Extremely cheap HP Z400 build with Xeon and 24GB RAM - aprox 800$

[Chris Moore]

Hmm as i see in your signature you use 32TB with 16GB ram (Irene). So its 2TB of data for 1GB of Ram. Dont you have any performance issues with that?

If you have 8GB or more of system memory, the system will run reliably. Having the 1GB of RAM per each 1TB of storage (above 8GB) becomes about performance. A certain minimum amount of RAM is required for proper function, after that it is about providing ARC for accelerating the system performance. The system that only has 16GB of memory is strictly used as a file server and nothing else. It works fine with 16GB of memory and I don't see a need to upgrade that system. It will probably stay just as it is for 5 years or more. The only reason I would change it is my own personal desire to make modifications, even though I know they are not needed.

I asked seller what disk ports it uses, he said FC but he has adapters to mount SAS/SATA disks. Would it be a problem to FreeNAS?

I have not used any FC (Fiber Chanel) controllers with FreeNAS and I do not know if they are supported. I would suggest staying away from that type of hardware and staying with something that is purely SAS.

 

[danb35]

AFAIK rack servers take 200-300W in idle.

There's nothing about the rack form factor that draws more power (and nothing about the ATX form factor that makes it more efficient); in fact, rack servers often have high-efficiency power supplies (mine are Platinum-rated, for example). Now, it's true that my server draws about 300W at idle, but look at the hardware--2x E5-2670s, a SAS HBA, a 10G NIC, and 20 hard drives are just going to burn a good bit of power. That's nothing to do with the rack form factor (of the chassis or of the power supplies); it's simply due to the rest of the hardware. Put an Atom C2750 board in the same chassis, and maybe don't use as many drives, and the power draw will go way down.

Of course, if you need the drives and/or the CPU horsepower, it's going to burn some watts.

 

[doman18]

There's nothing about the rack form factor that draws more power (and nothing about the ATX form factor that makes it more efficient); in fact, rack servers often have high-efficiency power supplies (mine are Platinum-rated, for example). Now, it's true that my server draws about 300W at idle, but look at the hardware--2x E5-2670s, a SAS HBA, a 10G NIC, and 20 hard drives are just going to burn a good bit of power. That's nothing to do with the rack form factor (of the chassis or of the power supplies); it's simply due to the rest of the hardware. Put an Atom C2750 board in the same chassis, and maybe don't use as many drives, and the power draw will go way down.

Of course, if you need the drives and/or the CPU horsepower, it's going to burn some watts.

Well i just followed this vlog
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVik6mzTCurdJmvdj5dCa7A
and especially this video and comment from David Bjørnsten-Lindhard ....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIFjaXXeneY
and this video ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVI8aNsFhjA

made me a littlebit sceptic about idea of using rack servers to our company needs.
But offcourse im open to discussion and learning because i have no experience with such hardware.

 

[danb35]

I'm not going to watch random Youtube videos to follow your thought process--the fact remains that the form factor doesn't draw more power than any other form factor, with one exception that I neglected above: fans. Rack-mount systems often have more, and more powerful, fans than many other configurations. Those are going to draw some power. But a given motherboard isn't going to magically draw more power just because it's in a rack-mount chassis.

 

[doman18]

I'm not going to watch random Youtube videos to follow your thought process--the fact remains that the form factor doesn't draw more power than any other form factor, with one exception that I neglected above: fans. Rack-mount systems often have more, and more powerful, fans than many other configurations. Those are going to draw some power. But a given motherboard isn't going to magically draw more power just because it's in a rack-mount chassis.

I dont know, i just always thought that servers are focused more on power than power saving opposite to SOHO equipment.

 

[Inxsible]

fans. Rack-mount systems often have more, and more powerful, fans than many other configurations.

Tell me about it. I have a 1U chassis that has fans which screech a lot especially on boot up. It's a good thing that I use it as my pfSense router, so it stays on all the time.

 

[Inxsible]

I dont know, i just always thought that servers are focused more on power than power saving opposite to SOHO equipment.

You are confusing rack mount chassis with servers. Not all rackmount chassis have to be servers and not all servers have to be rackmounts. I built a router for a friend using a 1U rackmount chassis and put in a J3355B SoC board in it and 1 laptop SSD and a picopsu. The TDP of that board/CPU was 15W peak. It runs all day without going over 7W except during bootup. Again it is in a rack-mount chassis, but it does not use server components.

