AM1 Powered 8+ Drive NAS

[newtekie1]

This isn't so much a build log, because I didn't think about posting about it here until I was done...

Part List
CPU: AMD Sempron 3850 1.3GHz Quad-Core
Mem: 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3-1600
Mobo: ASUS AM1A-M
SSDs: 2x Mushkin Chronos 60GB
RAID Cards: 2x Highpoint RocketRaid 2300, RocketRaid 622
PSU: CS650M
Case: NZXT Source 210

Total Cost Without Drives or OS: $675

This is a build for a client, they wanted the cheapest machine capable of holding 8 Drives in RAID as well as 2 e-SATA ports for connecting 5-Bay external enclosures similar to this but from some generic brand. The two RocketRAID 2300 cards will run 8 internal drives in two RAID5 arrays. The drives in the system now are just test drives I put in there, they were the only 3 identical drives I had laying around.

The client has 8 4TB WD Red drives on order and those will go in when I put the server in place after the first of the year. I'm waiting for the right adapter to put the SSDs up in one of the 5.25" bays, which will free up the 3.5" bay and allow all 8 drives to go in the case.

This computer will be used as an on-site file server as well as a cloud backup server for their off-site workstations. They have 4 satellite offices as well as several laptops that the employees use out in the field.

The SSDs are set up using the Windows Software Mirroring. I know, not ideal, but good enough.

They provided the OS which is Windows 2012 R2. Though this project could have easily used Windows 7/8 Pro if I didn't want to software mirror the SSDs.

 

[m&m's]

This is the kind of build that I really like, I'm kind of tired of these gaming machines.

Though this project could have easily used Windows 7/8 Pro if I didn't want to software mirror the SSDs.

I believe that both Windows 7 & 8 Pro support software mirroring.

Off topic: With today's technology is there still any reasons to use external RAID cards if your motherboard has a built in raid controller and has enough ports?

 

[newtekie1]

I believe that both Windows 7 & 8 Pro support software mirroring.

They do, but not the OS partition. Only the Windows Server OSes allow you to mirror the OS partition.

Off topic: With today's technology is there still any reasons to use external RAID cards if your motherboard has a built in raid controller and has enough ports?

The main reason is the ability to take the controller and drives out of the machine and move the entire array to another computer. So if say the motherboard dies in the computer I can take the drives and cards out and put them in another computer and be back up and running in a matter of minutes.

Now, you can do this with built in ports on the motherboard too, but only sometimes. It is pretty easy to just move the drives from one Intel based computer to another, or one AMD based computer to another, and the motherboard will pick up the array most times. However, going from Intel to AMD or AMD to Intel will almost never work. But with a dedicated controller card it doesn't matter what the computer is based on.

 

[Steevo]

Plus a lot of controller cards provide the performance and hardware based drive scanning to prevent issues, completely behind the scenes of what happens.

The downside of many controller cards is the truly available bandwidth of PCIe and the cost of the card as the interface logic has to be done in house as few companies make X8 2.0 or 3.0 interface logic chips that can just be tossed on, so when limited on PCIe bandwidth the ability to stack SSD's quickly loses its performance incentive, but on the integrated controller it has much more available bandwidth, but with out some of the hardware support a dedicated card gets you.

 

[m&m's]

SuperMicro has a lot of motherboards with LSI controllers and they support up to 8 drives, which makes me believe that it could be a good alternative to dedicated cards. For sure a motherboard can die, but so a dedicated card can to. So basically, what are you thoughts on motherboards with built in LSI controllers or others?

 

[Steevo]

SuperMicro has a lot of motherboards with LSI controllers and they support up to 8 drives, which makes me believe that it could be a good alternative to dedicated cards. For sure a motherboard can die, but so a dedicated card can to. So basically, what are you thoughts on motherboards with built in LSI controllers or others?

More likely you would upgrade and want to keep your array.

 

[newtekie1]

SuperMicro has a lot of motherboards with LSI controllers and they support up to 8 drives, which makes me believe that it could be a good alternative to dedicated cards. For sure a motherboard can die, but so a dedicated card can to. So basically, what are you thoughts on motherboards with built in LSI controllers or others?

Generally arrays can be moved between controllers as long as they are from the same manufacturer.

So in that case, if the board died, it is highly likely you could buy another board with an LSI controller or an LSI dedicated card and the array would work.

Though LSI controllers are a bit on the pricey side, but they are nice.

 

[m&m's]

Generally arrays can be moved between controllers as long as they are from the same manufacturer.

So in that case, if the board died, it is highly likely you could buy another board with an LSI controller or an LSI dedicated card and the array would work.

Though LSI controllers are a bit on the pricey side, but they are nice.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

 

[Aquinus]

So in that case, if the board died, it is highly likely you could buy another board with an LSI controller or an LSI dedicated card and the array would work.

Though LSI controllers are a bit on the pricey side, but they are nice.

+1: We did this very process at work. An older LSI RAID card failed. We upgraded to one of those fancy 12GB PHY cards and it detected the array out of the box.

It's also worth noting that port expanders can make LSI cards look a little more reasonable, but it's still an investment. I bet my RAID performance would increase by 20% if I got a RAID card, with write cache enabled, and a BBU. That's only for the RAID-5 though. The only reason I really would get a hardware RAID card would be to have performant RAID-6 to be completely honest. I've found RSTe to be rock solid for a "FakeRAID" (firmware RAID if you will) solution.

One of the biggest benefits of a RAID card is the offload for parity bit calculations on write and rebuild. A low power CPU would struggle with higher speeds without a hardware RAID card.

 

[messerchmidt]

i would have used ecc ram and gone freenas, maybe added an intel nic too

 

[Aquinus]

i would have used ecc ram and gone freenas, maybe added an intel nic too

No more slots to add a NIC although ECC might not be a bad idea although at that point I would say just get a more powerful platform that offers a little more. At that point I would consider the ASUS P9A-I.

While the board might be expensive (380 USD) you gain a more power powerful CPU, support for 18 drives total (16 from SAS breakout cables), and 4 Ethernet ports without adding any expansion cards and still get a 4 lane PCI-E slot in the end. I personally would have preferred that this use the C2750 (8-core variant) but reviews seem to indicate that the C2550 is sufficient for the platform. Although for most people, I see support for 16 drives being a bit overkill.

 

[bpgt64]

You should really check out Freenas, or Openfiler. Or even Ubuntu....Software raid is amazing, very resiliant, portable.

 

[messerchmidt]

for a nas, stick to supermicro if your going to spend big $.

 

[TheGuruStud]

No more slots to add a NIC although ECC might not be a bad idea although at that point I would say just get a more powerful platform that offers a little more. At that point I would consider the ASUS P9A-I.

While the board might be expensive (380 USD) you gain a more power powerful CPU, support for 18 drives total (16 from SAS breakout cables), and 4 Ethernet ports without adding any expansion cards and still get a 4 lane PCI-E slot in the end. I personally would have preferred that this use the C2750 (8-core variant) but reviews seem to indicate that the C2550 is sufficient for the platform. Although for most people, I see support for 16 drives being a bit overkill.

I paid 56 bucks for a new 8gb stick of ECC for a set up very similar to this, but I'm using freenas. I have less than 300 into the build minus drives, though.

I just did it for ultra low power consumption. I already had a big boy ATX board (which is definitely the way to go for flexibility).

It's a shame the sempron doesn't OC worth a crap.

 

[newtekie1]

i would have used ecc ram and gone freenas, maybe added an intel nic too

Windows was required. They want to run software on the server that requires Windows.