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.
I think what I will do is start Raid 10. I want to keep backup drives in safes off-site and update them every week. I know I don't strictly need a server for my needs, but there are too many files and data I need to store. I really want the data safe (not on property I own) but I still need access. My current plan is to put this server somewhere in colocation. Since I want to own my data, renting a dedicated server isn't working well for me. I'm planning to encrypt both the drives and files and require a YubiKey for every login. Are there other solutions than this server that I should consider?
#1 That CPU won't fit on that board because the board uses socket 1151 while the CPU needs socket 1200 #2 Those Seagate drives don't fill up a 1GB NIC, so adding a 10GB one is pointless. To save you money, I'd just grab this HP DL380 G9 server instead. Over the years I've bought three of these from them and they all still work great. The last one was an HP DL380 G8, which I think cost me around $2015. It's running fine for our internal backup server right now.
Do you know how to work with Linux systems? Maybe think twice about staying there and check cloud storage instead, where everything gets done for you. If you are really skilled at managing servers, try LVM instead of buying new hard drives. ZFS is great if your data matters a lot. Also like others said, you'd need extra copies stored on different devices plus a solid backup plan.
I agree with this point. I bought some HP ML350P G8 servers years ago and turned them into TrueNAS Core using ZFS RAID-Z2. Using two extra power supplies, it's usually cheaper to reuse old hardware than build a whole new computer from scratch. My six 6TB Toshiba N300 drives in this RAID setup were built around 2018. They sometimes can't keep up with my internet connection speed, though that gap isn't huge. Normal transfers over 10Gbit usually reach about 1.25 Gbit/s. It's better than the original 1G, but still okay for a 2.5G setting. I use MikroTik routers and can justify spending money on 10G cards when moving files between other machines like my NAS or servers. At that point, even slow speeds become a problem. If you need more speed, think about upgrading to 25G, 40G, or 100G options instead of sticking with the current setup.
Yes it's cool to have like 10 gigabytes at your house or in a place you control. But he set up this server somewhere else where he has to pay for space, internet, and power. Maybe that colocation only gives you 1 gigabit of network, but you can pay more if you want ten. The same goes for the internet connection. What about his internet at home or work? How much data gets uploaded or downloaded each day without setting anything up first?