Building New File Server

[Circlenaut]

Hardware:

Case: Lian Li PC-A17B with 3x Lian Li EX-H34-B for a total of 12x 3.5 hotswap bays
PSU: Enermax ERV1050EWT 1050 watt
RAID: Adaptec 2252600-R 12-Port with Battery Module 800
HD: 12x mixture of SATA 1TB WD and Seagates in Raid 6, 1x 300GB WD VelociRaptor as Virtual Machine Drive, 2x emphase Industrial SATA Flash Module 8GB in Raid 1
HD Backup: Rosewill RSV-S8 8-bay External Enclosure w/ 5x 1.5TB HDs in Raid 5
MB: Supermicro MBD-X7SBL-LN2
CPU: Intel E8200 2.66Ghz Wolfdale
Memory: 8GB (4x Crucial 2GB DDR2800 ECC CT25672AA800)
UPS: APC Smart-UPS 750VA via Serial

Software:

Openfiler 2.3 x64
Webmin
Adaptec Storage Manager
Vmware Server


Purpose: Home fileserver divided into at least two virtual machines, one with general files (movies, TV, music, etc.) and another with personal files. Possibly a third windows server 2008 VM for remote access of general files.

I am looking at installing Vmware ESXi 3.5 and using ZFS as the file system with samba for the two storage virtual machines. I?m also looking at installing a Windows Server 2008 virtual machine for access to some software (ftp, media server among other things).

Can anyone help me with the feasibility of this? I want a system that is very stable and secure and performance to at least saturate gigabit Ethernet.

Would it be easier and equally secure to install Windows Server 2008 and Vmware Server? Does ZFS really offer that many benefits over NTFS? Which OS is free and best for ZFS? Would it be easier and equally secure to install Vmware ESXi 3.5 and two virtual machines of either freenas or openfiler with EXT2 filesytem?

Update

Well I decided to go with Openfiler 2.3 x64 with Adaptec Storage Manger, webmin, and VMWare server 2 installed. I won't get the speed in the VMs compared to ESXi, but it's easier to configure and I don't have a 2TB files system size limit.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Regardless of the OS, I'm jealous of the hardware.

I've not used VMs before -- what is the advantage of using them for a home server?

Have you considered WHS?

 

[Nothinman]

I'd say having 2 fileserver VMs is overkill. If you want to secure or encrypt your personal files you can do that just as well in one VM. My home machine has a normal / filesystem while /home is encrypted using dmcrypt on Linux.

ZFS has some nice features but in order to use it you'll pretty much have to use Solaris. I'm not sure what state ZFS in FreeBSD is in right now and ZFS on Linux is only via FUSE which will be slower and I'm not even sure how well it works. I'd personally just go with Linux with software RAID and LVM with XFS for the data filesystems.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Huh...I was thinking of doing something like this....but I didn't know that VMWare esxi was free. Hmmmm....

 

[RebateMonger]

Sounds like a lot of work. You COULD just RAID 1 a pair of drives, install Windows Home Server in about an hour on the RAID array, and throw in additional drives as needed for more storage. You can enable folder-level drive redundancy for the folders that need it. You'd get the remote access you want, too.

Edit: Sounds like you weren't intending to RAID your OS drive anyway, so you can skip the RAID 1 OS for Windows Home Server, too, if a RAIDed OS drive isn't important to you.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Sounds like a lot of work. You COULD just RAID 1 a pair of drives, install Windows Home Server in about an hour on the RAID array, and throw in additional drives as needed for more storage. You can enable folder-level drive redundancy for the folders that need it. You'd get the remote access you want, too.

Edit: Sounds like you weren't intending to RAID your OS drive anyway, so you can skip the RAID 1 OS for Windows Home Server, too, if a RAIDed OS drive isn't important to you.

Yeah, it seems the OP is going a little overboard in VM's ect, when WHS will do everything and more he needs and is stupid easy to set up. Hell I set it up which is saying alot.

With the Add ins for WHS you can run a FTP, website, remote desktop connections and rout it to RDP computers on your network at home.
Plus it's only $100 at Newegg.

OP wants to run Windows server 2008 in a VM and though there is a trial version out there, I imagine you wouldn't want to have to rebuild everything in a year, so unless you're going to shell out a ton of cash for a Server license I would look at other options.

 

[Circlenaut]

Thanks for the input guys! The reason why I don't want to go with WHS or any windows system to host my files is security. I've gotten bummed before contracting a virus and corrupting my data last year (I was running win 2008!) at a LAN party. Thankfully my data was backed up. The thing is now I have so many videos that it's impossible for me to back up everything. The only thing I can back up now is my personal data and music. I want to make sure that my data stays intact. So this is what I've decided to do.

I did some research and my existing mini-itx motherboard should work (Commell LV-678) with ESX 3.5i update 4. When I get everything at the end of this week I will:

1. Borrow some HDs and use my current HDs to backup everything to spares
2. Currently have 11 1TB, I would like to use 12 I will see if there's an easy way to mount my 2.5" VelociRaptor. Otherwise I will use this to install ESXi
3. Convert my current Windows 2008 Server install to ESXi 3.5 (spent way too much time configuring it)
4. Copy over my Win 2003 Torrent VM
5. Install 2x ubuntu server VMs with webmin, samba, and vsftpd only
6. Create 1 partition for storage and another for personal things
7. Restore Backups
8. Done!?

