Results 1 to 16 of 16

Thread: Storage server ?????

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Posts
    2
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    0 times in 0 posts

    Post Storage server ?????

    Hi everyone,

    My company, an animation house, wants to build a storage server for 150 users. That server will only be used for accessing and storing 3dsmax related work files by those users. Each client PC has its own copy of 3dsMax installed on it. As we are quite low on budget at the moment, we want to build something cheap. For this purpose we are considering a normal desktop motherboard with q6600 processor and 2GB of ram. Initially we will be using 3 desktop grade Seagate SataII 750GB drives with RAID5. Another 160GB drive will be used for OS and stuff.

    My questions are:

    1) Would it be OK if we go with desktop grade SataII drives?
    2) What chipset board (like P35, P45 etc) would be best suitable for this task?
    3) What processor would be sufficient for this build? I hope that Q6600 wouldn't be an over kill...right?????
    4) How much ram would suffice???
    5) Is there any performance difference between motherboard's built-in RAID controller vs any after marker RAID card??? If Yes, then kindly provide some details.

    Any other help or suggestions in this regard will be highly appreciated. SCSCI, Raptors, NAS, SAN are out of question at the moment.

    Thanks. Waiting for replies

  2. #2
    Senior Member Blastuk's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Newcastle
    Posts
    984
    Thanks
    93
    Thanked
    66 times in 64 posts
    • Blastuk's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Gigabyte Z77X-D3H
      • CPU:
      • Intel Core i5 3570
      • Memory:
      • Corsair Vengeance LP 4x4GB @ 1600mhz
      • Storage:
      • Samsung 840 Pro 250GB, Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
      • Graphics card(s):
      • GeForce GTX 970
      • PSU:
      • OCZ ZS 650W
      • Case:
      • Antec Eleven Hundred
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 7 64bit
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell 2209WA 22" + Dell U2412M 24"
      • Internet:
      • Virgin 152Mb

    Re: Storage server ?????

    150 users and you want that low a budget??

  3. #3
    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    There's no place like ::1 (IPv6 version)
    Posts
    10,665
    Thanks
    53
    Thanked
    385 times in 314 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    I suspect performance might not be so great with only 3 spindles for that many users.

    OS Wise - something like freenas might suit you well - running off a live CD and a USB key you dont need to waste a drive for OS.
    RAID controller wise unless you get a really good one it will still be quasi software raid. however it would be a good investment for the future.

    Memory probably isn't much of a cost factor so 2GB would be fine.

    if you buy desktop drives then expect them to fail - remeber to back that server up !
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

  4. #4
    Jay
    Jay is offline
    Gentlemen.. we're history Jay's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Jita
    Posts
    8,365
    Thanks
    304
    Thanked
    568 times in 409 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    This is a bad idea....

    Look into a propper NAS or even a SAN (may be a bit over the top). If you need a storage server for 150 users then the stuff you are storing will be quite important (whats the point in storing it if its not?)
    □ΞVΞ□

  5. #5
    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    There's no place like ::1 (IPv6 version)
    Posts
    10,665
    Thanks
    53
    Thanked
    385 times in 314 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    You are going to have the problem of trying to get something for nothing.

    I can't see there being a lot of confidence in such a solution , which potentially sounds critical to your line of business. If the solution you want to put in is as much of a failure as I have a nasty feeling it will be - how will you be able to give your management enough confidence to actually spend some proper money when ( in their perception ) made such cockup of it last time ?
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

  6. #6
    Fried Chip Extremist alsenior's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Stafford
    Posts
    2,949
    Thanks
    103
    Thanked
    191 times in 145 posts
    • alsenior's system
      • Motherboard:
      • DFI Lanparty Jr x58-T3H6
      • CPU:
      • Core i7 920
      • Memory:
      • 6 x 2GB ocz Gold
      • Storage:
      • 1 TB Samsung F3
      • Graphics card(s):
      • 1gb 4890 vapor-x xfire
      • PSU:
      • xfx 850W
      • Case:
      • Lian-li Pc7
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 7 X64
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell 2208WFP
      • Internet:
      • 30mb Virgin media

    Re: Storage server ?????

    1. You can but i would recommend the RAID edition drives over the desktop drives.
    2. You can use a Desktop chip set and it will run fine.
    3. A Q6600 might be overkill if your using a dedicated hardware RAID
    4. Like moby said 2GB should be more than sufficient.
    5. More than likely there would be a difference. especially with that many users.

