[DJ_Izumi]

I've posted this on another forum but I thought I'd post it here since.  This server has been growing since I first put it together and it's a mix of old hardware with a really nice case.

Case: Corsair 750D with extra HDD cages installed. ($185 CAD, plus $150 CAD in cages, air flow panel and solid panel to replace the windowed panel.  Shipping and exchange really screwed me here)
Motherboard: Gigabyte P67A-UD3-B3 (Free!  Bought it five years ago for a college workstation, this mobo has been decommissioned and in a box for two years before being repurposed.)
CPU: Intel i5 2300 2.8ghz ($80 USD, basically the cheapest compatible CPU I could source without going dual core.  Also, in retrospect, I should have looked at the equivalent Ivy Bridge to save some more power.)
RAM: 2x4GB Corsair SMS08GX3M2A13339C 1333mhz SO-DIMM DDR3 memory.  (Free!  In a drawer since a laptop was upgraded to 16GB.  Yes, no joke, SODIMM in a DIMM board, we'll get to that later.)
Graphics: Asus Radeon HD 5450 EAH5450 SILENT/DI/1GD3‏(LP)‏  ($37 CAD on eBay!  It's overkill, but I needed video out to access the BIOS and for emergency servicing... But I get you it plays Portal 2 decently)
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 650w P2 ($99 CAD)
Extra SATA Controller: SYBA SI-PEX40064 ($34.99 CAD.  I'll just add more of these as needed) x 3
RAM Adaptor: SO-DIMM to DIMM DDR3 adaptors  ($9.54 USD)

The Hard Drives
System drives:
1x256GB Samsung EVO 850 (OS)11
1x500GB Seagate Momentus Thin 2.5" (Temp Downloads)
1x2TB Seagate Barracuda 2.5" (Download Holding Tank)

Storage Drives:
3x4TB Seagate Desktop HDD
4x8TB Seagate Archive HDD
6x8TB Seagate Baracuda HDD

Parity Drives:
1x8TB Seagate Baracuda HDD

The whole box from the front:


A closer up shot of the onboard SATA and cheap SATA controllers running the whole job:


The back end drives with cable management.  I'm using a third party 9xSATA power connector to keep things clean:


Yes, no joke, old laptop RAM in adapters to save a few bucks.


And finally in snap on holders that go over the back of the 3.5" drives, the OS SSD and mechanical drives that handle downloading and unraring and such for Usenet and Torrents.

[Talguy]

Nice I like it.  How does your software handle downloading files then transferring them to the holding tank before transferring them to the storage pool for archiving?  Did you write custom scripts for it?

[DJ_Izumi]

I'm using SABNZBD mostly and it all handles that on it's own, as it needs specific temporarily for where files are downloaded and then where they are unrared to.  Having it be seperate drives just reduces how much you bog down a mechanical drive in doing so.  Granted Transmission doesn't do this so well.  It's fine with seperate FOLDERS on the same drive but once you put them on separate drives when it finishes a torrent and tries to move it from one drive to another it just discards the data, concludes that it has no data, starts downloading the data again and will sit in an indefinite loop like that. :/  So that 500GB drive is used basically only for SABNZBD.

Granted it all being mechanical, if I move more data around I can bog the drives down  But with how MUCH traffic can go through that drive I'll deal with that bottleneck rather than grind an SSD to dust.

[FlashPan]

Looks like that puppy has been running for a while considering how much dust I can see

How hot does it get with all those drives?  Looking at the first pic do you have fans installed on the right hand side of the case to blow air over them?

[DJ_Izumi]

Looks like that puppy has been running for a while considering how much dust I can see

How hot does it get with all those drives?  Looking at the first pic do you have fans installed on the right hand side of the case to blow air over them?

 It runs really cool actually.  It has 2 fans in the front that blow over the drive cages but you can't see them, plust the rear fan.  The power supply fan rarely runs so it has very little dust in it since the machine is so low powered.  The i5 2300 is signifigantly undervolted to reduce heat and power consumption.  Right now the CPU is idle at 27-31'C or so.  The 3.5" drives range 28-38'C.  The 2.5" drives are 23-29'C.

The system spins down individual drives as per the power plan set in the Window's OS, FlexRAID only spins drives that it needs for reading a given file.  So the system is fairly power efficent and cool.  It idles at about 65 watts and peaks around 120-130w if all the drives are spinning and it has some load on the CPU.  The 2300 itself might be overkill but it'll make it future proof for 10 years or so.

[DJ_Izumi]

Minor update made, one of the 4TB drives started offering errors so it was pulled and replaced with an 8TB drive.  62TB now!  Though with a whopping 15TB still free it'll take a LONG time, like 1-2 years, to really need to expand storage again.

[natethomas]

I thought my 12 tb usable raid5 was cool. Sheesh.

[DJ_Izumi]

I thought my 12 tb usable raid5 was cool. Sheesh.

 There was a black friday sale on 8TBs for $179 CAD... Then again on Boxing Day... Then I replaced the 4TB with an 8TB but yeah at this point it's pretty overkill since FlexRAID allows me to expand on demand.  I can just pop in another drive and the pool is larger in minutes.  I'll spend more time physically moving the server and doing the installation than anything with software.  So for a LONG time now I'll be coasting unless other drives fail.

[nchall]

Have done something similar, but on a much less grand scale--quick question for you: What made you decide to go with FLEXRaid over native Windows Storage Spaces?

[DJ_Izumi]

Have done something similar, but on a much less grand scale--quick question for you: What made you decide to go with FLEXRaid over native Windows Storage Spaces?

 Mostly it's ease of use.  I can literally just jam in new drives of any size and FlexRAID can expand the parity to work.  So the expansion is flexible and I can buy drives only as I need them.

[tjay260476]

@natethomas friends have told me that 18tb of raw storage was overkill ☹️

[DJ_Izumi]

@natethomas friends have told me that 18tb of raw storage was overkill ☹️

What if one day the internet disappears?  People will line up at my door with their USB drives and I'll be a hero for having 1080p episodes of Goof Troop!  ...Okay, maybe not.

[tjay260476]

Sounds like me with the ghost and mrs muir!

[docwra]

Love a good server thread, this reminds me I should make my own one

[Klojum]

Yes, no joke, old laptop RAM in adapters to save a few bucks.

I don't blame you at all with the current DIMM/SoDiMM prices.
And, if it looks stupid but it works, it ain't stupid