Hey, how's my new server setup coming along? I'm getting hung up on choosing the right case for it.
Hey, how's my new server setup coming along? I'm getting hung up on choosing the right case for it.
Hey everyone, I'm setting up a server to keep all the sensitive stuff for some of my companies plus my own private files. I want this in a 1U box but am okay with going bigger if needed. I know how to build desktops, so I'm new to servers, but I would love your opinions on what I picked here:
CPU: Intel Xeon E-2336
Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SCA-O
RAM: Crucial 4GB sticks (two of them) running DDR4 memory with ECC protection at 2666 speed.
Storage for the big data files: I'm putting four Seagate Exos hard drives in RAID 6 to make them safe. These are 3.5-inch, 7200 RPM drives.
Backup storage: For quick access, I have two Intel SSDs running in RAID 1. They are solid state drives that run at 1.92 TB each and come from a D3-S4510 model.
Hardware controller: The computer uses an LSI 9300 MegaRAID SAS to manage the hard drives safely.
Network stuff: I have an Intel or Dell X540-T2 card that should give me gigabit speeds for networking.
Power supply: I'm hoping the power supply comes with the box.
Cooling: Same thing, hope the cooling is built in.
What chassis do you think would be best? The build needs to hold four 3.5-inch hard drives and two smaller 2.5-inch SSDs. I want this under $350. Are there any changes I should make to my parts that could help or save me money?
Four drives is probably not the best choice for RAID 6, according to me. RAID 6 needs two disks just to create parity data. That means your four disks end up like an RAID 10 setup but with way more extra work involved in it. You might be better off treating one drive as your main system drive and using the other one only for backing things up. Your information will stay safer than that way. Maybe making RAID on just the main drive could keep you running longer, BUT if this data is very important to you, you should remember the 3-2-1 rule: make three copies in two different places with one copy stored somewhere else at home or work. Your server doesn't meet those rules. RAID isn't really a backup plan; it just keeps things online, not safe from theft or damage. You would be better off with two separate commercial NAS units that can keep data on both the main drive and the backup drive. You could set up one in a different room or building and use a special connection called a VPN to copy the data automatically between them.
I'm sticking with a rack server instead of a NAS for now. That choice makes sense, even though it wasn't exactly what I planned initially.