For some reason, I want my future file server to have space for 8 hot-swap HDD. Those HDD will house the RAIDZ cluster of my ZFS array (although that particular terminology sounds odd). Why do I want hot-swap? Because I can. It costs about $100 for a drive cage for 4 SATA drives. That’s +$25 per HDD, but it’s nice. That’s all. It’s Nice To Have. I said RAIDZ, but I might go […]
How many SATA ports? Read More »
People have asked me why I’m creating what amounts to a NAS. Why don’t I use Drobo or SmartStor for example? The above don’t have ZFS, which is the best solution for redundant storage. I can’t install Bacula on those systems. Sure, Bacula could run on another system and access that storage, but being directly on the system has advantages. Or why don’t you use FreeNAS for example? You’d be running FreeBSD! FreeNAS,
Why no Drobo? Or SmartStor? Read More »
Let’s look at this combination: Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner $20 (+ $8 shipping) HP ProLiant ML150 G6 E5506 $850(+$43 shipping) RocketRAID 2300 PCIe 4x SATA $120 (+$8 shipping) Crucial 3x2G ECC DDR3-1333 $191 (+ $6 shipping) Total price in cart: $1178.97 + $42.90 shipping = $1,221.87 So the premium for the Supermicro is about $220. Is the hotswap worth the $220? Oh, and the Supermicro will need a video card: VisionTek VTK Rad7K
What about an HP ML150? Read More »
For the file server, perhaps one of these three combinations: Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 4@$300 – $1200 8TB or $150/TB SAMSUNG F1 RAID Class HE103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ 4@$150 – $600 4TB or $150/TB Western Digital RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ 4@$160 – $640 or $160/TB Also in this system would be a gmirrored pair of
Following on from my previous post on my file server, here is what I’m now looking at. It’s based upon various discussions on mailing lists and IRC channels. Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner $20 (+ $8 shipping) SuperMicro 5046A $750 (+$43 shipping) RocketRAID 2300 PCIe 4x SATA $120 (+$8 shipping) Crucial 3x2G ECC DDR3-1333 $191 (+ $6 shipping) Xeon W3520 $310 Total price in cart: $1389.95 + $52.95 shipping = $1441.90 Not included: HDD,
The File Server (more detail) Read More »
This is the current thinking for my soon-to-be-built storage server. I should consult freebsd-hardware first. Athena Power CA-SWH01BH8 Pedestal case The above case comes with two of these backplanes close up photos of that backplane mother board? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130136 was suggseted. m/b will either need 8 SATA connections or room for several cheap SATA controllers power supply, probably dependent upon the M/B but has to be grunty enough for 8xHDD 4GB RAM? HDD: SATA
I’m thinking about creating a storage box. One with a lot of disk space. It will be used for backups and stuff. I will continue to backup to tape as well. I’m considering this case, which has 8xSATA hot-swap bays: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192058 If I was buying a RAID card, I’d buy this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816131002&Tpk=areca%201120 But I may go with ZFS instead of hardware RAID.
Yes, my laptop arrived safe and sound. Well, mostly safe. It was actually delivered to another address on campus, but it eventually arrived at Afilias. Tonight, as I wait for the phone to ring, I decide to play with the fan and see if I could shut it off. I can: # sysctl dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan=0 dev.acpi_ibm.0.fan: 1 -> 0 Checking the temp was easy and pretty soon things jumped from about 48C to just
Odd how grown men, myself included, get giddy about new toys. My IBM ThinkPad T41 is no longer reliable. It has taken to being heat sensitive. I suspect something inside is broken / slightly disconnected and as the heat inside increases, a connection fails. I have tried to fix it, but failed. It has been acting tempermental for about two months now. I narrowed my search down to the ThinkPad x61s: Processor: Intel®
The laptop is coming! The laptop is coming! Read More »
This post is unfinished. This is the old box: FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation. FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT #2: Wed Sep 19 11:34:09 EDT 2007 dan@polo.unixathome.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/POLO WARNING: WITNESS option enabled, expect reduced performance. Timecounter “i8254” frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0 CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2806.38-MHz 686-class CPU) Origin = “GenuineIntel” Id = 0xf29 Stepping = 9 Features=0xbfebfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE> Features2=0x4400<CNXT-ID,xTPR> Logical CPUs per core: 2 real memory = 536018944 (511 MB)
Building an AMD Phenom box Read More »