Assistance needed for Building 80TB server

[ThePhotraveller]

Hei guys am looking to build a 80 TB Unraid nas. I already am running a 16tb out of my old junk pc now is the time for more space and am looking to build a proper one this time. 
I need to know the hardware details needed to build a pc as such. Meaning i have watched few linus videos where he adds multiple hard discs on it. I wanna know how its is done and what are specific hardwares do i need to extend my hard drive beyond 6 numbers.
Very much detailed help would be appreciated.

[limetech]

I suggest you add a lot more details in your post: NAS only?  Plan to run VM's?  Which OS's?  Plan to run containers?  Which apps? etc.

In meantime, study the forum, there are literally hundreds of sample builds.

[trurl]

Take a look at some of the newer posts over in Unraid Compulsive Design:

 

https://forums.unraid.net/forum/35-unraid-compulsive-design/

[ThePhotraveller]

1 hour ago, limetech said:

I suggest you add a lot more details in your post: NAS only?  Plan to run VM's?  Which OS's?  Plan to run containers?  Which apps? etc.

In meantime, study the forum, there are literally hundreds of sample builds.

Its a plain file server. I won't be using anything than zerotier for remote access. 

Otherwise it's a complete storage unit for my office. 

[ashman70]

Pretty much any hardware will work, however you need to put thought into things like, physical space, are we talking a tower case or a rack mounted case? Noise levels, do you want quiet or can it be a little noisy, how many drives do you want to have, do you want hot plug drives?

 

If you have rack mounted case let's say that can hold 24 drives, you will need an HBA card, something like a Dell H310 flashed to IT mode. You can then get cables that connect to the card at one end and have four individual SATA connectors on the other, two cables like this per card and one card will support eight hard drives. Different cases have different back planes but that's not something you really need to worry about. Pick a case and then I am sure there are users on this forum who have built servers with it and can share their knowledge and experiences with you.

[ThePhotraveller]

7 hours ago, ashman70 said:

Pretty much any hardware will work, however you need to put thought into things like, physical space, are we talking a tower case or a rack mounted case? Noise levels, do you want quiet or can it be a little noisy, how many drives do you want to have, do you want hot plug drives?

 

If you have rack mounted case let's say that can hold 24 drives, you will need an HBA card, something like a Dell H310 flashed to IT mode. You can then get cables that connect to the card at one end and have four individual SATA connectors on the other, two cables like this per card and one card will support eight hard drives. Different cases have different back planes but that's not something you really need to worry about. Pick a case and then I am sure there are users on this forum who have built servers with it and can share their knowledge and experiences with you.

Thanks for the replies man. 

First of all this is india, I really have to look deeper to find specific parts. 
Cabinets and racks apart for now. My concern here at the moment is what the processor to buy and motherboard for max hard discs(30 in case of unraid)  as we could someday use all the storage space available. we are constantly upgrading 4tb each month. so i want it to be scalable as well. HBA cards needs to be configured or its like a simple plug and play? 

The sole purpose of the server is for file management only. 

Also i have an added question, I have an unraid file server with 6 hard discs already. Is it possible to add a HBA card and extend the resources in the old server? 
 

[ashman70]

Any processor will work as long as it is 64 bit, so Intel Celeron, i3, i5, i7, Xeon or AMD.

 

Some HBA's can work out of the box, some need to be flashed, you need to check on the forums to see what people have bought that works OOB.

 

If you have an existing unRAID server, you can expand it yes, it really depends on your license which you may need to upgrade.

[praeses]

One thing to keep in mind with larger arrays and specifically large arrays with large drives is how long will it take to complete a parity check and if that will get in the way of your business.  If running on the weekend (36 hours) is fine, then fewer larger drives to get started with sufficient I/O makes sense in the long term as it is easier to upgrade as you mentioned adding 4TB regularly.  If you have a tighter window (12hrs for example) more smaller drives with more PCIe lanes/controllers.  I'm bringing this up specifically as you mentioned the word "office".

 

Typically you will run into PCIe/controller bottlenecks far before CPU, so for comparison I have an AMD Sempron 3850 (quad core 1.3ghz Kabini, Atom-class) that does fine with ~ 60% utilization during parity check @ 115MB/sec average on 13Data+1Parity+2Cache (have slight pci-e bottleneck for the first 1/3rd of the parity check where drives can go slightly faster but not worth me upgrading).  It really doesn't require much for CPU power for single parity as a file-server only just a platform supported by the processor with sufficient IO for the number of drives you plan to run concurrently.  8x12TB Drives is a different beast than 24x4TB drives.

[trurl]

2 hours ago, praeses said:

more smaller drives

On the other hand, larger drives often perform somewhat better than smaller drives due to increased density. And more drives means more opportunities for problems. As in all things, there are tradeoffs.

[ThePhotraveller]

On 9/24/2018 at 1:19 AM, ashman70 said:

Any processor will work as long as it is 64 bit, so Intel Celeron, i3, i5, i7, Xeon or AMD.

 

Some HBA's can work out of the box, some need to be flashed, you need to check on the forums to see what people have bought that works OOB.

 

If you have an existing unRAID server, you can expand it yes, it really depends on your license which you may need to upgrade.

I have a full license man. So that ain't a problem but choosing the necessary hardware is confusing for me. 

[ThePhotraveller]

10 hours ago, praeses said:

One thing to keep in mind with larger arrays and specifically large arrays with large drives is how long will it take to complete a parity check and if that will get in the way of your business.  If running on the weekend (36 hours) is fine, then fewer larger drives to get started with sufficient I/O makes sense in the long term as it is easier to upgrade as you mentioned adding 4TB regularly.  If you have a tighter window (12hrs for example) more smaller drives with more PCIe lanes/controllers.  I'm bringing this up specifically as you mentioned the word "office".

 

Typically you will run into PCIe/controller bottlenecks far before CPU, so for comparison I have an AMD Sempron 3850 (quad core 1.3ghz Kabini, Atom-class) that does fine with ~ 60% utilization during parity check @ 115MB/sec average on 13Data+1Parity+2Cache (have slight pci-e bottleneck for the first 1/3rd of the parity check where drives can go slightly faster but not worth me upgrading).  It really doesn't require much for CPU power for single parity as a file-server only just a platform supported by the processor with sufficient IO for the number of drives you plan to run concurrently.  8x12TB Drives is a different beast than 24x4TB drives.

Am considering 12*8 drives too. 

Lets consider it as a 12*8. So how will u connect them some by direct sata and some from hba? 

[praeses]

It seems the common route on a budget is to get used Dell Perc H310 or IBM 1015, and re-flash them into IT mode and use SAS-SATA breakout cables.  There is also the wiki   You can get fancier with SAS/SATA backplanes/hotswap bays etc but it will depend on your requirements.  Personally I like to keep things simple, one connector per drive for both data and power.  I would suggest checking out other builds in the forum to see what aligns with your requirements especially including form factor and budget:

 

https://forums.unraid.net/forum/35-unraid-compulsive-design/

 

Many folk are happy with buying off the shelf used old servers as well since most of the cabling/etc. is already in place.  Probably a few questions to start would be (at least to ask yourself):

How much are you looking to spend, are you looking to re-use any existing hardware, what form-factor (size/dimensions), are hotswap bays important, is ECC important, single or dual parity, cache drive, is faster than gigabit (~125MByte/sec) required as this would be much more performance demanding.