Special build - max no. of 3.5" drive bays for massive storage

[PP Mguire]

Yes. The AMS unit has its own fan for cooling and you can put some beefy fans in the front of the case for the other 10. Don't forget the USB3 box I linked previously which gives you an additional 4 HDDs with RAID capability per USB3 port you may have and want to expand on.

I would stick to SATA/SAS combo cards to keep costs down. Friend of mine has this running a 32TB RAID5 array in his little file server.
LSI MegaRAID Internal Low-Power SATA/SAS 9240-8i 6Gb/s PCI-Express 2.0 RAID Controller Card, Kit - Newegg.com

As the reviews state on it make sure your motherboard is 100% compatible with it. I had to update the card on my board before it worked on his. Of course there are other cards out there. I'm only using this one as an example.

SAS to SATA makes server managing easy on the cable side. 2 of those cards (or a single with 4 mini-SAS internal connectors) will do 16 drives.

I can't honestly suggest a rack mount case unless you have a good spot for it and can deal with the noise.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Rackmount cases are loud, and something you might wanna keep in a clean closet away from everyone as you will hear the fans outside the closet, trust me, i know, I have a damn near full rack sitting in my closet, and no amount of sealing the closet will shut the noise. I can literally hear it in the room on the other side of the wall. But I have a serious need for massive amounts of data.

SAS, well, heres the trick with most the controllers.

Most all SAS controllers will support SATA Hard Drives, and will always support SAS Hard Drives.
No SAS controller will support both a SATA disk and SAS disk at the same time in the same system.
SAS cables aren't as cheap as SATA cables, but make cable management easy if your using a SAS Backplane (think hot-swap drive bays).

SAS is one of the FEW things that let you use a ton of port replicators and daisy chaining to let dozens of drives connect to just one cable.
SATA controllers usually dislike port replication, and will never allow for daisy chaining of drives.


In the end, do you ever see your self going above 10X4TB (40TB) worth in disks when you count in redundancy AND your storage needs? If not, stick with SATA, or a low mid-range SAS controller for dedicated HW RAID, which will take a ton of load off your CPU.

Another thing you need to be aware of, your going to need high end disks if your doing RAID of any form. Stay away from Green drives, as they can drop from the array and destroy the array entirely.


One last thing. Consumer boards with x16 slots a lot of times can NOT support x8 SAS controllers, or even SATA controllers. Especially the first one. I have experienced, even boards with integrated video will almost always force video to the first X16 slot. Consumer boards almost never ship with x8 connectors either. If you go the SAS route, your looking at wanting an actual server motherboard with an x8 PCI-e connection.


The one beauty of SAS though, you don't need an uber beefy PSU for startup. They can do staggered spin-up if you have the system built right. What will happen is that the controller will tell the disks, "hey, don't spin those platters yet, wait till I tell you to start spinning". This reduces the surge load on your PSU. Where a lot of people come short is this area. Sure a 1000W PSU should power all those disks, but if your only pushing 40amps, and have 30disks in a system where the average disk pulls 1.5amps on the 12v rail (doesn't usually take more than 15 disks though) your going to cause a very serious strain on that PSU for 10-20 seconds letting all those disks demand power at one time. This is why I went SAS instead of SATA/USB and so on.

 

[Multicore]

i learned about BGA, SMD, SMT & stuff (used by OEMs for mobile processors).
an old friend of mine has access to SMT machines, but those are geared towards a specific build.
using Core i5 4310U/4360U (15 W TDP) as mentioned on first page, seems to be really impossible.

i read about SAS, rackmount cases + reviews (one Rosewill, other on Anandtech).
i now have a better understanding of the actual practicalities of a server.

i also reconsidered the Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 RAID Enclosure with USB 3.0

also, is there a RAID enclosure with individual HDD control, i mean powering up only a single HDD while keeping other HDDs switched off - and could this be controlled via software ? could this same functionality be achieved with internal drives that are inside the case ?

massive storage is the chief requirement, but on-demand ie. not all at once.
in other words, running at most two HDDs (or 1 SSD+1 HDD) at any given moment will also get the job done.

Yes. The AMS unit has its own fan for cooling and you can put some beefy fans in the front of the case for the other 10. Don't forget the USB3 box I linked previously which gives you an additional 4 HDDs with RAID capability per USB3 port you may have and want to expand on.

I would stick to SATA/SAS combo cards to keep costs down. Friend of mine has this running a 32TB RAID5 array in his little file server.
LSI MegaRAID Internal Low-Power SATA/SAS 9240-8i 6Gb/s PCI-Express 2.0 RAID Controller Card, Kit - Newegg.com

As the reviews state on it make sure your motherboard is 100% compatible with it. Of course there are other cards out there.

SAS to SATA makes server managing easy on the cable side. 2 of those cards (or a single with 4 mini-SAS internal connectors) will do 16 drives.

I can't honestly suggest a rack mount case unless you have a good spot for it and can deal with the noise.

Does the SAS connector (such as the one on LSI MegaRAID Internal RAID Controller Card) also provide power for the SAS/SATA hard disk connected to it ?

Rackmount cases are loud, and something you might wanna keep in a clean closet away from everyone as you will hear the fans outside the closet, trust me, i know, I have a damn near full rack sitting in my closet, and no amount of sealing the closet will shut the noise. I can literally hear it in the room on the other side of the wall. But I have a serious need for massive amounts of data.

The one beauty of SAS though, you don't need an uber beefy PSU for startup. They can do staggered spin-up if you have the system built right.

