Building A Storage Server. Power Consumption
Oct 30, 2008
I'm building a storage server out of spare parts that are lying around here at the office. Purchasing a brandnew server kinda overshoots it's target, since all basic hardware is available lika a big Chieftec 4U casing with 2x 4drive SATA hotswap bays.
The machine will just be dumb storage for saving our backups.
The plan is to add a decent serverboard, proc and some ram as a baseline. On top of that a 3ware 8-port RAID-controller with 8 1TB harddrives (seagate has some nice ones).
Now the only issue i'm having is powerconsumption. The case has an 460W PSU, but I'm not sure if that's enough.
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Apr 13, 2008
how to go about spec'ing the power consumption of a server. below are the specs of the two servers I'm interested it.
Dual Xenon 2.8Ghz Processors with 2MB cache
1 250Gig SATA Hard Drives
1 500Gig SATA Hard Drive
4 Gigs of Ram
------
Dual Xenon Quad Core 2.66Ghz
1 80Gig Hard Drive
2 320Gig Hard Drives
1 1T Hard Drive
8 Gigs of RAM
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Feb 16, 2008
What are the best ways to reduce server power consumption?
I have a Dell Poweredge 860 (2.4ghz QC, 5GB RAM, 2 HDs) and it uses 0.46AMPs when running normally. The problem is at boot up it spikes for a few seconds here and there to about 0.6 and this is a real problem as I only have a 0.5AMP allowance.
Should I underclock it? Remove the CD Drive?
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Mar 7, 2008
We are going to offer web space to our students and we want to build a new server just for this purpose. We were looking at buying a storage array, a RAID card, and a server. I have no problems building a server; however, I have never built anything with an external enclosure. I am thinking about buying this storage array:
www newegg com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816702010
I plan on installing hard drives in every drive bay for a total of 12 drives.
The problem I'm having is I don't know what type of RAID card to buy. I saw this one; but, I don't know if it will work with this storage array.
www newegg com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116062
Thanks so much for any light you can shed on this! I apologize for the link but I do not have enough posts insert URLs.
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Aug 10, 2009
I need to know what happens when a rack has capped its (lets say) 5A limit. I'm trying to calculate what exactly I can put into a rack and am considering that not all servers are going to be 100% load, as that would be bad performance anyway.
I guess it could do the following (but really don't know):
Cap performance of all servers
Cause system failures
Trip
The rack would have servers, a switch and perhaps a Remote Power Strip and Firewall. I don't know how they would be affected.
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Apr 22, 2007
I maybe interested in co-locating a server but looking from the power max for a 1U server of around 0.3Amps I'm wondering if it will be easy.
Doing the equation 0.3 * 240 gives me 72watts I believe. (Where 240 is the voltage for the UK). So with this, it doesn't give me much choice considering most processors run around 90watts and that doesn't leave any room for the power from hard drives and memory. Does anyone know what the average power consumption is for hard drives and memory?
I'm not looking for a really power system, but I would like something that if I pull it out of co-location that I can still use it one way or another. So was looking at an AMD Athlon 64 X2 where there is a 34watt version that is seemingly discontinued. Or use an AMD Turion X2, which are again hard to find, with a mini-itx board. Running with the mini-itx board, there is also the Intel Core 2 Duo which I can get quite easily.
Does anyone else co-locate and how to you manage the specification?
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Feb 23, 2008
My nearest major city is Manchester, so naturally I'm looking for rackspace in the region.
Unless anyone has better suggestions, I'm thinking of going with NorthernColo. They start at £50/month but jump to £70/month if you draw more than 1A of current.
If my basic physics is anything to go by, 0.5A at our 240V means a maximum server power rating of 120 watts.
...are there any dual-core / 2GB RAM box configurations which consume less than 300W thesedays? My own USB mouse for my laptop consumes 50mA.
Otherwise I'm begining to think of their 0.5A pricing as being a bit of a scam, since the 1A price also pays for 2U worth of space.
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Jan 18, 2007
If I were to build a 2.4 core 2 duo w/ 2gb ram and 4 x 500gb sata and 2 x 160 sata, both in raids. Do you guys think that would be above 2 amps usage? I was thinking maybe the efficient cpu would make up for the large amount of hard drives, all though their IO activity won't be that high. Maybe if someone has a similar setup they could shed me some light .
