Which means I get to buy a new case, a new RAID card, a new Motherboard, and most importantly new Hard Drives!
Aims of the Project:
- Deliver storage of 18TB by September 2010 (Reached 14TB as of July 2010)
- Deliver storage of 30TB by June 2011
- Re-usable parts for future expansion plans
- High Performance Drive Access (300MB/ps Read/Write Minimum)
- Single Drive Redundancy
- Dual RAID5 Arrays
- Quiet (Is it possible to have all this while maintaining silence??)
Well to reach 18TB of storage I will be migrating 8x1TB from my current server to the new server. Then I will slowly add a further 5x2TB drives by September 2010. This will bring the total storage capacity to 18TB. From September 2010 to June 2011 the remaining empty slots and 1TB drives will all be transitioned over to 2TB drives (or 3TB/4TB depending on what the market provides in the future at a good cost per GB). This will mean I will reach 30TB by at-least June 2011. The reason I am not buying all the drives straight away is because quite frankly I don't need that much storage right away and it is financially a better idea to buy them when you need them as prices will lower dramatically over the next 12 months.
I will reuse parts from my current build for example: CPU, Memory, RAID Card, Current 1TB Drives, CPU Cooler, Fans, SATA cables. This saves a lot of money when building Colossus. I will be buying a new RAID card (So that I have two) which is a SATAI/II compatible card. It will also work with SATA III Hard Drives (just at the slower II speeds). The card features a PCIe interconnect which makes it future proof as it will work in all past, present and future PCIe compatible motherboards of which there are many.
Performance is very important to me so I will be using high performance RAID cards specifically two Highpoint 2320 Raid Cards which cost around £200 each. Both cards are identical although I've owned one for over a year now. The cards can easily pull 500MB/ps read and 470MB/ps write with 8 drives in a RAID5 array (My preferred RAID type for this build). The CPU I'll be using is an AMD A64 5000+ X2. However in a years time I am likely to replace this CPU with an energy efficient Quad core processor by AMD. The build will feature dual-redundant 1000Mb/ps connections which support Teaming giving a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 2000Mb/ps (aka 250MB/ps).
As I will be using RAID5 on both of the arrays (I'll be using two arrays with seven drives in one array and 8 drives in the other) I am secured against 1 drive failing on each array. Any drive can fail and I simply need to replace the drive before another drive in that same array fails. Very simple.
On the noise front. I will at the beginning be keeping the server in my office which means I will be working about 4 feet away from it. I will eventually be putting it in the attic but before then I will want it to be as quiet as possible. To assist in this I will be using very slow rotating 120mm fans in the case (3 Exhaust, 2 Intake) and 1x140mm exhaust (on the Power Unit). Each Driveplane in the system will feature 3x80mm fans which will be under-volted to spin much slower than specification. These will be intake fans at the front of the case. Once I have done these modifications I will assess the noise level, if I feel it is still to loud I will apply acoustic dampening foam to the inside of the case.
Full Part List:
- 1x Cooler Master Centurion 590 Case
- 1x DFI JR 790GX-M2RS Motherboard (Socket AM2 / DDR2 Memory)
- 3x Generic 5x3.5" to 3x5.25" Driveplanes (Jou-Jye ST-3051SS)
- 2x HighPoint 2320 RAID Cards
- 1x 1000Watt Corsair HX1000 PSU
- 8x 1TB Hard Drives
- 7x 2TB Hard Drives
- 1x AMD A64 5000+ X2 CPU
- 2x Corsair 2GB DDR2 800MHz RAM Modules
- 7x Blue SATA Cables
- 7x Red SATA Cables
- 1x Orange SATA Cable
- 1x Akasa Fan Controller
- 9x Cable Ties
- 1x Intel 'Dual 1000Mb Ethernet Port' Network Card
This is a mockup I have done in Photoshop which shows exactly how it is going to look. This is the same case I have chosen and I have super-imposed the actual drive planes I will be using on to the front.
