To replace or upgrade? (Formerly 3ware hardware raid, soon to be FreeNAS)

[Cricket]

Hi all,
I've been running a hardware RAID under Ubuntu since 2007. It's had a few upgrades along the way (most major being the move from Core2Duo to dual Xeon about 1 year ago) however the system lost it's final hot-spare last month and now I'm effectively just running as a RAID 5 using 7 year old hard drives. It makes me nervous. I think it's time to move forward with something better. My problem is this, do I "upgrade" the existing system (specs to follow) and use it for my new FreeNAS server, or do I start from scratch and repurpose this computer completely. It would make a pretty decent workstation for my GIS or pretty much anything else. It is solid and I like it, but hardware RAID is tough when you need identical matching hard drives and your RAID will only come to life on one brand of hardware (if my 3ware controller died I would have a bad, bad day).

My existing hardware (it served me well but it's time to move on):
-Supermicro X7DCA-L
-2x Intel Xeon 5150 CPUs
-16GB ECC DDR2
-3ware 9650SE 12 drive PCIe hardware RAID
-12x hot-swap Seagate ES 320GB drives (currently running with 10 drives in a hardware RAID5 without hotspares because I can't find trustworthy replacements!!!)
-Huge Supermicro case, modded to make it quiet enough to keep under my desk.
-Huge 1,000 watt PSU to keep all those CPUs and drives going

So, what is your advice? I see two main options, use some of the hardware for a FreeNAS or use none of this hardware and build from scratch. I want something that can:
1) Store about 10TB (today's prices make this easy)
2) Last at least 7 years without constant babying (old system did this)
3) Accept miss-matched drives in a single array (something 3ware can't handle)
4) Have the ability to easily expand if I need more storage (something my old hardware system couldn't do).

I think that I could get away with buying 5x 4TB Seagate NAS drives, rebuilding the existing system with a little SSD and FreeNAS and calling it a day but is there a better way? Can I rebuild it and use less power? Can I rebuild it with new hardware without breaking the bank?

As a side note, I loved the performance on my old system. I was could easily sustain reads and writes of 300MB/s (saturating 2 link aggregated gbit NICs). This system is used for storage of smallish GIS databases (under QGIS), and large aerial photo datasets (100x 50mb images are not uncommon). I also store family photos, music, and the odd TV show or movie on there. What I am looking for is a replacement that does it all and then some, preferably using fewer watts.

 

[cyberjock]

For starters, if you expect *that* system to last 7 more years, you are in for a real shocker. If your typical server lasts 5 years you should be pleasantly surprised. That hardware is already at least 6 years old, and is perhaps as old as 10 years. Replacing that hardware a year ago would have been financially economical just because of power usage.

So.. replace everything.

 

[Cricket]

Hm, that is a great argument for replacing the old parts... In the last year I guess I could have saved easily a couple of hundred bucks in power... Well, given that I don't actually use it for doing any hardcore calculations (I've tried using it for PostGIS but never really liked all the extra work of building databases that almost immediately went out of date) I could get away with a much less powerful system than I have. I've seen conflicting advice on Atom processor support with FreeNAS. Does the current FreeNAS build support modern dual core Atom chips and their other ITX components? I've seen plenty of people complaining that it doesn't like this EFI or that weird NIC. Is there a general rule for selecting a functional Atom board for FreeNAS? A list of actual tested boards? If I go with Atom I would probably use an embedded Atom/Supermicro board just because I like Supermicro. Their hardware usually dies after I've decided to replace it, not before.

Also, I haven't found any up-to-date performance reviews of Atom boards and FreeNAS. Could you point me to one? I think that replacing everything is the way to go so now I need to choose my parts list. Can you suggest the lowest power CPU/Board that can saturate 2x gbit NICs? I've found plenty of performance reviews from 2008-2012 but the embedded market has really grown in the last couple of years.... And back then people were getting 50MB/s out of their Atom based FreeNAS systems, not 250-300MB/s that I'm looking for. They also look for systems that can do transcoding or some other heavy CPU task. I'm really just looking for a big NAS. I like my flat filesystem.

 

[Philip Robar]

For starters, if you expect *that* system to last 7 more years, you are in for a real shocker. If your typical server lasts 5 years you should be pleasantly surprised. That hardware is already at least 6 years old, and is perhaps as old as 10 years. Replacing that hardware a year ago would have been financially economical just because of power usage.

So.. replace everything.

I completely disagree. (Probably somewhat influenced by the fact that I just bought a used system, cheap, based on the X7DCA-L motherboard*.) Since the main use of the server is serving files, Cricket could just replace the current CPUs with L series Xeons (50W MAX TDP) to save energy (they're dirt cheap on eBay - $50 shipped for a pair of L5420's, L5320's are even less), buy some new SATA drives and use the 6 SATA connectors on the motherboard. He/she already has more than enough memory for a file server, but if more is desired/needed DDR2 ECC memory is dirt cheap on eBay ($25 for 8GB 2x4GB). To save more energy/money just turn off one of the CPUs.

The $400+ it would cost to replace this MB/CPU/Memory combo would buy a 6TB with $100 left over, or 4 3TB drives. (Someone recently had 3TB WD Reds for just over $100. I paid $90 each for both of my non-NAS/Enterprise class 3TB drives.)

If availability is a concern buy another X7DCA-L MB on eBay ($40-$50) and a couple of spare CPUs (again cheap on eBay), test them and stick them in a closet for that far off day that they might actually be needed.

* $140 for a SuperMicro Server 2x Intel Quad-Core Xeon L5420 2.5GHz, X7DCA-L MB, 8GB RAM, 500GB HD, 1U case

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah, and there is no chance an X7 board with 32GB of ECC RAM will idle at 30w like my system does. We've had this argument over and over in the forums. You lost the argument about 2 years ago bro. But feel free to keep the ideal alive. Many people do get a laugh at you over it. ;)

 

[Philip Robar]

Yeah, and there is no chance an X7 board with 32GB of ECC RAM will idle at 30w like my system does. We've had this argument over and over in the forums. You lost the argument about 2 years ago bro. But feel free to keep the ideal alive. Many people do get a laugh at you over it. ;)

First, I am not your "bro."

Second, your aggressive response to the calm and reasoned alternative that I presented was uncalled for. (And winking at the last moment doesn't mitigate the tone of your response.)

But, to the point of this thread, my solution provides the disk space needed now and leaves $400-$500 in the OP's pocket. That'll pay for a lot of electricity: The system I mentioned above with all of the BIOS energy saving settings turned on and the fans set to their quietest, in a 1U case with the 280 watt power supply included by Supermicro idles at 80 watts. Adding/removing memory, fans, kb, etc is lost in the noise. So my system costs ~$50 more per year to run than your system does. So it would take 8 to 10 years, at the U.S. average cost of 11 cents/kilowatt hour or $1 watt/year, for an investment in new hardware to just break even.

Given the OP's use of the system as a file server only, I don't think that the cost of new hardware can be justified on an economic basis. On the other hand, if his/her needs change and she/he wants to start running more services then here's some information he/she should find useful:

Geekbench 3 Single-Core/Multi-Core Scores (Roughly rounded and averaged):​

Code:

Atom c2750          1100/7000   (8: 1x8)
Sempron 140         1400
Xeon 5150           1400/5000   (4: 2x2)
Xeon L5420          1400/9300   (8: 2x4)
SB Core i5-2500S    2700/7000   (4: 1x4)
Xeon E3-1220 V2/V3  3000/10,000 (4: 1x4)

The advantage of switching to a pair of L5420's is that you might save a little on electricity and you gain 4 addition cores and 3x the L2 cache.