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Jun 12, 2008
you are going to purchase a new rack and the data center offers you a specific amount of power.
you are going to use server's specs like this
Dell PE 1950 III
two processors intel xeon E5410 2.33 GHZ , 24 MB cache, 1333MHz FSB
2x250 sata HDD
8 GB RAM
My question is how many amp's need for one server?
or how much power does one dell PE 1950 III with the previous specs needs?
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Mar 24, 2009
I am thinking about buying this processor and building a server with it. This processor is very affordable for me but I am wondering what kind of server I should run it as? Do you think the processor would be able to handle a heavy DDoS attack and act as a good firewall?
Let me know, here's the processor I want to build the server with:
[url]
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May 30, 2009
I have built my own computer before with ease. However, I am aware that building a dedicated server can be slightly different. I have a question.
Should I go with 'normal' hardware or specially made 'server hardware'?
I am aware that 'server hardware' is more expensive, but is it really that much better? I don't want to spend out lots of cash just for a minor performance increase.
Also I was looking at these rack mount cases as I am going to Co-locate the box. However I don't know which would be the best to use with my configuration.
[url]
I'm hoping to use a Quad Q6600 and 4GB RAM but I'm stuck on which motherboard to use,
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Jun 15, 2008
So I need to build or buy a server to run my site. The site will use a basic LAMP setup and we will also be allowing for file uploads and downloads. File sizes aren't expected to be too large, mostly word/PDF documents and maybe some Powerpoint presentations. At the moment we can only afford one box to run the whole site so we need to build something that can handle both file serving and basic site stuff.
I'm wondering what kinds of hardware we would need to make this happen. If I were to setup a box with a quad core CPU, 4-8GB of RAM, and a few 15K RPM drives would that be able to handle file serving and PHP/mySQL? Would multiple processors be required? What about RAID?
I guess the real question is what kind of hardware requirements are involved with setting up a file server. I'm guessing running PHP and mySQL is not really an issue but I don't want the site to slow down because of the file serving. I'm sure some of you have experience with this sort of thing so if anyone knows please let share your thoughts.
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Jun 8, 2008
Wondering what the most cost-effective and efficient way of building up a bulk backup server. I'm colocating some equipment and will have a private network.
I have a full cab, and only a few servers in it, so lots of room to spare.
Now this will originally just be used for my own users, but I need ease-of-use and expandability. For example, I can load it up with lots of cheap SATA drives, and a raid card. However, what do I actually do on the software end? Installing Linux and setting up rsync crons is the easy part, but what about permissions? Is there an easy way to create users?
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Nov 26, 2007
In me effort to go colo I have been studying as best I can different server builds. Here is some information you may want to know or be able to help me and others with.
Quest: Build a server designed for serving html and other uses as a webserver (mail, database, etc). Limux operating System
Chipset- Although I found a lot of good and bad motherboards, I could find no information regarding chipsets and Linux. maybe it does not matter, who knows? Also..upgrading motherboard and chipset AFTER server is up and running seems like a challenge.
Harddrives- It would seem best to get a harddrive made for a 24/7 uptime. Not ALL drives are like this. Seemingly, unconfirmed, SCSI drives are for this pupose. However, Western Digital has made some 'RE' drives that are to be up 24/7 with no issues.
Note: 7200+ rpm drives appear to fail more often and some suggest a more stable 5400rpm.
Built in NIC vs Adding one- Very little could be found on this, but would assume a much better one should be bought and not use an onboard one. Some onboards can have probelm with some linux distros too. I would buy one and add it...a good one.
CPU- very little talk was available on linux's use of multiple CPUs. Very little talk was available on speed and use of multiple versus single cpu units. Example- how would a single cpu of 3ghz do against 2 CPUs of 1.8ghz.
Having two CPUs does allow for a server to utilize different CPUs for different processes, so if one is busy, the other can be used.
No information was really available on the difference..or what you should buy for the actual CPUs.
RAM- Buttloads of ram out there. No info on what works best with linux, which works best for a server, or what kind would work best for a server.
Motherboard- many are available and many suggest different kinds, but no definitive reasons have been given. No idea which would be best for a linux web server.
