- Apr 26, 2020
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Hello:
So like many of you, I’m stuck at home during this COVID-19 situation and my mind has wandered to how I can improve my home infrastructure. I feel like I have a pretty decent collection of gear that I have been able to acquire through my company and through duplicate and extra equipment that we have obtained through mergers, site closings, etc. I feel pretty fortunate to have what I have, and for the most part, it has been a great setup. But lately I have been thinking I need to mix things up a bit and improve upon what I have setup and how I am using this hardware. I’ve been lucky to have not had to really spend any significant amount of money thus far, but I’m not opposed to adding things as I see fit.
So I’m asking the community and some of you more creative thinkers out there for some suggestions on how I can make use of what I currently own, recommendations on what I might consider buying, and then some ideas on what my finished environment might look like. I feel like I’ve become a bit myopic in how I have things laid out and I am in need of some fresh ideas. I’ve worked in IT for about 20 years now, so I have some pretty good skills in some areas, and some that are better than others. I’m not an advanced network guy, but I’m not afraid to learn and entertain other ideas and Best Practices that someone may suggest, for instance. So imagine you were handed the equipment below and were asked to set up a home network and server setup.
I’ll explain a little bit of how I do things and maybe someone can point out something that I’m overlooking, underutilizing, or just plain doing something wrong! I bring no ego to this discussion – only asking for some ideas. So please tell me if I am doing something stupid that I am overlooking.
All of the following are sitting in my home office in a nice APC 48-U Netshelter SX rack, the nice wide one. My wife hates how large it is, by the way, but I’m keeping it. I also have an APC C1500 UPS sitting in the bottom of it, and two APC 36-U two zero-U PDU’s that mount vertically along the inside back rails. I have the two PDU’s connected to the APC UPS in the bottom of the rack and all of my equipment plugs into the PDU’s. It seems to be a great setup.
Cisco 2960-X (WS-C2960X-48FPD-L) 48 port switch with 48 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and two SFP uplink ports (researching to see if the two SFP ports are 10 Gig). I’m not currently using the two SFP ports – only the 1 Gig Ethernet ports for my servers.
HP Proliant ML350 G6 with single HP LTO 6 Tape Drive – Currently using Veritas Backup Exec 16 and writing daily backups to the QNAP NAS. Then monthly tape backups that I take a copy to my parent’s house for my offsite storage whever I think about it. This is probably my oldest server, but I can’t get rid of it because it houses the tape drive. Windows 2012 R2 OS. I currently use it for backups, my backup domain controller and storage for my Plex media server and the Plex application itself. I think it has about 4 TB of storage, mostly movies and shows for our kids.
HP Proliant DL380 Gen9 Server with two, 15k 300 GB drives and four 10k 600 GB drives – along with the D3600 disk enclosure unit, this is my latest acquisition. 128 GB of RAM and two CPU’s. I’d like to make this my virtual host running Exsi. Esxi can be running on an internal SD card as well. Currently powered off and not in use.
HP StorageWorks D3600 with twelve, 6 TB SAS Drives – lots of total storage, which is fantastic. Almost too much storage. I’ve actually taken out some of the drives just because I don’t need it. The biggest complaint of the storage enclosure is that it is just too damn loud for the room. I’ve installed foam baffle on the inner surfaces of my rack (mesh front and bac doors though). I’ve looked into how I can quiet the internal fans with using other brands, etc. But I’m just at a point of thinking that the storage unit is made for a data center and there is nothing I can really do to make it quiet enough to use in my room. Currently powered off and not in use because of noise.
IBM System X 3650 M4 with nine, 600 GB SAS and two 400 GB SAS drives. – This is my current file and print server, domain controller, Ubiquiti UniFi controller software and VMware workstation host. It too is running Windows 2012 R2 as the OS and I have two virtual servers running inside the VMware Workstation application. I don’t mind this sever so much, but I’m getting close to running out of drive space and to expand I need to keep adding the 600 GB drives. That’s not a terrible plan since I still have 6 bays open to do so, but I also hate to keep adding space to this older server. It seems to be a solid server and runs pretty quietly, so that is a good thing.
QNAP NAS Model TS-453 Pro with four 2 TB SAS drives. This is a pretty cool little unit, but with only 4 total bays, it’s limited. I suppose I could rip out the 2 TB drives and replace with higher capacity drives, and that may be an option. QNAP seems to be constantly pushing out firmware updates and they seem to do a good job with support. So nothing at all bad to say about this piece, just that it is limited on space overall. Currently only using as a backup target for backup-to-disk jobs. For hosting multiple large VM’s, it just isn’t an option.
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X – nice little router that works well. I’m probably not using the full capability, but it seems to be able to do a lot. I just haven’t done much with it other than get it configured far enough to just act as a simple router to bring my internet connection into my switch from my cable modem.
Ubiquiti AP Pro Access Point – good AP and I’m happy with it. Uses PoE from my Cisco 2960-X over Cat 6. One unit does a good job of coverage in my house.
Comcast XFinity internet service (not Gig speed). I don’t have a high speed package mainly because I don’t want to pay for it. It seems adequate for what we need, so I’m satisfied for now.
Arris Surfboard SB6183 cable modem – I never think about it. It never fails or has problems and just does it’s job.
My goal in no order would be to:
-Have the fastest possible network
-Host 7-10 virtual servers.
-Easy and offsite backups for all servers
-Maintain file and print server capabilities
-All Windows servers
-Maintain a media server for movies. Can be VM.
-I am willing to buy something if it’s an obvious current omission.
-Probably need about 12-15 total TB for media and files.
I apologize for the wordiness of this post. Anyone have any suggestions for improvements for me?
