Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:17:05 -0500 From: Dan Langille <dan@langille.org> To: FreeBSD Stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: hardware for home use large storage Message-ID: <4B779561.7000205@langille.org> In-Reply-To: <4B6F9A8D.4050907@langille.org> References: <4B6F9A8D.4050907@langille.org>
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Dan Langille wrote: > Hi, > > I'm looking at creating a large home use storage machine. Budget is a > concern, but size and reliability are also a priority. Noise is also a > concern, since this will be at home, in the basement. That, and cost, > pretty much rules out a commercial case, such as a 3U case. It would be > nice, but it greatly inflates the budget. This pretty much restricts me > to a tower case. > > The primary use of this machine will be a backup server[1]. It will do > other secondary use will include minor tasks such as samba, CIFS, cvsup, > etc. > > I'm thinking of 8x1TB (or larger) SATA drives. I've found a case[2] > with hot-swap bays[3], that seems interesting. I haven't looked at > power supplies, but given that number of drives, I expect something > beefy with a decent reputation is called for. > > Whether I use hardware or software RAID is undecided. I > > I think I am leaning towards software RAID, probably ZFS under FreeBSD > 8.x but I'm open to hardware RAID but I think the cost won't justify it > given ZFS. > > Given that, what motherboard and RAM configuration would you recommend > to work with FreeBSD [and probably ZFS]. The lists seems to indicate > that more RAM is better with ZFS. > > Thanks. > > > [1] - FYI running Bacula, but that's out of scope for this question > > [2] - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192058 > > [3] - nice to have, especially for a failure. After creating three different system configurations (Athena, Supermicro, and HP), my configuration of choice is this Supermicro setup: 1. Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner $20 (+ $8 shipping) 2. SuperMicro 5046A $750 (+$43 shipping) 3. LSI SAS 3081E-R $235 4. SATA cables $60 5. Crucial 3×2G ECC DDR3-1333 $191 (+ $6 shipping) 6. Xeon W3520 $310 Total price with shipping $1560 Details and links at http://dan.langille.org/2010/02/14/supermicro/ I'll probably start with 5 HDD in the ZFS array, 2x gmirror'd drives for the boot, and 1 optical drive (so 8 SATA ports).
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