Control panel versus no control panel - after a little learning curve it would appear a non control panel is easy to use for a single user server. Control panels are buggy, have many issues, but do allow multi user systems and shared servers to be easily used. Some seem very limited in the updated versions of software. I will be going with fedora, but no control panel. The overhead is not something I want to deal with..or the bugs, or the old software, of the issues of upgrading. Ensim and cpanel seem most used and professionally serviced.
Raid- Just working on this one. No real info as to the best type of raid card for a linux webserver. Raid 1 is a mirror system i believe that allows you to have two drives where one is a ghost of another (sort of)? Do not know how much this slows the system or the drives down, but a mirror would be best in the case of a failure.
Do not know what happens when there is a failure (will system freeze, ignore it, hang?)
Partition of drives: It would seem that putting the linux system on one aprtition, the /home directory on another, and perhaps the mail directory on another is a way to make it easier to deal with certain issues. If you need to compile, reinstall, or whatever with linux and all your data is not on the partition, it becomes easier. If a partition gets screwed, the data is spread out, so much can not be destroyed. The actual amounts for the partitions are not evident in my research.
ANyway, that is a synopsis of info I have been perusing these last few days. Usually you can only find someone talking about something they use and like, but no real details to balance out why something else will not be as good.
One other note: Distros of llinux are all over the place. But for a webserver I do not think any distro is really needed. Perhaps just building your own kernel would be good (and a great learning experience)...but that remains to be seen.
I will be posting a web page in the coming weeks with a detail of how I built, where i bought, and how I installed, my new server here.
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May 3, 2006
I need to build a video server that supports remote inbound live streams (multiple sources) and multiple outbound streams. I'm interested in hearing feedback or suggestions on Real Media Server, Microsoft Media Server, or other alternatives. Please share your thoughts on any of these. I would prefer Linux hosting and would prefer Windows Media formats. I would love to hear what some of you have had successes with.
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Jul 18, 2007
I currently dev locally on a cobalt RAQ (ollld!) and would like to upgrade this setup.
I'm looking for a simple way of getting a linux system setup for internal dev work with the basics... mysql, apache, php5, and some kind of version control - subversion / cvs.
Are there any linux liveCDs that I could use to make something like this quite easily?
For our production server we use plesk, so a control panel similar to that for setting up new dev domains would be useful. Open source of couse tho.
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Jul 25, 2009
Building, running and managing your own Server Farm.
This thread is dedicated to those who find themselves on or considering this path.
Here, I am not hosting any ‘foreign business interests’ or associating with any other ‘hostile networks’. I am needing to create many sub-nets, with 3 to 5 WAN’s inbound and outbound. I have a ‘research sub-net’ needing special considerations and will link associates/contractors by VPN. The product-line will also require Radius Server(s). Plus more details and requirements that make the whole project most complicated.
(Thanks to ‘leeware’ for this beginning theme)
1.0 Objective: Building a 30-50 Server facility:
I checked my records and made this decision 2 - ½ months ago. Since then I have acquired 28 servers, an internet security device, two 3com’s, two 4-port kvm’s, a few small Cisco switches and a host of power related stuff.
2.0 Justification for Building vs leasing:
Control. Costs. Open options. Unique demands more easily appreciated by myself as I am the one possessing the vision. Choosing who I work with as I do the hiring/contracting or initiate associations.
We are generally molded by personal experiences and these set-up our prejudices. I am certainly no exception. My experiences with hosts generated an excellent introduction to the wide world of websites/control panels etc and some products that support it. But the too often cryptic communications, some surprise costs due to my ignorance and that vulnerable ‘boxed in’ feeling made me wonder…
2.1 What is your rational for building vs leasing?
One of my major ‘cross the line’ rational came when I discovered I could buy a used server each month for a similar cost of leasing one. Next, were all my own confounded ‘special circumstances’ that kept cropping up and of course these were not the fault of any hosting company. Lastly technology came to my street in the form of good multiple pipes and my zoning is acceptable because I am off a major highway.
3.0 Business Objectives:
My business objectives center around a very long-run project that I have already long ago completed and keep updated to viability. And I would rather keep that subject to another venue.
