Before we will go into main topic I need to say a few words about my previous projects. Till October, I was not aware of STH… big shame, but I think I saved a lot of money due to this lack of knowledge
So, my first server builds remember AMD K6-400 with the most popular, in that time, Linux Slackware. After that, there were lots of different building blocks. All the time it was one tower server and some desktop network gears.
Finally I went towards RACK mounted HW with much more server grade HW. Now we can talk about details.
Build’s Name: Compute Node 1
Operating System/ Storage Platform: XenSever 6.5 (awaiting update to 7.1)
CPU: Intel Pentium G3220
Motherboard: Asus P9D C/4L
Chassis: X-Case 208 Pro
Drives: 3xSamsung F1 1TB, 2xWD Blue 1TB
RAM: 32GB (4x8GB ECC)
Add-in Cards: Intel SRCSATAWB HW RAID Controller, 2x Intel 1GbE NIC
Power Supply: Seasonic SS- 400
Build’s Name: Storage Node 1
Operating System/ Storage Platform: FreeNAS 9.10
CPU: Intel Pentium D-1508
Motherboard: X10SDV-2C-7TP4F
Chassis: X-Case 212 Pro
Drives: 6xWD RED 3TB, 2x SM SATA-DOM 16GB
RAM: 16GB ECC
Add-in Cards:
Power Supply: Seasonic SS- 400
Other Bits:
Network: Grandpa Linksys SRW224-G4 + some other gears
UPS: APC SUA1500RMI2U
Use Cases:
I run roughly 10 VMs with some network services, WWW, Video streaming and storage apps.
Found problems:
Low temperature and silence: They don’t come together. I spent countless hours to make this setup cool and silent. I put a lot of temp sensors and FANs. Whole rack is closed in some kind of a wardrobe (custom made for this purpose…). Right now D-1508 temp (with Noctua FAN) reaches ~60 degrees. The top temp inside the rack in the hottest point is around 35… In summer it will rise around 3-4 degrees. It’s not very silent but it’s not very loud. 1m from the rack it’s audible but in rooms it’s very good.
CPU load: I would like to play with much more powerful CPUs but it’s hard to justify any further purchase, while whole Compute Node load average is around 20%.
Network: Very old Linksys SRW224G4 is approaching final packet switch. This is first thing to replace.
What next?
10GbE network, for sure. I want to connect Compute and Storage nodes via 10GbE switch and put a link to my PC.
So, my first server builds remember AMD K6-400 with the most popular, in that time, Linux Slackware. After that, there were lots of different building blocks. All the time it was one tower server and some desktop network gears.
Finally I went towards RACK mounted HW with much more server grade HW. Now we can talk about details.
Build’s Name: Compute Node 1
Operating System/ Storage Platform: XenSever 6.5 (awaiting update to 7.1)
CPU: Intel Pentium G3220
Motherboard: Asus P9D C/4L
Chassis: X-Case 208 Pro
Drives: 3xSamsung F1 1TB, 2xWD Blue 1TB
RAM: 32GB (4x8GB ECC)
Add-in Cards: Intel SRCSATAWB HW RAID Controller, 2x Intel 1GbE NIC
Power Supply: Seasonic SS- 400
Build’s Name: Storage Node 1
Operating System/ Storage Platform: FreeNAS 9.10
CPU: Intel Pentium D-1508
Motherboard: X10SDV-2C-7TP4F
Chassis: X-Case 212 Pro
Drives: 6xWD RED 3TB, 2x SM SATA-DOM 16GB
RAM: 16GB ECC
Add-in Cards:
Power Supply: Seasonic SS- 400
Other Bits:
Network: Grandpa Linksys SRW224-G4 + some other gears
UPS: APC SUA1500RMI2U
Use Cases:
I run roughly 10 VMs with some network services, WWW, Video streaming and storage apps.
Found problems:
Low temperature and silence: They don’t come together. I spent countless hours to make this setup cool and silent. I put a lot of temp sensors and FANs. Whole rack is closed in some kind of a wardrobe (custom made for this purpose…). Right now D-1508 temp (with Noctua FAN) reaches ~60 degrees. The top temp inside the rack in the hottest point is around 35… In summer it will rise around 3-4 degrees. It’s not very silent but it’s not very loud. 1m from the rack it’s audible but in rooms it’s very good.
CPU load: I would like to play with much more powerful CPUs but it’s hard to justify any further purchase, while whole Compute Node load average is around 20%.
Network: Very old Linksys SRW224G4 is approaching final packet switch. This is first thing to replace.
What next?
10GbE network, for sure. I want to connect Compute and Storage nodes via 10GbE switch and put a link to my PC.
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