Enclosure For Extra Drives

[BobCochran]

I'm very happy with this past weekend's build of my "new" FreeNAS 8.0.4 server, which is described below in my signature. In contrast to my previous build, this one is rock solid. I've transferred about 1 Tb of data as a test without a problem. I need to increase the disk space available on the system. I can only add 2 more hard drives to my ARC case. My friend needs 10 Tb in usable hard drive space and I have 3 x 2 Tb drives in a RAIDZ array yielding 3.4 Tb usable space. That seems to mean buying 5 more 2 Tb hard drives because then I could have 6 x 2 Tb data drives plus 2 x 2 Tb parity drives.

I'm not sure whether my calculations are correct...but where do I put all these extra drives? Are there enclosures that can just piggyback on my current system case, with a provision for powering the drives, cooling them with fans, and even a neat way to run cables to them from the motherboard adapter?

Thanks

Bob

 

[Trianian]

Your cheapest option is to buy another standard PC case and install the drives in that. You'll only need some SATA and power extension cables to run from your existing machine. Monoprice.com sells a combined SATA + Power extension cable very inexpensively.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10226&cs_id=1022605&p_id=5181&seq=1&format=2

That and a Molex extension or two and you'd certainly have enough cable length to run to another case.

You could put a PSU in the new case, but you probably won't need to if your existing PSU has enough power. Hard drives don't draw very much power when running, though they do spike about 2 amps at startup.

If money is no object, you could buy a purpose built external enclosure, but it would cost a lot more than a standard PC case. Most of those enclosures come with PSU's and chips to convert SATA to USB, the first of which you probably don't need and the second of which you definitely don't need.

If you do go with a second PC case, be sure to put a fan or two in it.

Does your motherboard have 5 unused SATA ports? If not, you'll have to buy a SATA card.

 

[Trianian]

Are you sure you can't fit 5 more drives in your case?

You only have 3 drives in it now, both of the FD ARC cases hold at least 8 drives if you use the external bays to hold drives.

You may have a DVD drive in one of your external bays, if so, rip it out and put an HD there. Run your future upgrades from a USB thumbdrive or an external USB DVD drive.

Fitting all of your drives into this single case will be far cheaper and more elegant than running cables out the back to another case.

 

[fisheater]

http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=40&area=en

This is handy, and tidy.

(no conflict of interest)

 

[Z300M]

I used this: five 3.5in drives in the space of three 5.25in drives. The picture shows it with the drives horizontal, but it's supposed to be mounted so that the drives are vertical.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215001

but cheaper here

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SKUSearch_v3.asp?scriteria=BA25916

 

[BobCochran]

Are you sure you can't fit 5 more drives in your case?

You only have 3 drives in it now, both of the FD ARC cases hold at least 8 drives if you use the external bays to hold drives.

You may have a DVD drive in one of your external bays, if so, rip it out and put an HD there. Run your future upgrades from a USB thumbdrive or an external USB DVD drive.

Fitting all of your drives into this single case will be far cheaper and more elegant than running cables out the back to another case.

You are quite correct, I should have mentioned that there are 3 other drives in there: 1 is a 1 x 1 Tb afp share that I want to expand into a ZFS array; then there is a 1 x 2 Tb that I want to reserve for a virtualization host; and there is 1 x 64 Gb SSD drive for the ZFS Intent Log that I have not implemented yet because I'm getting dire warnings from the FreeNAS web interface saying that I ought to mirror the drive.

Yes, I see your point. Yet it does look like one cannot avoid ending up with a large pile of hard drives and the frustration of trying to connect them all successfully on a do-it-yourself system. I will try to be efficient.

Thanks!

Bob

 

[Trianian]

Keep in mind that there's no reason for your SSD to occupy a valuable a drive bay.

Since they're solid state you can place them just about anywhere without any risk of damage. While I wouldn't attach one to hot component like a hard drive, I'd have absolutely no compunction about using velcro or double-sided tape to attach it somewhere within the case or even the interior of a drive cage.. I'd have no requirement other than exposing it to a minimal amount of airflow.

Perhaps your most cost effective option would be to purchase a case able to hold all the drives you plan to add, then repurpose the Arc case for a different use entirely.

If you're married to your existing Arc enclosure, I might start looking towards 3TB drives. That would do a lot to limit the number of drives in your system while still hitting your storage targets.

 

[louisk]

You didn't mention if you were going to start over with the existing drives or simply add vdevs to your pool.
If you add to your pool, you would be adding a RAIDZ 5 spindle, which should give you ~7.5T usable. Added to your existing ~3.5 is 11T.
This is a totally usable solution and each vdev would have 1 parity drive (equiv). I would suggest you buy an additional 2 or 4 2T drives to keep on hand when you have a disk failure (when, not if). The more spindles you run, the more frequently (statistically) you will have failure.

Also, if this is important data, 11T is quite a bit. I would suggest you look into ways to perform actual backups (DVDs or BDs won't be an option if you need to backup 11T, or even 5T for that matter).

 

[BobCochran]

Everyone,

Thanks for all the ideas! I will try to make efficient use of the case that I have and yes, I see the sense in moving the SSD out of a valuable 3.5" drive bay.

Louis, I might add the new drives as you suggest and I do agree with you that I'll need a backup solution for the data. That is what replication is for, right? I basically build a second box (more cheaply this time, I hope) and copy all the data to it during the night.

I also agree that I need to carry some spare hard drives against the time existing ones fail. I'm with you there.

Thanks!

Bob

 

[louisk]

You can certainly use replication. I'm actually a fan of tape, because of its durability, but not everybody shares my sentiments.

I would say that a ZIL on SSD is a low priority from personal experience. Unless you're actually pushing >800-900MB/s, I don't think you'll see much, if any, advantage from the SSD. Also, you don't need a 64G. If you had 8G, that would be plenty.

 

[BobCochran]

I used this: five 3.5in drives in the space of three 5.25in drives. The picture shows it with the drives horizontal, but it's supposed to be mounted so that the drives are vertical.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215001

After looking over the possibilities, I decided on the above enclosure. I really like the aluminum construction. The jumper pins on the back are hard to work with because the legends printed next to them are nearly invisible, but the awful documentation does show a diagram of them, so fine.

Hard drives are on order. I need to get myself another M1015 controller card. I assume that plugging one drive of a zvolume of 8 drives into an SATA connector on the motherboard will slow down the entire array, right? I won't get HBA-like throughput?

Louis, if you are reading this, can you please explain why you like tape backups and what specific tape devices you are in favor of? For 11 Tb or so of data?

Thanks

Bob

 

[louisk]

Tape is relatively cheap (for something like LTO3 or 4, even counting the cost of drives and media), density is fairly good, durability is very high. Tape also uses less power and cooling than multiple replica systems.