I've used a few of those in itx cases with 2 slot backplates meant for double-wide gpus, its a handy extra SSD mount and trayless to boot.
Living the dream, building our own server room from scratch!
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Minor update
The 'ebay' parts for the SAN build are now shipped (Motherboard and CPU). We changed to 2x L5520 since they are practically giving them away
We will buy the rest of the parts locally here in Sweden.
We also choose to begin with 6x Crucial M500 (source) and run our existing two Samsung PRO 512 GB SSD's in a mirror setup.
Now I have one of these silly beginner questions again!
The motherboard, X8DTH-6F, has one 24 pin and two 8 pin connectors. I am unable to find any confirmation that our chassi, the 213A-R740LPB, and its power distributer has two 8 pin cords!
Is the information that the chassi supports dual CPUs what I'm looking for here?
EDIT: I have tried googling for the power distributer part number, PDB-PT216-8824 without finding any information.
The 'ebay' parts for the SAN build are now shipped (Motherboard and CPU). We changed to 2x L5520 since they are practically giving them away
We will buy the rest of the parts locally here in Sweden.We also choose to begin with 6x Crucial M500 (source) and run our existing two Samsung PRO 512 GB SSD's in a mirror setup.
Now I have one of these silly beginner questions again!
The motherboard, X8DTH-6F, has one 24 pin and two 8 pin connectors. I am unable to find any confirmation that our chassi, the 213A-R740LPB, and its power distributer has two 8 pin cords!
Is the information that the chassi supports dual CPUs what I'm looking for here?
EDIT: I have tried googling for the power distributer part number, PDB-PT216-8824 without finding any information.
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Sounding good so far.Minor update
The 'ebay' parts for the SAN build are now shipped (Motherboard and CPU). We changed to 2x L5520 since they are practically giving them away
We also choose to begin with 6x Crucial M500 (source) and run our existing two Samsung PRO 512 GB SSD's in a mirror setup.
Trust me when I say this, nothing is as silly as the Dell WS thread in the Workstation forum....
I would be very surprised if it didn't have dual EPS-8 plugs when it is designed for DP boards.
I had a look for some images and found this ebay listing and it almost looks like a single EPS-8 but it comes from a bigger EPS-10 if you look close. Supermicro PDB PT825 N24 Server Power Supply Distributor PDB 24 Pin 8 Pin SC825 | eBay
I did some other pics on Chinese sites and they look to have possibly 2 but bloody hard to say.
The manual for the chassis sucks too.
Yeah i checked the chassi manual and its really bad. I also did the google images thingy and found many similar power distributors but not the specific part number i was looking for. I think i will drop an email to the reseller of the chassi to make sure.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll reply here when/if I can get any more information on the power distributor.
I've searched Supermicro FatTwin for PDB-PT216-8824 and the search returns a Cable list 020913.xls which lists PDB-PT216-8824 as having one 8 pin 12v connector so you could use one of these 6" 160mm EPS 12V 8 Pin Y Splitter Power Cable | eBayMinor update
The 'ebay' parts for the SAN build are now shipped (Motherboard and CPU). We changed to 2x L5520 since they are practically giving them away
We also choose to begin with 6x Crucial M500 (source) and run our existing two Samsung PRO 512 GB SSD's in a mirror setup.
Now I have one of these silly beginner questions again!
The motherboard, X8DTH-6F, has one 24 pin and two 8 pin connectors. I am unable to find any confirmation that our chassi, the 213A-R740LPB, and its power distributer has two 8 pin cords!
Is the information that the chassi supports dual CPUs what I'm looking for here?
EDIT: I have tried googling for the power distributer part number, PDB-PT216-8824 without finding any information.
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Darn, I was hoping for 2x 8 pin.
Is it really that simple, can you really just use a splitter?
The way I see it theres a reason for using two 8 PIN, one 8 PIN simply cannot give enough power. Wont this be true even with a splitter?
EDIT: From the motherboard manual,
Code:
Warning: To prevent damage to
the power supply or motherboard,
please use a power supply that
contains a 24-pin and two 8-pin
power connectors. Be sure to
connect these connectors to the
24-pin (JPW1) and the two 8-pin
(JPW2,JPW3) power connectors
on the motherboard. Failure in doing
so will void the manufacturer
warranty on your power supply and
motherboard.
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May be an issue - if so how how about this to spread the load 4 pin Molex to 8 pin EPS 12v Power Cable | eBay
That might work! According to the list you found it has 6x4-pin legacy HDD power cords. Even if we upgrade to the 25x2.5'' chassi (216E1-R900LPB) we get stuck with power distributer (PDB-PT836-EN24) which also only has one 8 PIN cord.
Why don't they provide two 8 PIN cords!!!
You will find that unless you intend to run a pair of 150W CPU's, the use of a P4 plug in the socket will suffice. Same goes for splitting the EPS-8 lead.
Sorry for a late reply, have been working a lot lately
I think that you are correct, it wont be a problem. However (again) we have changed our mind to a new chassi, the Supermicro CSE-216BA-R920LP (24x 2.5'' Bays). It costs about 100$ more for the extra 8 bays and 920W PSUs.
I also checked the cable list again and noticed that the power distributor, PDB-PT216-2824, has,
1x 24PIN ATX
1x 8PIN 12v
1x 4+4 8PIN 12v
I dunno how i missed that it did have two 8 PIN plugs (where one is split into two 4 PIN).
I will order the chassi and CPU coolers (Supermicro SNK-P0038P) today or tomorrow.
EDIT: I have placed the order and updated the main post with our SAN parts.
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While waiting for the chassis, how about some detail on the rest and the uses of all the gear?