Once I have begun to receive the parts I will take lots of pictures and post those here.
Now in the above there are some unusual components. For example the 1000Watt Power supply. You may ask why would I use something so powerful for such a system like this? Do you really need 1000 Watts to run 15 Hard Drives? - No you do not. You can very easily run a system with 15 drives like this off just a medicore 550 Watt power supply. SATA drives on average consume 3-9 Watts each. So why have I chosen 1000Watts for this? Well the main reason is I have a 1000Watt power supply just sitting around brand new in its box, That's just how I roll
. Joking aside, I've had a 1000 Watt supply here from when it broke and I sent it back to Corsair and they sent me a brand new one. Simple as that really, it is a replacement part for one that broke and so to save on exspense in buying another power unit I'm just going to use that one. There is a 2nd good reason to use this power supply though, it is very quiet.In-fact the amount of noise this power unit will make is about 24db. That number may not mean a lot so to put it in to perspective 20db is the sound of rustling leaves and 30db is the sound of someone whispering. So this power unit will be very quiet for this build. And of course it has all the necessary power connectors for a 15 drive system.
You may have also noticed in the above build log that I did not note a Graphics Card. Well the Motherboard I have chosen has integrated graphics. I decided to use this because it leaves both of the x16 PCIe lanes on the motherboard free for my two RAID cards. The integrated graphics also save on power and noise due to it not being very fast it does not require a noisy 40mm fan.
Cable Ties are very important (I will be using Velcro ties) for this build as there will be 15 SATA cables inside the case and many power cables. To keep airflow optimum I will need to bundle the cables together. Airflow in this case is also very important for keeping the hard drives cool. I will be using 4 very large exhaust fans to create a negative pressure within the case. This will affect the cooling of the case by drawing in more air through the front of the case and over the hard drives, cooling them in the process.
Cost, how much will all this cost? - Maybe not as much as you think. Let's just detail my cost structure as that is very important to me. This is not a build where I have thrown money to the wind I have been planning this for the better part of a year and researched many different materials, products and approaches to building a server of this caliber.
So I'm going to write down here all the NEW parts that I did not already have. And then I will list the parts I already had. Then we will put it all together for a total price.
Motherboard: £60.28 (Scan.co.uk)
Backplanes: £229.09 (Scan.co.uk)
Case: £49.95 (eBuyer.com)
Raid Card 2: £106.99 (ebay.com)
Sub-Total: £446.31
Only £446.31 for an upgrade to my current system. Not really that bad right?!
Now lets put the stuff in that I already have and how much YOU can get them for today.
Raid Card 1: £206 (Scan.co.uk)
CPU: £40 (Scan.co.uk)
PSU: £174.02 (Scan.co.uk)
FAN Controller: £7.60 (Scan.co.uk)
Ethernet Card: £536.71 (Ebuyer.co.uk)
Sub-Total: £964.33
Sub-Total Without Network Card: £427.62
TOTAL: £1410.64
TOTAL Without Net Card: £873.93
The reason I list it without the net card is because that net card I got for free and it costs a bundle in the shops. It is not really something you need and I only use it because I have it, if I didn't I wouldn't buy one.
Now when building a storage server it is important to think about the price of the unit compared to the price of the storage. It is not good for the unit that holds your storage to cost more than the storage itself. My plan with this unit is for 15x2TB Drives. At current prices 2TB Drives would cost me £1,784.25 which is an insane price. The drives currently are £118.95 each. I do not want to buy a single 2TB drive until they are underneath £100 and when I do buy them I will only be buying 3 to begin with and then I will wait for them to hit £90 or below before buying any more. At these costs buying so many drives is just not a good idea. Waiting for the prices to fall is a much better idea and with the setup above I can add drives as I need it, I don't need to fill every bay in the server before I can begin to reap the benefits.
So that is it for my first post on Colossus. I'll be forwarding this post up with Pictures later on. Feel free to post any questions.
is it just weird that I feel aroused now?
