# The Death Star



## bpgt64 (May 27, 2010)

So...My boss(s) wanted to build a new server to store low priority data for work.  Aka Shelf data.  The alternative to expanding our current situation, was too expensive...And thus...the Death Star was born.

Definition of Shelf Data:  Data which, is of low priority as deemed by our customer as emergency only.

From Newegg.com

15x Hitachi 2TB 7K2000 Drives
ECS Black Series 890G AM3 Mobo
OkGear 36" SATA II Cables
3x Syba SD PCI Express SATA II 
1x Syba SY-PEX40008 PCE Express SATA II Controller Card
2x 1000W Rosewill BRONZE series PSUs
AMD Phhenom II X4 955 BE
Intel X25-M Boot Drive
2x 2x2GB  G.Skill Ripjaw Series 240-pin DDR3 SDRAM
6 Scythe "Ultra Kaze" 120x38mm Case Fan

From Assorted Vendors
1 Custom case designed to hold 45 3.5inch Drives(We're starting light with only 15)
5 Port SATA Multiplyers
Foam Padding for Vibration
And more...

I should probably also mention, that we're are not the first to use this design.  We are using the design found at this website;

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/

I just thought it would be interesting to take real pictures of putting it together.

Here's some pics so far...sorry would be using the TPU unloader but its having issues.


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## JATownes (May 27, 2010)

WOW!!!!  EPIC!!!!


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## Fourstaff (May 27, 2010)

Lol, why all the Deskstars? is it that they are cheaper and you are going for RAID 1? And the case looks suspiciously like a MountainMods case.


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## bpgt64 (May 27, 2010)

They were the cheapest at the time.  My supervisor made the call on the drives...And when your potentially going to be expanding to 45 total drives...you go with the cheapest


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## xBruce88x (May 27, 2010)

atm i think this seems appropriate.






would be awesome if you made the case look like a completed Deathstar lol


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## bpgt64 (May 27, 2010)

The stock AM3 fan is too big....arg...gonna have to order a replacement...

GELID Solutions Slim Silence AM2 65mm Ball CPU Coo...


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## bpgt64 (May 27, 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQJ9fbzlr1Q

So we need L brackets for the 4 pin rails to complete the project...and a new CPU cooler, low profile enough to fit our 40mm space window....


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## angelkiller (May 27, 2010)

_TWO_ 1KW PSUs? Staggered spin-up maybe? 

What kind of data are you storing where you would need that kind of storage?


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## NdMk2o1o (May 27, 2010)

2 1kw psu's? why in the world do you think you need that kind of power, and an intel ssd boot drive for a server that is on 24/7? 

infact for a file server even the phenom II x4 is overkill a dual would of been fine, bit overkill imo, though fun as hell to build and play with none the less


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## bpgt64 (May 27, 2010)

angelkiller said:


> _TWO_ 1KW PSUs? Staggered spin-up maybe?
> 
> What kind of data are you storing where you would need that kind of storage?



The server when complete will house 45 3.5inch drives.  To answer your question as to why were using 2 1KW PSUs.  Even with delayed spinup...its going to eat some juice.  The company I work for does offsite Emergency Data Back-ups.  In otherwords...we can restore a whole network of computers to there original state.  It's not for personal use...I have 4TBs for that... 

2TB x 45 Drives =90TBs raw...about 75-80 when you consider Redundancy...etc

An intel ssd boot drive for a server that is on 24/7? 

-Faster boot times...when we have too.  It's not primary data so it's not constantly in use....I tried to talk my Super into a Corsair..or some other cheaper drive but he wanted intell../ohwell

infact for a file server even the phenom II x4 is overkill a dual would of been fine, bit overkill imo, though fun as hell to build and play with none the less 

-Can't agree more...hehe....It will probably be using CentOS or RHEL 5.5


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## Geofrancis (May 27, 2010)

you might want to have a look at this i came across a while ago its similar to what your wanting to do.

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/


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## bpgt64 (May 27, 2010)

Thats's who were modeling it after. Actually.


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## Geofrancis (May 27, 2010)

how are you planing on powering the 2 power supplies on and off are you just going to manualy power on the aux psu first then boot the computer to power on the second?


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## Easy Rhino (May 27, 2010)

the dude in the pics fly is down


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## bpgt64 (May 27, 2010)

Geofrancis said:


> how are you planing on powering the 2 power supplies on and off are you just going to manualy power on the aux psu first then boot the computer to power on the second?



By rigging the second psu with a paper clip, so the back PSU power button works just like it's the front power button.

And Nice catch Rhino... took that one down.


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## Geofrancis (May 27, 2010)

you can buy a atx socket with the wire to turn it on already made so you dont have paperclips jammed into the new server lol

like this 
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ATX-Bridge-Ov...ponents_Fans_Heatsinks_SR&hash=item5ad9430497


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## eidairaman1 (May 27, 2010)

Fourstaff said:


> Lol, why all the Deskstars? is it that they are cheaper and you are going for RAID 1? And the case looks suspiciously like a MountainMods case.



