ZFS tuning
Interesting posts here on ZFS tuning, espcially posts #34 and #35. Post #37 has an interesting perl solution.
Tower Case with a cheaper faster CPU
I recently wrote about a tower case solution which sliced $500 off the cost. Last night we found an ASUS m/b for a Phenom II which supports ECC. This will be a cheaper faster solution. I will, however, have to buy a NIC. This NIC runs a Realtek chipset. No thanks. LIAN LI PC-A71F Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case $240 (from mwave) Silencer 610 EPS12V from PC Power and Cooling for
Tower Case with a cheaper faster CPU Read More »
openvpn replay
I’ve started seeing these messages recently: openvpn[2688]: latens.example.org/10.99.36.17:60467 Authenticate/Decrypt packet error: bad packet ID (may be a replay): [ #999 ] — see the man page entry for –no-replay and –replay-window for more info or silence this warning with –mute-replay-warnings After reading the man page, I decided to add the following and restart openvpn: replay-window 64 20 We’ll see….
A full tower case
Based on several recent posts, I found a new case, which I like quite a bit. My thanks to Dan Naumov for the concept. LIAN LI PC-A71F Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case $240 (from mwave) Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W PSU $80 Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner $20 (+ $8 shipping) Intel S3200SHV LGA 775 Intel 3200 m/b $200 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 CPU $190 SATA cables $22 Supermicro LSI MegaRAID 8 Port
The WesMorgan
Wes Morgan suggested this: Athena Power CA-SWH01BH8 Pedestal case $270 Antec CP-850 850W PSU $109 Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner $20 (+ $8 shipping) Intel S3200SHV LGA 775 Intel 3200 m/b $200 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 CPU $190 SATA cables $60 Supermicro LSI MegaRAID 8 Port SAS RAID Controller $118 Kingston ValueRAM 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM ECC $97 Total price with shipping $1100 roughly. And like Wes says, $400 less than
Supermicro
I am redoing the previous Supermicro quote to reflect some recent decisions. Specifically, changing to LSI from RocketRaid. Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner $20 (+ $8 shipping) SuperMicro 5046A $750 (+$43 shipping) LSI SAS 3081E-R $235 SATA cables $60 Crucial 3x2G ECC DDR3-1333 $191 (+ $6 shipping) Xeon W3520 $310 Total price with shipping $1560 I also found that LSI card on google. And cheaper cables.
Pricing the Athena
Let’s price out the Athena now: Athena Power CA-SWH01BH8 Pedestal case $270 Antec CP-850 850W $20 Samsung SATA CD/DVD Burner $20 Intel S3420GPLC LGA 1156 Intel 3420 ATX Intel Xeon $205 Intel Xeon X3430 Lynnfield 2.4GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Server Processor Model BX80605X3430 $210 Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ECC Registered Server Memory Model KVR1333D3D4R9SK2/8G $287 LSI SAS 3081E-R $235 SATA cables $60 VisionTek VTK Rad7K 64P
Pricing the Athena Read More »
RAID controller as an HBA
Given my previous post regarding the number of ports, I’ve started to consider this LSI SAS 3081E-R from LSI. It has native FreeBSD support via the mpt(4) driver. I can get one for about $240 shipped. I’d need a couple of cables too. Based on this, I’m going to price out the system with that original Athena case.
RAID controller as an HBA Read More »
How many SATA ports?
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 »
Why no Drobo? Or SmartStor?
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 »