[Tfug] $2K fileserver

[Harry McGregor]

Robert Hunter wrote:
>> In other words, I think it depends on your application.   From the
>> tone of your "voice", sounds like you have made the right choice for
>> yours :)
>>
>>     
>
> Stephen,  the work cycle at my lab is something like this:  1)
> Acquire huge amounts of binary data.  2) Spend a few weeks
> processing it, after which 3) the data is either removed or
> compressed down to a small fraction.  This particular system was for
> someone who was starting to acquire about a terabyte of data, before
> he got around to processing the data.
>
> As far as hardware RAID, I think it's possibly a fetish for me.  I
> believe that with a backup battery attached to the controller that
> these things can survive an abrupt power out without the loss of a
> singe byte.  On the other hand, if the system is plugged into a UPS,
> that is not such a likely scenario.  As far as off-loading
> processing, it's probably not that important, since the system is
> intended to be a dedicated file server.  And for that matter,  my
> initial benchmarks are nowhere close to what Harry posted in his
> benchmarks of software RAID.
Right now, hardware raid tends to be a little slower than Linux software
raid, for raid5/6 applications.  Many of the hardware raid manufactures
are skimping a bit on processing power.  For RAID1, I would go hardware
raid, as it's less bus traffic, and virtually no processing load on the
card.

Don't get me wrong, we are running a bunch of 3ware cards as well, but
try finding a good RAID6 card for 15/16 drives.  Areca seems to be the
only company that makes one, and they run about $950 for the 16 port
card, ~2x what we paid for the high point card.
>   And by the way, Harry, how are you
> attaching 15 SATA drives?
>   
We are using a hardware raid card, and then ditching the hardware raid
(just exporting all drives as single drives)

I don't really have much trust in High point's raid implementation, plus
they only support RAID5, and we wanted to run RAID6.

Raid Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816115024

Then you also need the fan out cables:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812238001

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811152048
> http://www.tfug.org/pipermail/tfug_tfug.org/2006-October/012485.html
>
> Despite these issues, the biggest challenge I faced in building this
> system was trying to keep the cost down.  Especially considering
> that the PC market is in a transition to PCI-E, and so it becomes
> more difficult to integrate older components.
>
>   
                                                       Harry