4.0 Budgetary Information:
I have enough ‘resources’ to pull it off.
4.2 What is your operating budget (How much money do you plan to spend on an ongoing basis to keep the place running for 12-24 months?)
Same as previous and I will note that ‘time and attention’ is keenly important.
4.3 More importantly, where is this money going to come from? If from investors they generally require a sound business plan.
I require a sound business plan and have it.
5.0 Return on Investment:
Accomplish goals on and on…
5.1 After you account for the initial capital expense to get everything up and running + your on going operating costs, how long will it take you to make back your initial investment and then reach profitability? (12/24/36 months for longer?)
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Sep 20, 2007
I'm completely torn on going the absolute budget route vs spending more for something that'll allow easy upgradeability in the future. I basically need lots of space but file sending-- media like mp3s, video, etc.
it'll be raid 5 and I'll need at least 2-3TB initially but the ability to expand would be nice.
option 1:
nice chassis with plenty of hotswap bays with sas expanders
expensive sas raid card
option 2:
cheap chassis to serve "immediate" needs and go with more later.
not sure what I'd use as a card? maybe even onboard?
regarding reliability: I once saw a database of failure rates of different models. raptor was the most reliable of the "desktop" drives. anyone have the link? I'm wondering of the seagate ES drives are worth the extra money vs the non-ES drives. they're supposedely more reliable and the "server versions" of sata drives.
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Nov 26, 2008
I have been interested in setting up my own server for hosting a website and a small online game I created. My only problem is how good of a server I would need to get.
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Jan 12, 2007
Is it true that grub won't boot if your raid array is bigger than 2 terabytes?
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Oct 31, 2007
building a mass storage server, but unsure whether it is better to go for most space per system, or most space per U.
Looking at making 2 storage servers sometime in the future, one more for performance (15k 300gb SAS drives) and another for more storage (bunch of 1TB SATA drives). Both would act as iSCSI targets and likely have multiple gigabit ethernet connections bonded together.
Some options I am looking at:
1) HP DL320s provides 12 drives in 2U, or 6 drives per U. Upgrade it to 512mb batter backed cache and it does RAID6. Probably the densest storage U.
2) Supermicro has a 3U chassis that does 16 drives, or 5 1/3 drives per U. Pair that with one of the newer Areca SAS controllers and up to 2gb onboard cache and it should scream.
3) Supermicro also has a 3U chassis with 15 drives... just 5 drives per U, though it is ~$200 cheaper than the 16 bay one. Probably a mute point, since either way, it is less storage per server and less storage per U.
4) Get a simple 1-2U case and use external JBOD enclosures. Could put in multiple RAID cards, hook it up to multiple 3U 16 bay enclosures, and really squeeze in a lot of storage per server.
Anyone else been in a similar boat? Overall, not looking for a real dense configuration, with like 10-20 servers of this config, so don't *need* to squeeze in more TB per U, but it is one way that I've been looking at it.
Perhaps, in a way torn between the pre-built DL320s and the white label Supermicro approach. DL320s is a nice packaged system, support, iLO, etc. Supermicro allows more space and likely more performance (Areca likely better than the HP SmartArray), but no iLO, no single source for support, etc.
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Sep 3, 2008
Given the choice which is more beneficial. Some of the things I've read say Database servers use up more RAM and others say they use up more CPU power. I'm just not sure.
Also, what HDD should be used for the database server? I have a choice for SATA or SAS.
Some benchmarks are showing SATA as faster I believe, but that SAS is more reliable? Can anyone comment intelligently regarding that as well?
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May 4, 2009
I have a question if it is possible to use my local server as database storage and even some uploaded files. I am planning to host my website even in a shared hosting server provided that I could used my local server as data storage.
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Aug 13, 2009
Linux Storage Server Partitioning
We are puting together a Linux Storage server which will have 4 x 1TB SATA Hard Drives connected to Hardware raid configured at level 10.
We plan to use this box initially for NFS services but in the near future iSCSI targets so would like to make a setup optimal the first time.
What is the best way to layout the drive partition’s for this setup?
