PC to Server conversion build

[goesup]

Here's my build plan. Let me know what you think!

MB: from retired HP Slimline M2N78-LA (Violet6) Will this old MB limit my RAID ability?
Ram: 12 Gb DDR3 1066
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 925 2.8 GHz
Graphics: (do these matter?) Nvidia GeForce GT 640 2GB DDR5
OS: FreeNAS
Case: Compucase SECC Micro ATX/ ATX
Power: 500w APEVIA ATX-CW500WP4 500W ATX
Drives: (Raid 5, 6 or 0+1) 3x1TB drives that I have on hand. Or 4x2TB drives I would reluctantly purchase.

 

[kanewolf]

Are you planning on buying a hardware RAID card? I would never recommend doing RAID in software. Since you are running FreeNAS as the operating environment, is there anything besides file sharing (NFS, SMB) you plan on supporting from this box? I see there are some plugins to FreeNAS. 12GB of RAM is probably overkill for a file server.

 

[drtweak]

Yea for a file server CPU, GPU, and RAM aren't as big of a deal as what hard drives and RAID it can handle.

after reading around it looks like the Violet6 MB doesn't support RAID even though the chipset does. The Regular Violet does support RAID 1. So you will either

1) have to do a software raid which most people advice you not to do because its a LOT of CPU over head if you ever have to rebuild

2) buy a decent 2-4 port SATA Controller that supports the RAID you want to do.

 

[noidea_77]

A case with only two internal 3.5" Drive Bays for three / four drives?
A mobo with 100Mbit LAN and four SATA ?

 

[goesup]

A case with only two internal 3.5" Drive Bays for three / four drives?
A mobo with 100Mbit LAN and four SATA ?

I thought I could mount drives in the 5.25 bays as well?

 

[drtweak]

A case with only two internal 3.5" Drive Bays for three / four drives?
A mobo with 100Mbit LAN and four SATA ?

I thought I could mount drives in the 5.25 bays as well?

Yes you could. Would need two 5.25 bays if you use 4 HDD

 

[goesup]

Well crapoloa. I clearly don't know what I'm doing. Thanks for the constructive criticism. Seriously.

Short of starting from scratch, I could at least migrate my CPU, and RAM to a board like this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157469

Is this a better move than buying an SATA Controller?

 

[drtweak]

That would work. 50 bucks to upgrade to a better board, gigabit lan, onboard RAID (Still not a true RAID controller but better than full on software raid)

 

[goesup]

That would work. 50 bucks to upgrade to a better board, gigabit lan, onboard RAID (Still not a true RAID controller but better than full on software raid)

So I might rather look for a MB with gigabit lan that will take my cpu and buy a PCI RAID Controller?

Is SATA 6GB something I want?

 

[drtweak]

that board will work for what you want it to do. If the RAID doesn't work right then get a RAID Controller

 

[noidea_77]

Well, nothing right or wrong, only a different opinion: A board with gigabit lan, that supports ecc ram (the cpu does) and has 6 - 8 SATA ports. Sata 3.0 is nice, but not mandatory. Concerning the raid: I prefer the full os software raid. No chipset driver involved. That's what NAS boxes use and it is the only way to get the raid working on a different hardware with only the disks transfered. And always keep in mind: raid is not a backup! You always need a spare disk on hand (!) to replace a failing disk in raid5 array immediately, because all data will be lost with the second dead disk. Plus the array is unusable while restoring the raid.

 

[goesup]

Well, nothing right or wrong, only a different opinion: A board with gigabit lan, that supports ecc ram (the cpu does) and has 6 - 8 SATA ports. Sata 3.0 is nice, but not mandatory. Concerning the raid: I prefer the full os software raid. No chipset driver involved. That's what NAS boxes use and it is the only way to get the raid working on a different hardware with only the disks transfered. And always keep in mind: raid is not a backup! You always need a spare disk on hand (!) to replace a failing disk in raid5 array immediately, because all data will be lost with the second dead disk. Plus the array is unusable while restoring the raid.

Thanks!

Do I need new ecc RAM too? To be able to RAID 10?
And is SATA 6.0 a standard I would see any speed increase from??

 

[noidea_77]

Well, nothing right or wrong, only a different opinion: A board with gigabit lan, that supports ecc ram (the cpu does) and has 6 - 8 SATA ports. Sata 3.0 is nice, but not mandatory. Concerning the raid: I prefer the full os software raid. No chipset driver involved. That's what NAS boxes use and it is the only way to get the raid working on a different hardware with only the disks transfered. And always keep in mind: raid is not a backup! You always need a spare disk on hand (!) to replace a failing disk in raid5 array immediately, because all data will be lost with the second dead disk. Plus the array is unusable while restoring the raid.

Thanks!

Do I need new ecc RAM too? To be able to RAID 10?
And is SATA 6.0 a standard I would see any speed increase from??

