24-bay backup server, hardware recommendations?

[Pete]

I need to build a new backup server because the old is running out of space and is also kinda slow, so it needs to be replaced sometime soon.

I was thinking about a 24-bay 3.5" SAS/SATA case to start off with an 8 drive RAIDZ2 zvol on a single HBA card (or maybe even onboard SATA ports as long as speed is not going to be a must for now) and probably expand to a second and third one later.

For now it will only be used to backup a fileserver and a couple of smaller machines on a nightly basis, but is probably going to rsync from another FreeNAS/TrueNAS Storage server sometime later (fileserver and virtual machine snapshots).

Besides the 24-drive spec I was going for 2, maybe 4 10G network ports (2 of which to directly connect to my storage server later), possibly some 1G network ports as well) and one or two SSD drives for a separate SLOG device. Low power consumption would be a welcome bonus.

Does it make sense to go down the easy road an just purchase e.g. a SuperMicro 6049P-E1CR24L Storage Server <https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/4U/6049/SSG-6049P-E1CR24L.cfm>, or should I pick parts specifically for my needs and upgrade later, and possibly get much better bang for my bucks? I do not mind putting together the hardware myself, but after looking at mainboards and cases etc. for a while now, I am increasingly unsure about my needs, conclusions and choices.

What would you do in my position, what would you recommend as an alternative?

Thanks for any input.
Pete

 

[Inxsible]

The most important thing about getting hardware is to not get carried away with the "possibilities". Consider what the immediate function of the hardware is going to be and then add some upgrade paths into the choice.

You mentioned this is more of a backup -- so don't go out and buy the latest and the greatest hardware. Consider used hardware. Don't buy a CPU that can transcode 5 streams at once. Consider a lower end CPU-- maybe a Pentium -- but one that supports ECC, so that you can do replication from your main FreeNAS box and still not have to worry about not having ECC on your backup system.

Buying a system outright also has advantages and at times can be cheaper too. For eg. HP ML10 has been bought by a lot of users on this forum for as less as $165 USD -- which gets them everything except HDD -- but only with 4GB of RAM. Add at least 1 more stick of 4GB RAM and that's probably all you need for a backup solution. Total cost would be less than $200. Very difficult to build one for less than that price even when you buy used.

 

[Pete]

This is solid advice, thank you. However, I am already at a point where I am fairly sure about my immediate needs and I also have a pretty good idea about my future needs. I was hoping that maybe someone had built a similar setup to what I have in mind and that they could recommend the hardware they used.

Right now I have 6 unused SATA drives that would be used for some "slower" backup tasks at first, but I will need a faster vdev later on, e.g. for VM snapshots.

To elaborate: I was not planing to run this in a home lab, this is going to be used in a company as a proper server (so I would rather not get used hardware). I already build a few FreeNAS boxes myself but this is going to be my first bigger one, and budget is not that much of an issue.

I am mostly struggling to find a suitable motherboard. I do not mind to get something a little older if it is proven to work really well. And, as you mentioned, popping in another LSI SAS 9211 or a 10G network card sometime later would be more convenient than switching to a different mainboard.

 

[garm]

A LSI9211 can handle 256 devices so there is no need for a second one unless you want HBA redundancy. If this is an enterprise machine and budget is not constrained, I would get a prebuilt system with support and guarante. TCO tends to be lower in the long run. Also, plan for the decommissioning and the replacement. This is almost never done right in the Fortune 500 company I work at.

 

[Inxsible]

I was not planing to run this in a home lab, this is going to be used in a company as a proper server (so I would rather not get used hardware).

Well yes, that changes things then. To save PCI lanes you can use an expander card like this one.
You can obviously buy a new one instead of the one I linked.

 

[Pete]

Again, thank you. I actually prefer the idea of building everything myself, but considering the time I could save, would the SuperMicro 6049P-E1CR24L with enough RAM and a decent CPU be an okay choice as well?