was an exercise in frustration. In 30 years of building PCs, I've never seen such an annoying case. Yup I had one of the original U-NAS cases and they were way too cramped. That's why I went with the 810a which fits mATX cases on the top instead of mini-ITX on the side. I also purposely used a mini-ITX board instead of mATX to give me the room to cable manage. Quote Link to comment
Greygoose Posted December 15, 2017 Share Posted December 15, 2017 Nice builds I looked at the s Akasa A-ITX17-M1B Fanless for a media pc setup but never got round to using it. How to you keep track of disk placement if there was a failure, i have a much much smaller setup and was unplugging drives last week to find a disk with errors. I have now decided to label each drive physically, with the serial and disk position within the array on the back of each disk. Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted December 17, 2017 Author Share Posted December 17, 2017 On 12/15/2017 at 3:22 PM, Greygoose said: Nice builds I looked at the s Akasa A-ITX17-M1B Fanless for a media pc setup but never got round to using it. How to you keep track of disk placement if there was a failure, i have a much much smaller setup and was unplugging drives last week to find a disk with errors. I have now decided to label each drive physically, with the serial and disk position within the array on the back of each disk. I have very good documentation on all things related to my network. As a network administrator you learn the value of documentation the hard way over the years. But even if I didn't have the disk slots documented it wouldn't take long to simply view the serial number in unRAID and then check each slot. My main server is trayless so the disks just slide in and out. Quote Link to comment
Frostyfruit Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Nice! Love the small network patch leads! Quote Link to comment
Rick Sanchez Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 Are you in the UK? If you are, can I ask how much your drives cost? Quote Link to comment
IamSpartacus Posted January 5, 2018 Author Share Posted January 5, 2018 8 hours ago, hilljd00 said: Are you in the UK? If you are, can I ask how much your drives cost? I'm in the US. Quote Link to comment
Rick Sanchez Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 Damn, ok. US prices don't translate to the UK as we get charged a premium. Nice build Quote Link to comment
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