Deskstar Hitachi Drives have been the most reliable to me compared to Later IBMs, and Western Digitals


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## Fourstaff (May 27, 2010)

eidairaman1 said:


> Deskstar Hitachi Drives have been the most reliable to me compared to Later IBMs.



Most harddisks nowadays are pretty reliable, and people call those Deathstars for some reason. They also have been known to be loud, imagine the noise of all 45 of them


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## Geofrancis (May 27, 2010)

i have had a 500gb Deathstar die on me before along with a few maxtors. i tend to avoid them these days. seagates western digitals and samungs all the way now


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## bpgt64 (Jun 4, 2010)

At the sacrifice of my pointer finger, we installed the multiplier boards today.


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## bpgt64 (Jun 4, 2010)

Zero Dead Drives....We're planning on running Raid 5...but just for shits were gonna try some Raid 0


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## slyfox2151 (Jun 4, 2010)

Where did you buy the Port Multiplyers and how much each?

im building somthing simmiler but not as big, somewhere in the range of 12 - 22 HDDs


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 4, 2010)

30 TB in RAID 0 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! are you guys using any data redundancy?


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## bpgt64 (Jun 4, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> 30 TB in RAID 0 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! are you guys using any data redundancy?



That was just for kicks...We're now running it in Raid 6 with a Hot Spare.  So when we fill the remainder of the drive ports(which only 15 of 45 are filled  ).  I didn't order the parts, but I know we had to custom order the case...and some of the parts we got from newegg.com, some from Microcenter.

Case, Port Multipliers, and Rubber bands(vibration reduction on the drives) from Protocase.


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## mlee49 (Jun 4, 2010)

Hell yeah!!!  Nice array homie!

Wish I could run 10TB in Raid0, let alone just have 10TB!


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 4, 2010)

man, 30 TB for low priority data? where the crap do you work?


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## Radical_Edward (Jun 5, 2010)

Wow, I'm liking the looks of this thread.


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## freaksavior (Jun 5, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> man, 30 TB for low priority data? where the crap do you work?



I want to know the same thing.


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## Geofrancis (Jun 6, 2010)

did you fabricate the case yourself or did you get it made for you.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 6, 2010)

9 words, more fans and fan filters, and a AC room


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## slyfox2151 (Jun 6, 2010)

The case was made for him if i read it correctly,


he also said its not low priority data he was just testing out Raid 0 on 15 drives. hes going to be using raid 5


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## bpgt64 (Jun 7, 2010)

http://www.protocase.com/


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## Pembo210 (Jun 7, 2010)

LOVE IT! 

I love building boxes

(90TB, Thats almost bog enough for my pron collection)


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## Geofrancis (Jun 7, 2010)

bpgt64 said:


> http://www.protocase.com/



how much did that set you back?


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## Deleted member 3 (Jun 7, 2010)

slyfox2151 said:


> The case was made for him if i read it correctly,
> 
> 
> he also said its not low priority data he was just testing out Raid 0 on 15 drives. hes going to be using raid 5



You clearly fail at reading correctly.



bpgt64 said:


> So...My boss wanted to build a new server to store low priority data for work.  Aka Shelf data.


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## slyfox2151 (Jun 8, 2010)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> You clearly fail at reading correctly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## bpgt64 (Jun 8, 2010)

We've actually gone to Raid 6 and 1 Hot Spare...getting about 450mb/s read 200 mb/s write.  Everything looking good, aside from some stability issues were having with the board/ram we bought.


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## xBruce88x (Jun 8, 2010)

Fourstaff said:


> Most harddisks nowadays are pretty reliable, and people call those Deathstars for some reason. They also have been known to be loud, imagine the noise of all 45 of them



nah you wanna know what's loud? at my last job I worked inside AT&T's Data center in Atlanta, GA running network cables in the floor (pup up panels). There had to be hundreds of data servers in there... they had a backup generator/ batteries that could run for a whole month!

I actually got to see one of Google's servers , oh and some server for the oil companies.

but yea.... 45 of those drives will make some noise


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## bpgt64 (Jun 8, 2010)

It won't make anymore noise than whats already at our Data Center


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## xBruce88x (Jun 8, 2010)

yea i figured you probably had a data center already and wasn't too worried about noise. that's why data centers are in sealed air conditioned rooms with lots of cages around the servers and locks on the doors to the room (o wait that's at&t)...

but yea didn't think you were too worried about noise.


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## slyfox2151 (Jun 8, 2010)

according to that logic, the more noise the faster the pc 


sounds like a plan, time to rig up some HDD speakers!!! +150hz here i come!


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