Avoton 24tb Mitx Build

[Arrogant]

Ok guys I wanted to start this thread because I am excited. I have not built a box in over 10 years, and do nothing even close to tech related for work, so this is truly going to be fun.
I do not even have close to all the parts yet, but I wanted to start showing off my build. It will be a 24tb, Avoton, Mitx build running Ubuntu and ZFS Raidz2. This will for the most part be a NAS/media server, but almost function as a development environment/sandbox for my girlfriend.

All I have right now is my BitFenix Phenom Case, and my Corsair CX600 Power Supply. My supermicro board with avoton processor are on order as is my PNY SSD. Plan to outfit it with 32Gb of the kingston ECC Ram, and 6 of the 4tb WD Red Hard drives. Here are the only pics so far. Hope You guys enjoy as I am super excited to build this.

 

[Jeggs101]

Seems like that is a popular case: http://www.servethehome.com/mini-cluster-box-v2-64gb-ram-24-cores-13-nics-3-systems-2-switches/

I can't wait to see the build!

 

[Arrogant]

Big day today for this build. I received my 16gb of ECC Ram, and the motherboard is out for delivery. I received the SSD on Wednesday, so this weekend I will get to work on building the actual box. I am still waiting for a decent price on the 4TB WD Red drives so I will not build the ZFS array until I can find a decent price on those, but I will have the box up and running this weekend.

 

[Jeggs101]

I will keep an eye out for you.

 

[StephD]

I keep an eye on you too. I'm building something similar except I can't decide most aspects of it. It will also be a lab. It will probably run a ZFS array as well. Right now I'm leaning toward FreeBSD for a base OS. Oh well, time will tell what I end up running. One question if I may, what do you need this kind of storage for ?

 

[Arrogant]

Long Answer: Right now, I definitely do not need it. 3Tb would suit me fine for storage needs at the moment, and that is mainly just audio / video. The reason i am planning so many drives is that with the 24TB of space only 14tb is usuable when running raidz2. I thought of going with 5 4tb drives, but that would yield only 10tb so the incremental add of 4tb will actually give me another 4tb usable when running raidz2. I want to build the array very large up front so I do not have to add on or rebuild 3-5 years from now. I would rather build it large up front and not have to touch it for 10 years or so.

Short Answer: I don't need that kind of storage, I just want it to futureproof myself for the next few years.

 

[StephD]

Thank you for the long answer. I understand what you're trying to do here. I don't believe in futureproof myself. I build a NAS at work last year. 8 3Tb drives seemed huge at the time. Softraid and LVM seemed futureproof as well. Now the 12 bays are full and I need space. This is part of the reason why I'm building this thing (thread is called CentOS headless workstation or something). There I want to experiment with ZFS and grow some skills. When I feel ready I'll start building something bigger for work but I won't expect this to be futureproof either.

Beside, did you consider Snapraid ? Why choose ZFS over it ?

 

[matt_garman]

Long Answer: Right now, I definitely do not need it. 3Tb would suit me fine for storage needs at the moment, and that is mainly just audio / video. The reason i am planning so many drives is that with the 24TB of space only 14tb is usuable when running raidz2. I thought of going with 5 4tb drives, but that would yield only 10tb so the incremental add of 4tb will actually give me another 4tb usable when running raidz2.

Just a personal anecdote: I too went down this path a couple years ago. That is, I guessed at my long-term storage requirements, and tried to build the "one server to rule them all" so that I wouldn't have to mess with it for many years. I grossly over-estimated my storage needs, and didn't think about the additional management of having all that hardware. Depending on where backups fit into your scheme, you could easily double the amount of maintenance you have to do on your system. I've recently downsized (or maybe "right-sized" is the correct buzzword to use ), but I'm now sitting on some expensive used hardware that no one is interested in buying!

I want to build the array very large up front so I do not have to add on or rebuild 3-5 years from now. I would rather build it large up front and not have to touch it for 10 years or so.

That was my thought exactly... but several things happened, (1) I realized my storage needs were much more modest than I originally anticipated, (2) we moved to a new house where physically downsizing became a priority, (3) having a full-time job and two young kids leaves me little time to mess with this stuff, and (4) I suffer from upgrade-itis, so sometimes rebuild a system that doesn't really need it.

Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to discourage you or suggest you have the wrong idea! Just sharing my own experience to give you (the general you, not you specifically) something to consider. Take it as a "if I knew then what I know now" kind of story.

One other thing to think about too: depending on how quickly your storage needs are growing, you might be able to wait out a price drop on the Hitachi "he6" helium-filled 6TB drives. More capacity in the same physical footprint or the same capacity in a smaller, lower-power footprint. Or increased redundancy if you don't do backups.

 

[StephD]

Or increased redundancy if you don't do backups.

RAID is not backup !

 

[Arrogant]

So, as some of you may have seen in another thread I had to RMA the board, I got the new one in today, and will try to throw it in the box this weekend. Assuming it boots up, I am going to have a lot of serious questions for you guys. I want to build a virtual machine type solution but not sure of the best way to do it. The reason I am thinking VM's is because I would think it would be great to completely get rid of windows, but simply for Office and a few other windows programs I think a Windows VM would be great. This way all the clients can run some other OS.

 

[Arrogant]

All good and fair points. Not sure what I am doing yet as far as storage, but I will take your advice into account when finally I build the storage. I want to get the box up and running first, then I will figure out the storage.

 

[Arrogant]

I guess I will start posting over here. The box is up and running, as I have accessed the bio, now I need to throw Ubuntu on it, too bad I cannot find a usb drive right now. Thinking of hitting walmart for one, might call off work tomorrow to get this up and running.

 

[Arrogant]

So, this is all up and running, except I do not have the storage drives yet. I am busy configuring everything on here, and have installed plex, and torrent clients, etc. I am wondering a few things now.

What is the best vnc server, and client for remote access? I want to view the Ubuntu desktop gui exactly like it is locally.
What is the best ftp server for ubuntu?

Finally, I need a recomendation for a switch that is has at least 8 ports and its 1gbit. Is a basic consumer netgear good enough? Or should I look for something better?