New server storage recommendations.

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Jeff Robertson

Active Member
Oct 18, 2016
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Chico, CA
I'm in the process of building two new servers and wanted some thoughts on getting the speediest storage I can. I already have quite a few SSDs but I'm not opposed to selling and purchasing more appropriate drives. Both servers will be used as VM hosts running 2019 as the hypervisor. I will be using dedupe so I only need about 1.5tb of useable storage. Redundancy is a must and VM performance is near the top of the list.

Server1: Epyc 7402p on a Supermicro H12 board (when available) with a built in LSI 3008 controller.
Server2: Xeon e-2286g also on an SM board with the built in intel sata software raid controller.

Available SSDs:
8x 1.92TB Toshiba HK4 SATA SSDs (so 4x per server, thinking raid 10)
4x 400GB P3700 NVMe SSDs

My current thought is to use 4x of the Toshiba drives in a raid 10 array on the LSI controller on server 1 and raid 10 on the intel controller on server 2. Plenty of space but only sata speeds.

I don't think I'll be using the NVMe drives as there is no way to use hardware raid and they are a bit too small.

I could use 4x SAS SSDs on server 1 if anyone has any suggestions on what to buy that would be noticeably faster than the Toshiba drives. 800GB per drive would be a perfectly good size, dedupe is so efficient I fit over a dozen VMs in a couple hundred GB of space.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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What have you already purchased server wise? Do you have form factor limitations?
 

Jeff Robertson

Active Member
Oct 18, 2016
429
115
43
Chico, CA
What have you already purchased server wise? Do you have form factor limitations?
Nothing so far. The concrete-ish plan is to pair a 7402p with whatever SM ATX H12 board appears in the next month or so and they usually include LSI 3008 controllers. I was thinking about getting some HGST SAS drives to use instead of the Toshibas. Form factor wise I already have two 3U chassis that will take up to an eatx board and will hold as many drives as I need (some rosewill newegg special that holds 15 drives and lots of fans). I will also be using the dual 92mm version of the TR noctua cooler as it just fits the enclosure and is probably as quiet as I can get.
 

Jeff Robertson

Active Member
Oct 18, 2016
429
115
43
Chico, CA
And on a completely different note what do you think about the memory-store 3d TSV dimms for an epyc system? $90 for 32GB 2933Mhz is about the best deal out there right now. I have the 8 2400Mhz dimms I purchased from you a while ago still but that just seems slow by todays standards :).
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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Would you be OK with a 1U for the EPYC?

I have not had time to try the TSV's with EPYC 7002's. Busy days here.
 

anomaly

Active Member
Jan 8, 2018
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There are some OK-ish deals for 2933 sticks. I'm also interested in finding out if the 3D TSV sticks work for a 7302P build.
 

Jeff Robertson

Active Member
Oct 18, 2016
429
115
43
Chico, CA
Would you be OK with a 1U for the EPYC?

I have not had time to try the TSV's with EPYC 7002's. Busy days here.
My only issue with 1U is I've never worked with a silent 1U server. If one exists let me know! I tend to build my own so I can control the noise with big slow noctua fans.
 

Jeff Robertson

Active Member
Oct 18, 2016
429
115
43
Chico, CA
There are some OK-ish deals for 2933 sticks. I'm also interested in finding out if the 3D TSV sticks work for a 7302P build.
Someone mentioned they should work with Epyc but I'm a bit gun shy to be the first to try. I hope 3200mhz tsv ram becomes available soon.