So like many of you, I’m stuck at home during this COVID-19 situation and my mind has wandered to how I can improve my home infrastructure. I feel like I have a pretty decent collection of gear that I have been able to acquire through my company and through duplicate and extra equipment that we have obtained through mergers, site closings, etc. I feel pretty fortunate to have what I have, and for the most part, it has been a great setup. But lately I have been thinking I need to mix things up a bit and improve upon what I have setup and how I am using this hardware. I’ve been lucky to have not had to really spend any significant amount of money thus far, but I’m not opposed to adding things as I see fit.
So I’m asking the community and some of you more creative thinkers out there for some suggestions on how I can make use of what I currently own, recommendations on what I might consider buying, and then some ideas on what my finished environment might look like. I feel like I’ve become a bit myopic in how I have things laid out and I am in need of some fresh ideas. I’ve worked in IT for about 20 years now, so I have some pretty good skills in some areas, and some that are better than others. I’m not an advanced network guy, but I’m not afraid to learn and entertain other ideas and Best Practices that someone may suggest, for instance. So imagine you were handed the equipment below and were asked to set up a home network and server setup.
I’ll explain a little bit of how I do things and maybe someone can point out something that I’m overlooking, underutilizing, or just plain doing something wrong! I bring no ego to this discussion – only asking for some ideas. So please tell me if I am doing something stupid that I am overlooking.
All of the following are sitting in my home office in a nice APC 48-U Netshelter SX rack, the nice wide one. My wife hates how large it is, by the way, but I’m keeping it. I also have an APC C1500 UPS sitting in the bottom of it, and two APC 36-U two zero-U PDU’s that mount vertically along the inside back rails. I have the two PDU’s connected to the APC UPS in the bottom of the rack and all of my equipment plugs into the PDU’s. It seems to be a great setup.
Cisco 2960-X (WS-C2960X-48FPD-L) 48 port switch with 48 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and two SFP uplink ports (researching to see if the two SFP ports are 10 Gig). I’m not currently using the two SFP ports – only the 1 Gig Ethernet ports for my servers.
HP Proliant ML350 G6 with single HP LTO 6 Tape Drive – Currently using Veritas Backup Exec 16 and writing daily backups to the QNAP NAS. Then monthly tape backups that I take a copy to my parent’s house for my offsite storage whever I think about it. This is probably my oldest server, but I can’t get rid of it because it houses the tape drive. Windows 2012 R2 OS. I currently use it for backups, my backup domain controller and storage for my Plex media server and the Plex application itself. I think it has about 4 TB of storage, mostly movies and shows for our kids.
HP Proliant DL380 Gen9 Server with two, 15k 300 GB drives and four 10k 600 GB drives – along with the D3600 disk enclosure unit, this is my latest acquisition. 128 GB of RAM and two CPU’s. I’d like to make this my virtual host running Exsi. Esxi can be running on an internal SD card as well. Currently powered off and not in use.
HP StorageWorks D3600 with twelve, 6 TB SAS Drives – lots of total storage, which is fantastic. Almost too much storage. I’ve actually taken out some of the drives just because I don’t need it. The biggest complaint of the storage enclosure is that it is just too damn loud for the room. I’ve installed foam baffle on the inner surfaces of my rack (mesh front and bac doors though). I’ve looked into how I can quiet the internal fans with using other brands, etc. But I’m just at a point of thinking that the storage unit is made for a data center and there is nothing I can really do to make it quiet enough to use in my room. Currently powered off and not in use because of noise.
IBM System X 3650 M4 with nine, 600 GB SAS and two 400 GB SAS drives. – This is my current file and print server, domain controller, Ubiquiti UniFi controller software and VMware workstation host. It too is running Windows 2012 R2 as the OS and I have two virtual servers running inside the VMware Workstation application. I don’t mind this sever so much, but I’m getting close to running out of drive space and to expand I need to keep adding the 600 GB drives. That’s not a terrible plan since I still have 6 bays open to do so, but I also hate to keep adding space to this older server. It seems to be a solid server and runs pretty quietly, so that is a good thing.
QNAP NAS Model TS-453 Pro with four 2 TB SAS drives. This is a pretty cool little unit, but with only 4 total bays, it’s limited. I suppose I could rip out the 2 TB drives and replace with higher capacity drives, and that may be an option. QNAP seems to be constantly pushing out firmware updates and they seem to do a good job with support. So nothing at all bad to say about this piece, just that it is limited on space overall. Currently only using as a backup target for backup-to-disk jobs. For hosting multiple large VM’s, it just isn’t an option.
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X – nice little router that works well. I’m probably not using the full capability, but it seems to be able to do a lot. I just haven’t done much with it other than get it configured far enough to just act as a simple router to bring my internet connection into my switch from my cable modem.
Ubiquiti AP Pro Access Point – good AP and I’m happy with it. Uses PoE from my Cisco 2960-X over Cat 6. One unit does a good job of coverage in my house.
Comcast XFinity internet service (not Gig speed). I don’t have a high speed package mainly because I don’t want to pay for it. It seems adequate for what we need, so I’m satisfied for now.
Arris Surfboard SB6183 cable modem – I never think about it. It never fails or has problems and just does it’s job.
My goal in no order would be to:
-Have the fastest possible network
-Host 7-10 virtual servers.
-Easy and offsite backups for all servers
-Maintain file and print server capabilities
-All Windows servers
-Maintain a media server for movies. Can be VM.
-I am willing to buy something if it’s an obvious current omission.
-Probably need about 12-15 total TB for media and files.
I apologize for the wordiness of this post. Anyone have any suggestions for improvements for me?
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