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Build Advice File server build

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Pookeyhead, 1 Jan 2010.

  1. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Still benching.... trying to find an optimisation of stripe size for long sequential writes (the only thing i care about for this server). So far i've got around 145MB/sec write... which for a 3 disk RAID5 is pretty damned good. Access time has suffered at around 15ms... but again, not a concern, as large sequential reads and writes are priority one.

    I have no problem with VNC stuff.. it's working fantastically now.
     
  2. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    pooky have you configured any power saving features yet, like wake on lan or S3 sleep...
     
  3. null_x86

    null_x86 Thread Closer

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    power saving features on a server are for pussies :D
     
  4. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    guess your not use to paying English energy bills!
     
  5. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Not yet. That will be last thing once all data is across, and a back up made. I will sping down the disks.. sleep after a certain period, and configure WOL, yes.

    I'm having trouble finding how to spin down the disks in the LSI literature however... :waah:

    Wait until you pay your own bills... you won't think so then :)

    Anyhow... pics.

    Goodies!

    [​IMG]

    Motherboard mounted in case.
    [​IMG]

    LSI RAID card.
    [​IMG]

    Nice tidy build
    [​IMG]

    However.... this £15 case has the worst cooling in the world ever! Hard drives were alsmot hot to the touch after 30 minutes!

    So... out of retirement comes the venerable PC-71!!

    How lost does this mobo look in this case???
    [​IMG]

    Ironically... it's too big for a neat build... as the mobo is too far away from the drives to route them behind the board LOL
    [​IMG]

    I've spent ages configuring it to have teh best large file write performance I can manage... and with a 3 disk RAID5, that's a hard task. With 4 disks it becomes more realistic, but I've spent enough LOL. Having said that...

    [​IMG]

    None too shabby.

    Read performance has suffered as a result of my choice of stripe size and read ahead optimisation, but still manges more than the network can deliver, so not fussed about that.

    Access times have suffered as a result of stripe size, which I've chosen to give the best large files sustained write times. Set to a smaller stripe size with read ahead on adaptive, it drops to around 10ms. As it is however, it's not important to me, as I need fast write transfer speeds of large contiguous files (Norton Ghost back up and transferring large image and video files).

    [​IMG]

    I never took any screenies of RAID0... and I'm not rebuilding my RAID again to do that, but if anyone is thinking of building a RAID0 config, I can recommend this card. I was seeing around 370MB/sec max, and 295MB/sec min read rates in 0. That 400 is not burst either... that's the max sustained rate. Wasted on a file server over a Gb network though.

    So... all in all.. I'm happy.

    PC Tools seems to slow down my transfer rates over the network however. Without it, I get around 110MB/sec on large files transfer, but with it, around 90MB/sec.

    Once all updates are on, I'll disable internet access to it anyway... so I may remove PC Tools.


    [edit]

    102 watts at the mains socket with all disks spinning and processor idle (which will be it's normal state 80% of the time). No power figures in uber power saving mode yet, as I've not configured them.
     
  6. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    just noticed the CPU load of 5.8%, may i suggest an underclock for this..
     
  7. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Well... yeah, it crossed my mind. The card is doing most of the work, so I might. Realistically though, how much will it save? I've had experience of instability with underclocks just as much as over.
     
  8. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    drop it down to 1.6Ghz, should be enough, then bottom out the voltage options in the bios aswell
     
  9. lollysticky

    lollysticky What's a Dremel?

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    nice results
    those speeds match my own experience :)
    I'm gonna try to upgrade my gigabit switch tho...

    the only thing that's different on my server is the CPU power (Phenom II X3 720BE @ 3400Mhz) since I run heavy-load bioinformatics stuff on the server :)

    never measured the power it uses tho...


    P.S. lol the hugeness of that case xD
     
  10. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    pooky i know its an odd question/idea

    But that RAID card is going to get hammered a lot right, and its got the smallest heatsink that i have ever seen! During your backups can you burn you're finger on that heatsink?

    Time to mod it!!
     
  11. oasked

    oasked Stuck in (better) mud

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    Good point. Worth sticking a slow 40mm or 60mm fan on it?
     
  12. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Hmm.. I never thought to check tbh. I'll check later and report back.
     
  13. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    better that, than bricking a ~£260 fibreglass sheet with copper and silicone all over it!
     
  14. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Hmm.. I never thought to check tbh. I'll check later and report back.
     
  15. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    The computer I build my mom and brother has the same mobo.


    Nice server BTW
     
  16. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    I've been hammering it for hours while transferring all the data over.... and it was HHHot!

    So I dug out a Coolermaster 120mm fan, and slapped it in a spare TRUE fan holder.. so it has little legs to stand on, and installed it facing up directly under the card.

    [​IMG]

    Just mildly warm to the touch now :)
     
  17. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    think i just saved you some hassle, can i have cheesecake now?
     
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  18. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Cheesecake delivered!
     
  19. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    oooooooooooooooooo yeah!
     
  20. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    Fixed
     
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