    One note on raid level. For this i would use RAID 10. basically this would give you the speed advantages of raid 0 with the continuity of raid 1.

    i just speced this it's relatively expensive but its got proper server hardware in there (excluding ram)

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay View Post
    What kind of emergency would need Windows 95? I think you are already in a bad state of emergency when your backup plan is Windows 95.
    Beginners guide to raid Beginners guide to raid post edition Hexus.Social - FAQ

  7. #7
    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    There's no place like ::1 (IPv6 version)
    Posts
    10,665
    Thanks
    53
    Thanked
    385 times in 314 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    nice spec that - although I'd be temped to add some extra NIC's ( or possibly an iSCSI HBA ,depending on the OS you want to run. )
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

  8. #8
    Jay
    Jay is offline
    Gentlemen.. we're history Jay's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Jita
    Posts
    8,365
    Thanks
    304
    Thanked
    568 times in 409 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    you are in the true NAS area of priceing there though. I have a feeling this guy wants to spent hundreds not thousands.
    □ΞVΞ□

  9. #9
    Gentoo Ricer
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Galway
    Posts
    11,048
    Thanks
    1,016
    Thanked
    944 times in 704 posts
    • aidanjt's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus Strix Z370-G
      • CPU:
      • Intel i7-8700K
      • Memory:
      • 2x8GB Corsiar LPX 3000C15
      • Storage:
      • 500GB Samsung 960 EVO
      • Graphics card(s):
      • EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0
      • PSU:
      • EVGA G3 750W
      • Case:
      • Fractal Design Define C Mini
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10 Pro
      • Monitor(s):
      • Asus MG279Q
      • Internet:
      • 240mbps Virgin Cable

    Re: Storage server ?????

    Quote Originally Posted by panther9797 View Post
    1) Would it be OK if we go with desktop grade SataII drives?
    If it's only for accessing artwork then that'll be fine.

    Quote Originally Posted by panther9797 View Post
    2) What chipset board (like P35, P45 etc) would be best suitable for this task?
    Whichever has more SATA ports.

    Quote Originally Posted by panther9797 View Post
    3) What processor would be sufficient for this build? I hope that Q6600 wouldn't be an over kill...right?????
    Q6600 is serious overkill for a NAS. All you need is a single core CPU, about 1.6Ghz will do. In otherwords, whichever uses less energy and is cheap.

    Quote Originally Posted by panther9797 View Post
    4) How much ram would suffice???
    1 or 2GB is fine.

    Quote Originally Posted by panther9797 View Post
    5) Is there any performance difference between motherboard's built-in RAID controller vs any after marker RAID card??? If Yes, then kindly provide some details.
    Hardware RAID controllers are much faster since they offload RAID operations from the CPU. But if the machines only purpose is filesharing then there's not much point from a performance perspective.
    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    ...every time Creative bring out a new card range their advertising makes it sound like they have discovered a way to insert a thousand Chuck Norris super dwarfs in your ears...

  10. #10
    Jay
    Jay is offline
    Gentlemen.. we're history Jay's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Jita
    Posts
    8,365
    Thanks
    304
    Thanked
    568 times in 409 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    but keep this in mind..

    The reason people like western digital make SE and RE drives isn't just for fun. RE drives have on the fly error correction and are designed for 24/7 operation. Using onboard RAID is all well and good until the motherboard dies then you will struggle to access the RAID without finding either the same board or maybe a board with the same RAID controller (may not be all that easy)

    If you want to make an enterprise solution use enterprise grade hardware. Even FreeNAS is not designed for enterprise setups like this.

    I would strongly advise against going this route.
    □ΞVΞ□

  11. #11
    Senior Moment blueball's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Edinburgh
    Posts
    2,426
    Thanks
    846
    Thanked
    379 times in 294 posts
    • blueball's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus Z390A
      • CPU:
      • i9-9900KS
      • Memory:
      • Kingston 64GB (2x32GB) DDR4 2400MHz
      • Storage:
      • 2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe PCIE M.2 plus Samsung 860 EVO 4TB SSD
      • Graphics card(s):
      • ASUS TUF RTX 3080 Ti GAMING OC
      • PSU:
      • Corsair HX850 850 W Full Modular 80 Plus Platinum
      • Case:
      • Corsair Carbide 330R Ultra Silent Midi Tower
      • Operating System:
      • Win 10 Pro x64
      • Monitor(s):
      • IIYAMA 3461WQ IPS 34" 3440x1440 plus BenQ GW2765HT IPS 27" 2560x1440
      • Internet:
      • Plusnet 28Mb

    Re: Storage server ?????

    and as has been mentioned already, 150 users accessing CAD work from a server will need a serious network connection. Don't stick it all through one NIC or it wont matter how fast your disks are.
    Rgds,

