Storage... A lot of storage.. But how??

[phill]

As I'm hoping for some help with my home server project, I'm curious what everyone might suggest.

I'm looking for something that will be able to handle 16 drives, its got to have 10Gb networking (even with using an add on card or built on) and has to be efficient as possible when its not doing a lot.
Case in point my Synology box I have, well, Xpenology anyways. As mentioned in my project thread (in my sig if you'd like to read through the madness...) I think I need to change where I plan on going with it and I think I might be better off with a different angle.

In the beginning its been brilliant, not the fastest as its not needed to be and when I did the upgrade on putting bigger drives in it, I couldn't be more happier. Now with a few small but big impact changes with what is being stored on the server, I think I need to change how I have things currently setup.

Main reason is drive space. Raid 1 or even Raid 10 that I'm considering I feel is a little wasteful and I could possibly do better. I'm looking towards, 16 16TB drives in my new server (I might consider the Synology along side it as well because it has a few nice features that we use, such as backing up our phones to it etc. that's really helpful) but I think the Synology wouldn't handle it so well since the major problem is the 'model' I have, is limited to 12 drives for starters and I was considering a different size drive for that .. 8TB I think might be more than enough and I can add a total of 6 of those and that would be more than enough to store the majority of data on it.
What's taking room is the media side of things and with how I have the raid setup in Raid 1, I'm loosing half of my total storage space. So, the Synology gave me the idea of using it as a home media center but I think its also sealed its fate because of it.

I apologise if I'm a little rambly, I'm trying to make sure I give you all the facts so I don't miss something out You might be asking why 16 drives, well I can't find a case bigger to take more and without getting something like the Storinator which is not really where I need to be at the moment.. besides, I'm not sure I could afford 45 drives or even 60 drives to go in it like some of the Youtubers do for their videos (storage envy you say?? Absolutely!!) but again, I'm looking to do this for me and to see what I can make and hopefully not break at the same time.

So. What was the question?? Well if you've made it this far, amazing!
Help me build something that's a little crazy, is pretty much it at this point What I'm looking for is hardware configurations you might suggest, if you think I could use hardware I already have here at home, then give me something to go on and I'll do my best and see what I can find As I've mentioned above, 10Gb network speed essential (providing the damn thing works at the given speed!!) efficiency as it will largely spend time not doing much so it needs to be efficient as it will be left on 24/7. As a reference, my Synology box with its drives uses about 35w of power with the drives in I don't think I've actually checked it with the bigger drives and such it has now, so that might be closer to 50w or so, but I'll get back to you

Here's a few links of things I think could be useful, that I don't currently have 'in stock' at home -

Intel X540-T2 Low Profile 10Gb Dual Port PCIe Network Adapter Card ONLY
Supermicro AOC-STG-i2T V2 10GbE RJ45 10GBASE-T Ethernet Adapter Intel X540-T2 £72

LSI 9300-16I 16-port SAS9300-16I 12GB/s Host Bus Adapter 03-25600-01B £198
LSI SAS 9300-16I 12GB/S SATA+SAS HBA HOST BUS ADAPTER CARD 03-25600-01B LSI00447 £222
LSI MegaRAID 9300-16i FH PCIe 3.0x8 12Gbps HBA 16 Port SAS/SATA £235
LSI 9400-16i SATA/SAS HBA Controller CARD 12 Gbps PCIe 16 Port Support NVME HDD £255
LSI 9305-16i SAS 16-port 12GB/s pci-e 3.0 raid controller card £395

Wondering - Supermicro X10SLM+-LN4F Socket 1150 Motherboard complete with Back Plate and CPU £90
Wondering - Supermicro Motherboard X10SLH-LN6TF X10SLH-N6-ST031 6x 10GBE PW CLEARED X540-T2 $106 £85
Wondering - Supermicro x11ssh-f Motherboard with Xeon E3-1220 v6 @3GHz, 64GB Ram, Backplate £280

Now the reason for the Supermicro links are simply would it be worth going for something like an ex 'server' or something similar to it rather than building it with maybe something like gaming hardware?
I'm also looking into UnRaid or FreeNAS as options rather than Windows, I'm curious if I think that this will be a benefit or a downside though.... And with that, I remember from the few videos I've watched about this sort of setup, a HBA card is much better to have than a Raid controller card, so figured using a single 16 port card would be better over say two 8 port cards. Less fail points I suppose in one way??

Anyways, let me hear it; thoughts, crazy thoughts, abuse, I'm expecting it all Well, hopefully not so much abuse but still.... Thanks everyone in advance

 

[Toothless]

If you happen to find a socket 2011 server board with a ton of SATA, I can always throw a E5-1650 at you. (also have a 3930k if consumer board is an option)

Just figured I'd offer since I saw socket 1150 in there and while Haswell is nice, I'd personally do server with more threads. Can always tweak for lower power draw.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

For starters, raid 50 may be an improvement.

Moar storage helps too, and these have good price/capacity...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KPL474H?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

These are more expensive but are SAS if that would help:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08K9D633H?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

I also know a guy who just bought a rack of servers and wants to sell* but they are kind of old. 2x Xeon 5150.

Intel Xeon 5150 Specs

Woodcrest, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 2.666 GHz, 65 W

www.techpowerup.com

*cheap, as it was speculation. He deals mostly in dust collectors and tube benders. LMK if interested.

 

[Toothless]

DDR2, good lord that be old. SATA II probably.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

DDR2, good lord that be old. SATA II probably.

Nostalgic hardware thread? From a cursory inspection it looked like a SFF-8484 connector on the controller card with breakout cables to either SFF-8482 SAS or SATA connectors. FWIW of course.

Edit: IIRC it would only take 2.5 inch HDD's but I may be mistaken. HP proliant something-or-other rackmount.

 

[phill]

Thanks for the replies so far guys... But sadly the server side of things isn't efficient so, that's a non starter for me I'm afraid. I've a few Dell servers here and whilst they hold up to 8 drives (3.5" models) they are far from power efficient. I think my R710s would be better but they are older and only have 6 drive slots. The R730s are better with 8 slots but man they are hungry on the power.. 200w or more idle, possibly closer to 250w I think...

For comparison sakes, my Synology box I have, is a Xeon E3-1246 V3 I believe, 16GB RAM and 8 16TB drives.. Its running a H97M Pro 4 midi motherboard from Asrock and it has been an utter joy. I wondered if upgrading to something similar and obviously newer might be a good direction to go. I have my Ryzen 2700 and a B450 motherboard, I suppose I could put in a 5600 or something like that to help keep the power down?

Anyone's thoughts?

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I wondered if upgrading to something similar and obviously newer might be a good direction to go. I have my Ryzen 2700 and a B450 motherboard, I suppose I could put in a 5600 or something like that to help keep the power down?

One of these may fit with your 2700x and has 10gb

https://pcpartpicker.com/mr/amazon/TBmFf7

 

[Toothless]

Thanks for the replies so far guys... But sadly the server side of things isn't efficient so, that's a non starter for me I'm afraid. I've a few Dell servers here and whilst they hold up to 8 drives (3.5" models) they are far from power efficient. I think my R710s would be better but they are older and only have 6 drive slots. The R730s are better with 8 slots but man they are hungry on the power.. 200w or more idle, possibly closer to 250w I think...

For comparison sakes, my Synology box I have, is a Xeon E3-1246 V3 I believe, 16GB RAM and 8 16TB drives.. Its running a H97M Pro 4 midi motherboard from Asrock and it has been an utter joy. I wondered if upgrading to something similar and obviously newer might be a good direction to go. I have my Ryzen 2700 and a B450 motherboard, I suppose I could put in a 5600 or something like that to help keep the power down?

Anyone's thoughts?

Can tweak some Xeons down pretty far in terms of power draw. I'd test for power draw but I don't have anything up at the moment minus the 4790k, which I can get down to 70w on the core. Maybe an Atom or locked chip..

 

[sam_86314]

Here's my home server. I also need a lot of storage and 10Gb networking.

(the full system picture is older and doesn't have some upgrades I've done since)

For the CPU, I have a Xeon E3-1260L; a 45W 4C8T Sandy Bridge chip. It's installed in a Supermicro X9SCM-F uATX server board. I have 32GB (4x8GB) of PC3-10600E since ZFS likes large amounts of ECC memory.

My eight 3TB drives are connected to an LSI 9211-8i, and I also have a Mellanox ConnectX-3 10GbE NIC in it. I use ZFS, as previously mentioned. My array is RAID-Z1, which is effectively RAID 5.

I have another ConnectX-3 in my main system and a copper SFP+ cable directly connecting the two.

All in, my server has cost me around $340; though I definitely scored with the drives (they were retired drives from my college's data center, so I got them for free. I'm definitely not looking forward to replacing them when they start failing).

For power usage, it draws around 100w continuously. The 1350VA UPS I have it on can power it for over an hour.

TLDR: Old server hardware is the way to go. Some great deals can be had.

 

[eidairaman1]

You could probably use my case or a Corsair, Thermaltake, Lian Li, Coolermaster Case.

Storage, storage controller cards to go beyond the 6-8 onboard SATA ports.

Just make sure to have a tape/usb/optical backup that can be locked away in a cool dry dark environment

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Here's my home server. I also need a lot of storage and 10Gb networking.

(the full system picture is older and doesn't have some upgrades I've done since)

For the CPU, I have a Xeon E3-1260L; a 45W 4C8T Sandy Bridge chip. It's installed in a Supermicro X9SCM-F uATX server board. I have 32GB (4x8GB) of PC3-10600E since ZFS likes large amounts of ECC memory.

My eight 3TB drives are connected to an LSI 9211-8i, and I also have a Mellanox ConnectX-3 10GbE NIC in it. I use ZFS, as previously mentioned. My array is RAID-Z1, which is effectively RAID 5.

I have another ConnectX-3 in my main system and a copper SFP+ cable directly connecting the two.

All in, my server has cost me around $340; though I definitely scored with the drives (they were retired drives from my college's data center, so I got them for free. I'm definitely not looking forward to replacing them when they start failing).

For power usage, it draws around 100w continuously. The 1350VA UPS I have it on can power it for over an hour.

TLDR: Old server hardware is the way to go. Some great deals can be had.

Yootech FTW! Nice system though.