 

[Nothinman]

I still don't see why you want two Ubuntu VMs, seems like a huge waste for no real gain.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I would say FreeNAS, but wow.

 

[dawks]

Geez, are you planning on serving a few thousand users? I love when people over kill a personal file server. The more I read this first post the more I :roll: & :disgust:

A PII 400, with 512 ram, running Windows 2000 Pro would be more than enough for most personal file servers. Get a third party FTP server...

There is no need to run separate OS's/VM's for different types of files. Running just one on the raw hardware would work better than your solution, unless you'd like the flexibility to run other OS's for testing...

 

[Nothinman]

There is no need to run separate OS's/VM's for different types of files. Running just one on the raw hardware would work better than your solution, unless you'd like the flexibility to run other OS's for testing...

That and moving to new hardware is much simpler if everything is in a VM.

 

[Circlenaut]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I still don't see why you want two Ubuntu VMs, seems like a huge waste for no real gain.

If I go to a LAN party I want to turn off my VM containing personal files, that way it's very, very difficult for anyone to access them. I might change my mind, I've been looking at samba and directory encryption, if it's feasible and easy I might go that route.

 

[Circlenaut]

Originally posted by: dawks
Geez, are you planning on serving a few thousand users? I love when people over kill a personal file server. The more I read this first post the more I :roll: & :disgust:

A PII 400, with 512 ram, running Windows 2000 Pro would be more than enough for most personal file servers. Get a third party FTP server...

There is no need to run separate OS's/VM's for different types of files. Running just one on the raw hardware would work better than your solution, unless you'd like the flexibility to run other OS's for testing...

Yes those specs would be plenty. I'm actually just migrating an existing file server into a bigger one, I need more capacity. This server will be shared by at least 15 people in my apartment (gigabit in my apartment and single gigabit links going out to 3 other 4 person apartments)

This way people can watch a shit load of TV-shows or movies if they want and I get what ever TV shows/movies people get that I don't.

Also, IT is a hobby for me. I just like playing around with this stuff.

 

[Nothinman]

If I go to a LAN party I want to turn off my VM containing personal files, that way it's very, very difficult for anyone to access them. I might change my mind, I've been looking at samba and directory encryption, if it's feasible and easy I might go that route.

Still seems like major overkill when you could simply unshare and/or unmount an encrypted filesystem with those files in it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: dawks
Geez, are you planning on serving a few thousand users? I love when people over kill a personal file server. The more I read this first post the more I :roll: & :disgust:

A PII 400, with 512 ram, running Windows 2000 Pro would be more than enough for most personal file servers. Get a third party FTP server...

This is a site for geeks. A lot of us tend to over due it when we can.

 

[MedicBob]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: dawks
Geez, are you planning on serving a few thousand users? I love when people over kill a personal file server. The more I read this first post the more I :roll: & :disgust:

A PII 400, with 512 ram, running Windows 2000 Pro would be more than enough for most personal file servers. Get a third party FTP server...

This is a site for geeks. A lot of us tend to over due it when we can.

Even when we can't, we try.

I still believe in physical shares. You are doing alot more then just simple file sharing.

BTW, why would you take that box to a LAN party? If you need or want to share game patches, etc. just use a external USB drive with copied data. If it gets hosed, who cares? Reformat and all is good.

 

[Circlenaut]

Originally posted by: MedicBob

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: dawks
Geez, are you planning on serving a few thousand users? I love when people over kill a personal file server. The more I read this first post the more I :roll: & :disgust:

A PII 400, with 512 ram, running Windows 2000 Pro would be more than enough for most personal file servers. Get a third party FTP server...

This is a site for geeks. A lot of us tend to over due it when we can.

Even when we can't, we try.

I still believe in physical shares. You are doing alot more then just simple file sharing.

BTW, why would you take that box to a LAN party? If you need or want to share game patches, etc. just use a external USB drive with copied data. If it gets hosed, who cares? Reformat and all is good.

Hosting old school games like CS, UT and quake. Also I like to do quite a bit of "file sharing"

 

[masterbm]

Well I run media center system running vista then run a rdp hack then have personal files setup with differnet user name and pastword and all my home machine use that
then my friends or lan people use another. Other wise if was not for media center I would use linux to run the box

 

[degibson]

Originally posted by: dawks
A PII 400, with 512 ram, running Windows 2000 Pro would be more than enough for most personal file servers.

Agreed. Most but not all. Some server tasks can become quite memory and cpu-intensive: encrypted data arrays, torrenting, RAID, etc.

OP seems like he has a little more load that the typical user -- in fact, he may have more users than the typical user, based on his security requirements.

I like the VM idea, but really all you need to do is shut down your private samba shares -- samba won't like being suspended anyway.