    BB
    Hexus Trust here and here

  12. #12
    Gentoo Ricer
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Galway
    Posts
    11,048
    Thanks
    1,016
    Thanked
    944 times in 704 posts
    • aidanjt's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus Strix Z370-G
      • CPU:
      • Intel i7-8700K
      • Memory:
      • 2x8GB Corsiar LPX 3000C15
      • Storage:
      • 500GB Samsung 960 EVO
      • Graphics card(s):
      • EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0
      • PSU:
      • EVGA G3 750W
      • Case:
      • Fractal Design Define C Mini
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10 Pro
      • Monitor(s):
      • Asus MG279Q
      • Internet:
      • 240mbps Virgin Cable

    Re: Storage server ?????

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay View Post
    but keep this in mind..

    The reason people like western digital make SE and RE drives isn't just for fun. RE drives have on the fly error correction and are designed for 24/7 operation. Using onboard RAID is all well and good until the motherboard dies then you will struggle to access the RAID without finding either the same board or maybe a board with the same RAID controller (may not be all that easy)

    If you want to make an enterprise solution use enterprise grade hardware. Even FreeNAS is not designed for enterprise setups like this.

    I would strongly advise against going this route.
    Don't forget that most Intel ICHR chips, from 6-10 (iirc) are compatible with each other. Point in fact, you don't really need onboard RAID. If you're sticking with the same OS on the machine indefinitely (and you should), you can always use the operating systems RAID subsystem, both FreeNAS and Openfiler can deal with this. But yes, grabbing WD RE disks is a good idea. Oh, another obvious comment, grabbing a good few high quality NICs and bonding them helps, a lot.
    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    ...every time Creative bring out a new card range their advertising makes it sound like they have discovered a way to insert a thousand Chuck Norris super dwarfs in your ears...

  13. #13
    Jay
    Jay is offline
    Gentlemen.. we're history Jay's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Jita
    Posts
    8,365
    Thanks
    304
    Thanked
    568 times in 409 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    I would NEVER use software RAID in a situation like this. I think out of all the mistakes that could be made here that would be the biggest.

    Min I would say this would do it

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Thecu...i-RAID-Support

    But really I would say this...

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Thecu...CSI-initiators
    Last edited by Jay; 10-12-2008 at 02:26 AM.
    □ΞVΞ□

  14. #14
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Posts
    2
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    0 times in 0 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    I really appreciate the responses here from everyone and i am very thankful. Things are becoming more clear to me.

    I think i need to elaborate the situation a bit more. 150 users have been divided into 6 teams and each team has its own group leader. Usually all the users save their work locally (on their own PCs). Now it is the responsibility of each team leader to copy the artwork of his/her team members to its own PC (as a backup) before leaving the office. Few days back couple of users lost their day work due to the local hard disk failure in their systems, just an hour before the closing time. To save ourselves from this type of incident in future, we thought about a storage server. It will be used primarily for storing artwork files by each user as soon as he/she modifies it significantly. Just to give you people an idea, it has been estimated that almost 5 people will be accessing that Storage server at a given time for accessing or storing their artwork. Single file size of less than 2MB from each user will be flowing over the GIGA network, back and forth.

    As for the price, management is not willing to spend more than 1000 bucks

  15. #15
    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    There's no place like ::1 (IPv6 version)
    Posts
    10,665
    Thanks
    53
    Thanked
    385 times in 314 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    ok that makes things a little clearer

    instead of a live storage server you are actually wanting to use it as a backup server ?

    now heres a way you can earn some brownie points with the boss - take away the need for the team leaders to run the backups and automate them with something like Rsync.

    http://dailycupoftech.com/windows-ba...c-and-freenas/
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

  16. #16
    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    There's no place like ::1 (IPv6 version)
    Posts
    10,665
    Thanks
    53
    Thanked
    385 times in 314 posts

    Re: Storage server ?????

    or why bother purchasing hardware at all - go for a web based offiste backup solution. such as one offered by Carbonite.

    http://www.carbonite.com/
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Business Server - Data Backup Methods
    By cptwhite_uk in forum Networking and Broadband
    Replies: 12
    Last Post: 27-02-2008, 12:25 AM
  2. What software for my new server
    By kopite in forum Software
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 11-02-2008, 11:50 AM
  3. server upgrade advise
    By neul in forum PC Hardware and Components
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 06-02-2007, 09:56 PM
  4. Sharepoint
    By Vini in forum Software
    Replies: 9
    Last Post: 21-07-2005, 05:09 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •