Using old server hardware

[Valdhor]

I have been reading everything I can find regarding building my own NAS box and am wondering about the use of old server hardware available on fleabay.

First off I should probably flesh out my wants/needs. I would like a box that could provide up to 50TB of storage space with enough power for a Plex server for four clients (Plex recommends 2000 CPU PassMark per 1080p stream so 8000+ PassMark required). My budget is $600 just for server hardware with disks additional.

I am thinking of a 12 bay Supermicro server from 2009/2010 as the basis of the build. something like:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...701307?hash=item35fb8eb8bb:g:msoAAOSw5VFWFvJa
or
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...219530?hash=item43ea17880a:g:Ms4AAOSwrklVJ~UE

I would replace the RAID card with an m1015 and use that with the MB connectors. I would like to use 6TB drives in two RAIDZ2 pools giving ostensibly 24TB each for a total of 48TB.

As I don't have the money to buy all of the drives up front this will start off as a backup device for my DrobPro's. Once I completely build it, it will become the primary and the DroboPro's will become the backup. I hope to buy one 6TB drive per month (Recreating the pool each time) so have all drives within a year.

The only potential problem I see with this idea is the backplane or MB not supporting 6TB drives. If I'm correct what do people suggest?

Actually, any input would be most appreciated. Perhaps a different road? I don't really care about power consumption or keeping it quiet.

 

[nightshade00013]

Ok, going to throw a few things at you that will shape your decision.

First off the figure for Plex is when transcoding is required and the minimum means the system will just squeak by so it's better to get a bit above that. And don't forget overhead for the base FreeNAS system and any jails running things other than Plex. If you are going to be doing transcoding for four streams at the same time I would either plan for around a 10,000 minimum CPU mark from your system or make sure as much of the media as possible does not need to be transcoded. I would make the guess that most of the streaming will be in your home which will not require 2000 cpu mark per stream actually it will be closer to 500 per stream.

Either system you are looking at would be able to handle things pretty well as long as you are not transcoding to four clients at the same time. The X5550 system will be slightly more powerful however it will lose a couple features like sse4 and AES as well as be a 95w cpu vs a 40 watt http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-X5550-vs-Intel-Xeon-L5630 The X5550 system has 32GB of ram installed at this point with the other at 24GB but the X system supports a lower overall total so later on if you intend to max the ram that could be a factor though not as likely in a home situation. Also the L5630 system will run slightly longer on a battery backup than the X5550 system.

All things said, as long as you are going to mostly serve Plex streams in the same location and have your files in a format that the clients will natively support I would grab the L5630 system. It is a little higher cost but the cpu's will use half the power when they are throttled up which even on a cheap power rate will save quite a bit over the server's lifetime. I have a system that is fairly close using a X8DT6-F MoBo and dual E5640's and have no problems with it handling multiple streams including two which are transcoding. I will say however the more ram you have in the system the better so shop around for some more to drop in but I would wait to find it as cheap as possible.

Since you will be using a m1015 card the 6TB drives should be supported fine for any drives connected to it, the one problem will likely be the backplane in the case and since they did not list the model number you may either ask which one and ask if they guarantee 6TB drive support. However from what I was able to see of the case that SuperMicro designated for that series it should not be a problem http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/2U/826/SC826A-R1200LP.cfm I believe that this will require four drives to either be connected to an expander or a reverse breakout cable directly to the MoBo but the board ports should also support the 6TB drives since my board has the same controller and it supports 4TB drives just fine. And I looked again and I am correct that it should be using this backplane.

SAS826A Backplane is partitioned (3x 4 bays). The 8708EM2 will
only allow 8 of 12 bays to be recognized in Raid 0/1/5/6

As far as it all goes this will be tough to beat for initial cost and ability to do what you need it to especially since you are not concerned about power consumption. Just remember that a pair of redundant power supplies plugged into a single battery backup makes a single point of failure if high availability is not important this will not matter though.

 

[Valdhor]

Thank you NightShade. My research must have been OK. Whew.

They are not great with the pictures but I would have to assume (And everybody knows what assume means) that there are already cables going from the 8708EM2 to the backplane that I can re-use with the M1015.

Something you said that threw me a little that I have not seen in my research - "reverse breakout cable". What is that? I have seen SAS to SATA breakout cables. This must be SATA to SAS. Is it really different to SAS to SATA?

My Plex clients are basically two in the house (Popcorn Hour C-200 and Apple TV 4) and two at other houses (Android tablet at my daughters house and Rasplex at my grandsons). The c-200 will play anything thrown at it without transcoding. The ATV4 seems to transcode a lot. The external box's will transcode. So, basically, probably three simultaneous transcodes (Most likely everybody at night watching different movies).

The good thing is that I will almost certainly limit the system to the one jail (Plex).

I was leaning towards the low power system myself. It has 6 x 4GB DIMM's already and another 6 can be had on eBay for around $48 shipped so that aint too bad for 48GB.

 

[nightshade00013]

The backplane used in the case that you are looking at has a 1 to 1 connection, a single SFF8087 is able to connect to four drives and a m1015 or other compatible controller will have two SFF8087 connectors. This will allow you to connect to 8 drives on the backplane although the backplane has 12 bays. This means you will have to do one of two things either purchase a SAS expander (expensive) or a reverse breakout cable (cheap in comparison) that will allow you to use 4 of the onboard motherboard sata connectors and connect it to a single SFF8087 port. So while you will be able to use the cables from the current controller you will still have to buy something to hook all twelve drives up. While my case does not have a backplane I am doing basically the same thing, currently seven drives in a raidZ3 three of which are hooked to the SATA ports and four of which are hooked to the SAS controller. Since FreeNAS is able to directly see each drive it does not care that they are on different controllers it just puts them together and makes it all work. Later on when I go to expand I will add 7 more drives and bring in a second vDev that is again three SATA connected and four SAS connected.

As far as the transcoding at other locations the PlexPass version of Plex has begun to add in ahead of time transcoding, they are calling it "Optimized Versions" so basically it will be kinda like how Netflix does things with multiple different versions of the same movie so that most any client and speed will be able to watch a movie without real time transcoding. This may be something to look into if you have multiple devices that will use the same file rather than to transcode on the fly every single time. Also Plex seems to work in bursts when it transcodes, basically as long as every single client doesn't try and start at the same time it should not be a problem. It's kinda like living in town, if EVERYONE in a ten city block area was to get together and plan to flush EVERY toilet in EVERY house at the same time there would likely be some issues that pop up but since that doesn't happen without a lot of planning it isn't a problem.

 

[Valdhor]

So, in the end, I went with a different box (http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-846E1-R900B-CSE-846-X8DTE-F-2x-E5540-8GB-24x-TRAYS-/201535276830?hash=item2eec70471e). I also ordered 32GB ECC Registered RAM as well as some USB Sticks. If I need more power I can upgrade the processors to L5640's for $100 but I don't believe I will need to.

I need to figure out cabling. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1M-MiniSAS-36pin-SFF-8087-to-4XSATA-Reverse-Breakout-cable-with-Latch-/161740286973?hash=item25a878ebfd:g:wmEAAOSwCQNWfpcY should work for connecting the motherboard to four drives as a start point.

One thing is confusing me. From pictures of the backplane (Probably easiest to show in another eBay listing - http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-SERVER-4U-24-BAY-SAS-SATA-BACKPLANE-BPN-SAS-846EL1-/191121536860?hash=item2c7fbb375c:g:wcIAAOSwnDxUa1-J) it appears to have only 3 SFF8087 ports (Or am I seeing this wrong?). For 24 ports I would need 3 m1015 cards, right? How do I connect the six ports on the cards to the three ports on the backplane?

 

[nightshade00013]

Ok first off moving from a 5540 to a 5640 would not be much of an upgrade, the 5600 series adds AES-N1 as well as a few other features but for the most part you would need to go up to something faster and much more expensive in the 5600 series for it to really matter.

As far as the backplane it is an expander, you will only need one SAS HBA to make it work. Plug into two ports and it should do the rest of the work.

I don't think the reverse breakout cable will be any good in this situation, you "could" use the adaptec card in jbod mode but it's not a good idea and connecting the SATA ports to the backplane probably will not work since it is an expander and SATA ports will not likely play nice with it though someone with a little more knowledge than I can feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Seems like a nice little deal you got there though, if I had the extra money I would pick one up and swap my X8DT6-F into it at that cost. The case alone would be worth what you are paying.

 

[Valdhor]

I may have made a mistake but I thought the 5640 was a hex core processor with a passmark above 7000.

Nice cheap 24 port box. I'm pretty sure I saw the same box as a bare bones (No motherboard) for $179. You may like to do a search.

I have been monitoring another thread and it appears that the backplane may not support 3+TB drives. I may need to swap it out for a BPN-SAS2-846EL1 backplane. Once it arrives I'll see if it sees 4TB drives. I'm going to have to burn in the System/RAM as well.