What is the price range for a rackmount case complete with mobo and all other stuff & do they come in some configuration ?
if i am right, one has to buy a rack & load it up with these cases along with joining some cables ?
i agree, staggered spin-up is really a big plus, available only with SAS.

Tentatively, i think i will not be going down the rackmount-case path due to the noise, but i must say it is an excellent option & i need more info to make an informed decision.

 

[PP Mguire]

Will you be running in RAID or just individual drives? If you're running RAID each drive needs to be on for that particular array. Individual drives you can have Windows spin down after set amount of time not being used. Mine are set to spin down after being idle for 5 minutes.

No the card does not provide power.

Rackmount cases are just like regular cases. You need to fill them unless you buy a barebones. It's not worth it to buy and install a whole rack just for one server. You also have the option to replace the fans inside those cases.

 

[Multicore]

Will you be running in RAID or just individual drives? If you're running RAID each drive needs to be on for that particular array. Individual drives you can have Windows spin down after set amount of time not being used. Mine are set to spin down after being idle for 5 minutes.

I will be running just individual drives, accessible as independent hard drives, but is it possible to not to make them spin at all - i mean make them spin on demand only when needed. See this Power Options - Add "Hard disk burst ignore time" - Windows 7 - IDK if this will work on Wn 8.1



In a 64 bit Win8.1system with HDD0 (OS installed) + HDD1 + HDD2 + HDD3 + HDD4 + ...
usage will be like this:
along with using the HDD0 with the OS installed,
use only HDD1 for storage for 2 years.
stop using HDD1& start using only HDD2 for the next 2 years.
stop using HDD2& start using only HDD3 for the next 2 years and so on ...

the catch here is that the system will run headless (with scheduled reboots) & will be controlled only via internet.

In your honest opinion what is the feasibility of running such a system ?
there may be times with internet failure - the system will just keep rebooting at scheduled times, trying to connect to internet.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Pointless to go that route just for storage... You really should look into RAID for redundancy purposes if your going for mass storage... RAID isn't a true backup method at all, but in your setup, a single drive failure results in the loss of 2 years worth of data, where as if you go with at least Raid 1 you can get around the loss of that data provided you have a few spare hard drives laying around of the same capacity/speed.

Buying a pre-built server with what your wanting will cost a small fortune. Some prebuilt rackmount servers cost upwards of $800,000 a pop before hard drives are added. But those are usually ESXI hosts, and way beyond the scope of this. A typical server would be in the $4000, to $10,000 area.

 

[PP Mguire]

I will be running just individual drives, accessible as independent hard drives, but is it possible to not to make them spin at all - i mean make them spin on demand only when needed. See this Power Options - Add "Hard disk burst ignore time" - Windows 7 - IDK if this will work on Wn 8.1



In a 64 bit Win8.1system with HDD0 (OS installed) + HDD1 + HDD2 + HDD3 + HDD4 + ...
usage will be like this:
along with using the HDD0 with the OS installed,
use only HDD1 for storage for 2 years.
stop using HDD1& start using only HDD2 for the next 2 years.
stop using HDD2& start using only HDD3 for the next 2 years and so on ...

the catch here is that the system will run headless (with scheduled reboots) & will be controlled only via internet.

In your honest opinion what is the feasibility of running such a system ?
there may be times with internet failure - the system will just keep rebooting at scheduled times, trying to connect to internet.

The possibility that the drives could fail makes your plan not really feasible. And what you're wanting to accomplish sounds like something only datacenters or the like would do except swap backup drives manually. The only option that I personally know of on a simple level is just what I told you. Windows will keep the drive shut down unless accessed by the user or a program.

 

[heister]

Do you have to use NetApp? Or do you just need a headless entry?

If its the latter you can use something like FreeNAS. It has a headless entry.

 

[Multicore]

The possibility that the drives could fail makes your plan not really feasible. And what you're wanting to accomplish sounds like something only datacenters or the like would do except swap backup drives manually. The only option that I personally know of on a simple level is just what I told you. Windows will keep the drive shut down unless accessed by the user or a program.

so drive failure is the only potent issue for system failure - it could be tackled to a limited extent by using RAID 5. i assume i will need a RAID controller card in the PCIe slot & how much usable free space may i get ?

yes, the drives will be swapped with new empty drives but after say 2 years.

in your setup, a single drive failure results in the loss of 2 years worth of data, where as if you go with at least Raid 1 you can get around the loss of that data provided you have a few spare hard drives laying around of the same capacity/speed.
A typical server would be in the $4000, to $10,000 area.

I understand your valid concern, but in case of drive failure, nobody with even basic computer skills would be around, for say atleast 2 years. I also understand that even RAID 5 (which requires at least 3 HDD + available space is lower than the toal of the 3) will protect the data only from the failure of a single drive.

also, i am trying to keep the cost below $2000, preferably around $1700. Thanks for all the help - i got to know things a little better that i would not have bothered with (eg. SAS, SAS cards, physical server construction & EXSi - virtualization software that doen't require OS - whoa that is serious hardcore enterprise stuff)

Do you have to use NetApp? Or do you just need a headless entry?
If its the latter you can use something like FreeNAS. It has a headless entry.

Yes, i have got to use NetApp. I can setup the FreeNAS system in a virtual machine running inside the Windows OS. I think it could share the LAN connection of the host system and even get an own IP address, so it would appear to be a normal member of the local network. But, i think it would be unnecessary.

 

[PP Mguire]

My point was that you wanted to run a few drives a few years, then move to the next set of drives ect ect. If one fails that kind of makes it moot. RAID 5 doesn't really help this either because you'll need to replace the failed drive within some point depending on how fast you are filling the drives while you're away from the machine physically.