BUILD Sanity check on hardware, looking for recommendations

[zeamaize]

Hello all,

First time poster, but I've been lurking on the boards for a bit while working on a project. I'm a scientist at a non-profit research institute, and I'm looking to build a large data storage system for experimental use. We want to collect some data on the way scientists are using certain data sets, and to serve some GIS and other data to a large number of folks in our field.

I've been researching a budget system for a while, and here is my plan:

Use a DS-24ER from Norcotek as a JBOD. Likely fill it with something like the WD 4001FYY6 (partially at first). I'm stuck now pricing out a server to go with it. I figure a rack mount server would do nicely, and have considered some of the Norcotek cases. I also figure I need a good SAS controller which supports a large number of drives (Figure this will run $600-$800). Does anyone have any recommendations to help me here? Especially with regards to hardware compatibility?

My plan software wise is to run Linux of some flavor, with LLNL's ZFS for Linux build.

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[techiem2]

I'm using a Norco DS-24E (just looked and I see the ER is the same but with redundant PSUs - nice) connected to an LSI 9200-8e controller. Dead simple setup. Throw the controller card in, plug the enclosure into it, throws drives in the enclosure.
The LSI will support up to 512 disks and is a full SAS/SATA 6Gb controller. They run about $350 and when I researched I couldn't find anything else anywhere near that price with the same specs.

 

[zeamaize]

Hi Techiem2,

Wow, that LSI 9200-8e is a fantastic price. About half the price of the other cards I've been looking at.

What sort of system are you running on the front end? Any suggestions for disks? (I've been debating some inexpensive WD 4TB disks, as they're under $100/TB)

Yeah, the redundant power is nice. I talked to some Norcotek folks today about it and they recommended it, before I was thinking about duping the system over and running two DS-24Es.

How long have you been running your system, and for what purpose? Any reports on how the maintenance and failure stats have been? I like the low price of the Norcotek system, and the hot swap interface. I was thinking about building a BackBlaze Pod before, but this beats the price point, and the hot swappable drives is nice.

 

[techiem2]

Biostar TA785G3 HD
Athlon II X4 620
16GB RAM (4x4GB - Crucial I believe I put in it)
Freenas is installed on a CF card in a CF-SATA adapter.
I'm currently running 4 - 2TB disks in a RAIDz array (6TB usable). I believe I'd had this array up for a couple years now?
I just got the Norco last week and moved the drives into it. I replaced one disk that the controllers didn't like (no idea what's up with that disk...I have an explanation of it in another thread).
The set was a set of 4 identical Hitachi 2TB disks until I just replaced the one disk with something else (I don't think the model I have is for sale anymore...).
On that note - the hot swapping with the enclosure and the controller worked great - I just stuck the replacement disk in the enclosure (the flaky disk wasn't in the enclosure at all) and Freenas terminal saw that a new disk had been connected, so no reboot was required.

I use the array for file storage, customer computer backups (direct file dumps or image dumps), media storage (DVD rips, music, etc) - this is currently over 4TB...I have lots of DVDs...., file downloads/torrents/etc. go directly to the fileserver.
I mount it primarily over SSHFS from several machines.
Right now the array is down to about 600GB free...lol.

So far I haven't noticed any difference between the disks being internal on the motherboard controller and external in the Norco/LSI (other than the device names being different).

 

[techiem2]

My current expansion plan (based on current drive prices and my server RAM) is sets of 3TB disks (4 disks for an array, so 9TB/set), but after I add one more set to the enclosure I'd need to replace the server itself with something that can take more RAM...so likely a beefy 1U server with 64GB ECC...hehe