I am one of those that if I see an empty rack, all I wanna do is fill it up.
I am one of those that if I see an empty rack, all I wanna do is fill it up.
Here´s some more info
. Will add it to the main post later.Networking Details
Two dell 1850 running Pfsense in a CARP configuration (primary and secondary router). We will have a number of external IP addresses (used for CARP and hosting). Each external IP address will be mapped to a virtual IP. We will use different subnets for different parts of our network.
Right now we have core-functionality (i.e. openLDAP, ZFS storage etc) in one subnet and VMs in another. We plan on separate chunks of VMs into different subnets (called VMClusters), bridged only by the main pfsense router. This enables us to control the flow between the different subnets. It’s also possible to use the virtual IP with NAT 1:1 giving a VMCluster external non-NAT:ed addresses.
With this setup we can do the following depending on the requirements of a VMCluster,
* Primary pfsense -> VMCluster1 pfsense with external IP -> NAT:ed VMs in VMCluster1
* Primary pfsense -> VMCluster2 VMs with external IP addresses
* Primary pfsense -> NAT:ed VMs in VMCluster3
We use VLANs on each switch port to separate the traffic between each subnet.
We plan to get the Quanta LB4M 48-Port switch which has the two SFP+ ports. We then want to connect one of these ports (or both) to the SAN using brocade 1020 CNA NICs. This gives us 10gbit to the SAN. We then connect each hypervisor to this Quanta switch (possibly using LACP if we need more than 1 gbit for a hypervisor). We have 3 netgear GS724-T switches. We plan on using them for VMClusters, possibly connecting them with 4-port LACP to the quanta switch.
We will run xenMotion/Live Migration on separate Nics. Unsure if 1 gbit/s will be sufficient or if we will need to do LACP on each hypervisor here.
All of this is step 2 for us. When the SAN is done I will switch focus to the network to ensure our setup will work.
EDIT: Oh and in step 3 we want to get more for the rack, we are looking into getting C6100 machines with better CPUs than the L5520.
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Hey everyone!
So apparently Patrick has managed to salvage this old thread after it was lost in the great crash. I think its time for a major update on how we have progressed the last year
I will edit the first post and probably keep future updates here in the thread instead of updating the first post.
So where do i start? Last time I posted in this thread we were still trying to figure out what to do with all of this. We have since then gotten a clear goal: We will start a hosting business
We plan on doing primarily game, voice servers and web hosting. In the future we would like to start looking into VPS, co-locaton, dedicated hosting etc etc (long way there...)
So what have we actually achieved since then?
- The software infrastructure up and running
This includes our hypervisors (xenservers), our SAN (OmniOS) and all the VMs required to keep us up and running (to name a few, zabbix, openLDAP, ossec etc).
- Launched our homepage and a beta of our game and voice servers
- Installed a cooling solution in the server room
- Build redundant networking (quanta LB4M, 10GBE to SAN, redundant with STP)
- Bought new powerful servers (hardware and software are tuned for game servers)
- Redundant firewall solution
- DDOS protection
And the most important thing of all; We have learnt a loooooot of new things. This has really been journey, and it is not nearly over.
My current concerns are the building of a new more future proof HA SAN and network solution (more about that here).
All questions are welcome. I'm sure i have missed a lot off interesting stuff
So apparently Patrick has managed to salvage this old thread after it was lost in the great crash. I think its time for a major update on how we have progressed the last year
I will edit the first post and probably keep future updates here in the thread instead of updating the first post.
So where do i start? Last time I posted in this thread we were still trying to figure out what to do with all of this. We have since then gotten a clear goal: We will start a hosting business
We plan on doing primarily game, voice servers and web hosting. In the future we would like to start looking into VPS, co-locaton, dedicated hosting etc etc (long way there...)
So what have we actually achieved since then?
- The software infrastructure up and running
This includes our hypervisors (xenservers), our SAN (OmniOS) and all the VMs required to keep us up and running (to name a few, zabbix, openLDAP, ossec etc).
- Launched our homepage and a beta of our game and voice servers
- Installed a cooling solution in the server room
- Build redundant networking (quanta LB4M, 10GBE to SAN, redundant with STP)
- Bought new powerful servers (hardware and software are tuned for game servers)
- Redundant firewall solution
- DDOS protection
And the most important thing of all; We have learnt a loooooot of new things. This has really been journey, and it is not nearly over.
My current concerns are the building of a new more future proof HA SAN and network solution (more about that here).
All questions are welcome. I'm sure i have missed a lot off interesting stuff
Some pictures. Not that much have changed in the racks. But heres a updated picture
EDIT:
From the top
4x Quanta LB4M serving bonded 1 gbit/s networking to all hypervisors with redundant 10GBE to the SAN.
2x supermicro builds with E3-1271v3, 32GB ECC RAM (primarily for VMs running game servers)
The SAN running 8x crucial M500 SSD drives, heartbeat etc (looking to replace this with a HA setup).
2x C6100 machines. All nodes running hosting VMs
Dell 2950 with some older 1TB drivers serving as backup target
The rack to the right still have 2 old 1850 running Pfsense in a redundant configuration.
And the cooling solution
EDIT:
From the top
4x Quanta LB4M serving bonded 1 gbit/s networking to all hypervisors with redundant 10GBE to the SAN.
2x supermicro builds with E3-1271v3, 32GB ECC RAM (primarily for VMs running game servers)
The SAN running 8x crucial M500 SSD drives, heartbeat etc (looking to replace this with a HA setup).
2x C6100 machines. All nodes running hosting VMs
Dell 2950 with some older 1TB drivers serving as backup target
The rack to the right still have 2 old 1850 running Pfsense in a redundant configuration.
And the cooling solution
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