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.
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.