You don't need new ecc ram, if you already have non-ecc sticks for the build. If you need to buy new ram anyway, get 4GB ecc ram for FreeNAS or the os of your choice. SATA III (6GB/s) is the new standard, but only SSDs benefit from it. And don't do raid10! The striping (raid level 0) is very risky and you need two spare disks!

 

[drtweak]

ECC Ram is something you really only find in servers. ECC Ram just keeps the server going if there is a One bit error in the ram.

Gigabit lan is a must if you are going to be streaming HD Video to multiple devices. 10Mbps is 1.2 megabytes per second, 100 is 12.8 and 1000 is 128 MBps

If you want RAID 10 i would highly suggest an Actual RAID Card. Software RAID puts too much overhead on the CPU. Talk to any person with a RAID and they will tell you to do a Hardware RAID and not Software.

 

[kanewolf]

Well, nothing right or wrong, only a different opinion: A board with gigabit lan, that supports ecc ram (the cpu does) and has 6 - 8 SATA ports. Sata 3.0 is nice, but not mandatory. Concerning the raid: I prefer the full os software raid. No chipset driver involved. That's what NAS boxes use and it is the only way to get the raid working on a different hardware with only the disks transfered. And always keep in mind: raid is not a backup! You always need a spare disk on hand (!) to replace a failing disk in raid5 array immediately, because all data will be lost with the second dead disk. Plus the array is unusable while restoring the raid.

A good RAID hardware implementation will allow you to use the RAID during a rebuild. You will get diminished performance but the array will be available. You can change the percentage of the total performance to allocate to rebuild.

 

[noidea_77]

Well, nothing right or wrong, only a different opinion: A board with gigabit lan, that supports ecc ram (the cpu does) and has 6 - 8 SATA ports. Sata 3.0 is nice, but not mandatory. Concerning the raid: I prefer the full os software raid. No chipset driver involved. That's what NAS boxes use and it is the only way to get the raid working on a different hardware with only the disks transfered. And always keep in mind: raid is not a backup! You always need a spare disk on hand (!) to replace a failing disk in raid5 array immediately, because all data will be lost with the second dead disk. Plus the array is unusable while restoring the raid.

A good RAID hardware implementation will allow you to use the RAID during a rebuild. You will get diminished performance but the array will be available. You can change the percentage of the total performance to allocate to rebuild.

I totally agree, but a good hardware raid is >150$.

 

[kanewolf]

Well, nothing right or wrong, only a different opinion: A board with gigabit lan, that supports ecc ram (the cpu does) and has 6 - 8 SATA ports. Sata 3.0 is nice, but not mandatory. Concerning the raid: I prefer the full os software raid. No chipset driver involved. That's what NAS boxes use and it is the only way to get the raid working on a different hardware with only the disks transfered. And always keep in mind: raid is not a backup! You always need a spare disk on hand (!) to replace a failing disk in raid5 array immediately, because all data will be lost with the second dead disk. Plus the array is unusable while restoring the raid.

A good RAID hardware implementation will allow you to use the RAID during a rebuild. You will get diminished performance but the array will be available. You can change the percentage of the total performance to allocate to rebuild.

I totally agree, but a good hardware raid is >150$.

How much is your data worth? $150 is pretty cheap compared to loosing data....

 

[drtweak]

Well, nothing right or wrong, only a different opinion: A board with gigabit lan, that supports ecc ram (the cpu does) and has 6 - 8 SATA ports. Sata 3.0 is nice, but not mandatory. Concerning the raid: I prefer the full os software raid. No chipset driver involved. That's what NAS boxes use and it is the only way to get the raid working on a different hardware with only the disks transfered. And always keep in mind: raid is not a backup! You always need a spare disk on hand (!) to replace a failing disk in raid5 array immediately, because all data will be lost with the second dead disk. Plus the array is unusable while restoring the raid.

A good RAID hardware implementation will allow you to use the RAID during a rebuild. You will get diminished performance but the array will be available. You can change the percentage of the total performance to allocate to rebuild.

I totally agree, but a good hardware raid is >150$.

How much is your data worth? $150 is pretty cheap compared to loosing data....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Dell-Perc-H310-8-Port-SATA-SAS-RAID-Controller-with-Cables-/271603931733?pt=US_Computer_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item3f3cdb1a55

Half the price. May need to get some more cables though.

I use the Dell SAS 5 HBA for my RAID 0. I got it for free though. Just had to refurbish it, but we usually get that in the Dell servers we get for our clients. Now if you wanted one with a BBU then yea. Even then not much more

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-PERC-H700-6GBPS-RAID-CONTROLLER-BATTERY-SAS-CABLE-for-R410-R510-R610-R710-/111413830912?pt=US_Server_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item19f0c82500

But again these are used but out of all the Dell Perc card I have even dealt with only One has ever died in the life time of the server. And this server was over 10 years old. Was a Dell Perc 4i SCSI Card.

If you get new one with a BBU will be expensive.