My thought is
-100MB /boot ext3
-Rest in LVM
--LVM Group
---LVM001 2048MB SWAP
---LVM002 10GB /
---LVM003 500GB /nfs
---LVM004 500GB /iscsi
Is this an efficient setup and provide a great deal of flexibility down the road? We will end up having more than one iscsi target running on this box in the end. Also does LVM experience a performance hit ?
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May 27, 2008
I'm currently running Dell 1750s, 1850s, and 1950s in a colo facility. I am not happy with the 1850s and 1950s power consumption. My 1950s have a single quad core 5310, 2GB memory, dual 15k 73GB drives, dual power suppies and are running at about 1.9 amps with spikes up to 2.4 amps. My applications are disk bound and the servers typically run at a load of .1 to .2.
I'm looking for alternatives to the 1950 that use significantly less power. I need at least 2 Hot Plug SAS drives and would like to have it in 1U. I run 2GB of memory. Dual power supplies would be nice, but are not absolutely necessary. I'd rather not go with a non-hot plug solution, but may have to consider it. I will probably buy 10-15 servers soon and would like them to be identical. I'd prefer buying a name-brand.
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Mar 8, 2008
I have found SL can offer you 12*1 TB drive based systems, after RAID-5 and Win 2003 install you get just over 10 TB of storage. The monthly price works out to $1000/Month.
I know some time ago LeaseWeb offered these type of storages....any one else know of any others ?
Amazon S3 works out to about $1500 for 10 TB
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May 20, 2009
I was thinking about changing one of my servers to the desktop centos version instead of pure ssh access. how much added resources will this use?
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Jul 27, 2008
Would it be bad to run only 24 hard drives on a 900 watt redundant PSU setup provided in a super micro machine? No motherboard, just the hard drives and backplane? I know that if PSU's aren't loaded enough, they can malfunction or shutdown, as well as encounter efficiency issues. Is there a general rule of thumb for this sort of thing? Should I see if supermicro can give me a lower rated PSU or something? I searched around on the net a bit but couldn't find anything solid for this particular question..
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Apr 10, 2007
I've been having a problem with my webhost (in a shared server), and I don't know if this should be a usual problem or if it is my fault or if it is the host's fault.
The thing is I am getting lots of consecutive petitions for the same files from an IP at a time, which in my logs gets registered like this:
Code:
212.166.183.3 - - [03/Apr/2007:10:07:56 +0200] "GET /downloads/User_manual.pdf HTTP/1.1" 200 1388809 "http://www.mysite.com/desc.html" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-"
212.166.183.3 - - [03/Apr/2007:10:07:56 +0200] "GET /downloads/User_manual.pdf HTTP/1.1" 206 66716 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-"
212.166.183.3 - - [03/Apr/2007:10:07:58 +0200] "GET /downloads/User_manual.pdf HTTP/1.1" 206 38519 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-"
212.166.183.3 - - [03/Apr/2007:10:08:00 +0200] "GET /downloads/User_manual.pdf HTTP/1.1" 206 34072 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-"
212.166.183.3 - - [03/Apr/2007:10:08:01 +0200] "GET /downloads/User_manual.pdf HTTP/1.1" 206 28175 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-"
212.166.183.3 - - [03/Apr/2007:10:08:02 +0200] "GET /downloads/User_manual.pdf HTTP/1.1" 206 30297 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-"
212.166.183.3 - - [03/Apr/2007:10:08:04 +0200] "GET /downloads/User_manual.pdf HTTP/1.1" 206 26516 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-"
212.166.183.3 - - [03/Apr/2007:10:08:05 +0200] "GET /downloads/User_manual.pdf HTTP/1.1" 206 40302 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "-"
The thing is I am getting too much bandwidth consumption, and since I've only been with this host for 3 months now, and I never had similar problems before, I was wondering if this problem is something I can do something about? Or is it the host's config?
Why do these repeat 206 petitions happen?
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Jul 27, 2009
do dual power supplies use more power than a single supply?
E.g. Say I have a server than uses two amps, powered by a single power supply. Now if I switch to a dual supply (and say each supply has the same efficiency rating as the single), does my server use more power? How much more?
My simple view of this is that it probably does, but maybe not much. The second power supply consumes some power itself, but since its not under load, it doesn't consume much. Therefore, my server with redundant supplies might use 2.1A or 2.2A.
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