A rackmount is nothing but an empty box form factor. The power consumption comes from the board, CPU, drives, fans and other peripherals. NOT from the box that they are housed in.

 

[Chris Moore]

Well i just followed this vlog
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVik6mzTCurdJmvdj5dCa7A
and especially this video and comment from David Bjørnsten-Lindhard ....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIFjaXXeneY
and this video ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVI8aNsFhjA

made me a littlebit sceptic about idea of using rack servers to our company needs.
But offcourse im open to discussion and learning because i have no experience with such hardware.

I have seen those things, the thing to keep in mind (if you are concerned about power and heat) is that the systems they are showing are very old. Fore example, the Dell rack server in the last video is around 10 years old. If you replace that with NEW hardware, it doesn't matter if it is in a desktop or rack format, it is going to use less power and produce less heat. You just have to decide what is important to you. If you want to save money through purchasing used (retired) data-center or other hardware that is not new, you are going to spend less on the hardware but more on the electricity and that is regardless of form factor.
For example, I replaced my workstation that was consuming around 350 watts with a new system that consumes no more than 150 watts under full load. New vs. old and the new will usually take less power, but the new workstation is just a little slower than the old one. I have already pointed you at several possibilities for systems. You have to decide how much compute and storage you need and weigh that against the cost of hardware. It is a decision that you have to make based on your requirements and the budget that you are able to dedicate to the solution. It is not a one size fits all situation.
Your solution may be unique to you and that is fine.
I sent you a link to a server chassis that had no system board. The components you put in it determine the power draw. If you buy a 10 year old server built by Dell, you are going to have old components that draw a lot of power. If you take the empty Supermicro rack chassis and put your selected components in it, you will have what you decide to have, not what some engineer at Dell thought was good 10 years ago.

 

[doman18]

It is a decision that you have to make based on your requirements and the budget that you are able to dedicate to the solution. It is not a one size fits all situation.
Your solution may be unique to you and that is fine.

Yes, and now i have to decide which will more power savvy, flexible and comfortable solution for us. Z400 seems fine, with two H310, cables, Ravcore Chasis and 24 GB ram fits our needs quite nicely. But the only thing bothers me that i cant put it into rack which my boss would love to do, and lock it with a key. Rack server has this advantage and also has this modular functionality in which i just fell in love - separating disk matrix in enclosure from data manager itself. This allows to use any machine with enough of ram (even SFF or mini PC) and switch it to anything else, as long it supports ZFS and has external SAS port.

//edit
Ok i think ive just found the best solution which fits to our needs and expenses. I will still use Z400 but instead of Ravcore chasis i willl take cheap RACK 4U VENUZ Linkworld chasis ...
http://allegro.pl/nowoczesna-obudowa-serwerowa-19-4u-rack-i6728505109.html
... and put 2x Icy Dock 5x3,5 ...
http://allegro.pl/icy-dock-obudowa-5x3-5-sata-raid-backplane-i6963892107.html
which will fit in two triple 5,25 chambers this chasis has. I will take only one PERC H310 which will handle 8 icy dock bays. Two of them i will connect directly to 2 (from 6) SATA connectors on the mainboard. Icy dock doesnt com with any controller so its completely transparent.

I think this solution is best bang for the buck for us.

 

[doman18]

Even with generators, there is usually a drop in power when the transfer happens. For the server, that could be a big problem if a write is in progress because you could lose data. A separate UPS on the server is just a good precaution.

I thought about this again. And again i come back to SLOG idea. However, this time i was thinking about using second controller with battery. Ive seen those when i was looking for server device. I know that using any hardware RAID is bad idea, but this is about SLOG, not pool. Ive even seen that some of you already tried this.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-raid-controller-as-a-slog-device.53333/page-2

Some of stores i mentioned before offered p410 with 512MB ram for that purpose.

Just to remind: we wont use virtualisation or any actions which require big data flows. Its only about storing documents and blueprints by 20 people. Do you think mirrored 64GB SSD SLOG with battery would improve data integrity safety?

 

[wblock]

Do you think mirrored 64GB SSD SLOG with battery would improve data integrity safety?

No. SLOG is only for increasing performance of synchronous writes. These are mostly encountered with with virtualization. Seems like I posted that earlier in this thread.

 

[doman18]

Sorry, i forgot that.