Critique my server build +upgrade to gigabit

[Tuckie]

Just wanted to hear your guys thoughts on this before I order. This is going to be for storage and backup on my home network for documents and dvd rips. Although I'm probably going to be switching my mythtv backend to the board as well.

So, is this a good choice for a motherboard and cpu? So, do you think that the 500gb seagates the best ones to go with? Any other recommendations for a gigabit switch?
Oh, also of note: I already have an antec true blue 480 that I plan on using, I've heard you really only need the the four other pins on the atx connector (which this psu doesn't have) if you are going with a high end video card. I'm just using that slot for my raid card.
5
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Item #: N82E16822148136
$725.00
($145.00 each)

1
GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 Socket AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813128034
$75.99

1
Intel PWLA8391GT 10/100/1000Mbps PCI PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter - Retail
Item #: N82E16833106123
$31.99
(Note: for one of my desktops, not the server)
1
SMC SMC8505T 10/100/1000Mbps EZ Unmanaged Switch - Retail
Item #: N82E16833129012
$61.99

2
Link Depot C6M-3-YLB 3 ft. Cat 6 Yellow Enhanced 550 MHZ Network Cable - Retail
Item #: N82E16812189073
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$3.58
($1.79 each)

3
Link Depot C6M-7-YLB 7 ft. Cat 6 Yellow 550MHZ Network Cable - Retail
Item #: N82E16812189079
$5.97
($1.99 each)

1
G.SKILL 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Standard System Memory Model F2-6400CL5S-1GBNQ - Retail
Item #: N82E16820231099
$75.99

1
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Orleans 1.8GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA3000CNBOX - Retail
Item #: N82E16819103639
$59.00

1
HighPoint RocketRAID 2320 PCI Express x4 SATA II RAID Card - Retail
Item #: N82E16816115026
$249.99

1
CODEGEN 4U-500-CA Black 4U Rackmount Case - Retail
Item #: N82E16811182566
$65.99

Subtotal: $1,355.49

 

[Madwand1]

It looks like a decent build.

I'd spend the $30 and get an X2 3600+.

You didn't mention the OS. Assuming Windows-based, I'd want something no older than 2003 e.g. XP-64 or Vista. Assuming Linux-based, I'd reconsider the add-on storage controller and consider a motherboard with a larger number of SATA ports.

I'd consider another drive just for the OS in order to simplify the OS and the data management.

I'd want to have something for an external backup of at least the original/important data. "RAID alone is not a backup."

 

[Tuckie]

It would probably be linux based. I'm thinking either ubuntu, centOS, or Debian. Why would you reconsider the raid card? My plan, btw, is to start off with the five drives (in a raid 5 configuration), and add more as time goes on. I also have a older 120GB IDE drive that I plan on using for the OS. I may throw another old IDE hard drive in as well to do weekly backups of documents, but haven't decided on that yet.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Tuckie
It would probably be linux based. I'm thinking either ubuntu, centOS, or Debian. Why would you reconsider the raid card?

Linux software RAID is not bad and conversely sometimes Linux support for other software-based RAID implementations is not good. Note also that Linux-based RAID is very portable -- any SATA (or even PATA) port will do. So I'd consider/try a build with Linux software RAID before I shelled out more for an add-on controller.

Motherboards with large numbers of on-board SATA are commonly available, and with the increasing affordability of large drives, large numbers of drives aren't as important as before. Besides, there's a backup constraint -- the bigger the store, the greater the risk and the more difficult the backup, so you shouldn't go crazy with storage volume without backup.

One problem with motherboards with larger numbers of SATA ports could be the lack of on-board video, but this can be remedied with old/cheap PCI video cards.

The Highpoint is still a valid solution, but Linux opens up another set of possibilities.

 

[gramboh]

Good choice getting a RAID card for RAID5/6 or whatever you are planning on those drives, onboard would be brutal and lag your gigabit a lot.

I just bought 2x 7200.10 500GB SATA2's (manufactured in Thailand) and am happy with them. You can definitely hear them seeking when you are doing a lot of transferring but their idle noise is silent. I don't care much about seek noise because when I'm using my PC I'm listening to music or gaming and it's quiet when idle/downloading. I've been happy with Seagate for my last few drives so I went with them. Apparently WD has the quietest 500GB drives if you care more about noise.

 

[Jeff7181]

I don't think you need CAT6 cable... CAT5e should work fine, and should be cheaper. You can also save some money by buying bulk cable and terminating them yourself. Although judging by your build here, I'm guessing money isn't much of a problem.

 

[Tuckie]

I was recommended this raid card... What are your guys thoughts on it?

edit:fixed the link

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Tuckie
I was recommended this raid card... What are your guys thoughts on it?

fixed link

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
It looks like a decent build.

I'd spend the $30 and get an X2 3600+.

You didn't mention the OS. Assuming Windows-based, I'd want something no older than 2003 e.g. XP-64 or Vista. Assuming Linux-based, I'd reconsider the add-on storage controller and consider a motherboard with a larger number of SATA ports.

I'd consider another drive just for the OS in order to simplify the OS and the data management.

I'd want to have something for an external backup of at least the original/important data. "RAID alone is not a backup."

why not regular xp? all i have read about lately is the lack of support for vista and xp-64, well even worse. what would be wrong with regular xp pro?

 

[dclive]

RAID card seems like overkill. If you are just running GB-E, that's your limiting factor (esp. with a modern CPU), not the RAID setup. Software RAID (or built in RAID on the MB) should be plenty. I like SW raid b/c you can move it from PC to PC.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: bob4432
why not regular xp? all i have read about lately is the lack of support for vista and xp-64, well even worse. what would be wrong with regular xp pro?

There were some changes in the SMB implementation that were made for 2003 -- these got into XP-64 and Vista, which were developed from this code base, but not XP Home / XP Pro.

I don't know the details, but am surmising this from the history of development and performance I observe. On the same hardware, etc., even despite tweaking as far as I know, I cannot get XP home / XP pro to perform as well running SMB servers as the more recent operating systems, which do it with little effort.

 

[dclive]

How much difference, though, are we talking about? If we assume 10/100 Ethernet and 10MB/s on a good network connection, does 2003<->2003 deliver 9.8MB/s and XP<->XP deliver 9.75MB/s?

 

[Madwand1]

Don't know, don't care about 100 Mb/s performance. But at gigabit levels, it can be significant (at least a few 10's of MB/s).

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
Don't know, don't care about 100 Mb/s performance. But at gigabit levels, it can be significant (at least a few 10's of MB/s).

From Vista<->2003 I get about 20-30MB/s sustained (quite poor - I'm working over a VM). Using XP<->2003, that number is unchanged.

In XP's / Vista's "bytes sent/interval" and "bytes recieved/interval", what do you get, sustained, when sending a single large file from machine to machine?

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: dclive
In XP's / Vista's "bytes sent/interval" and "bytes recieved/interval", what do you get, sustained, when sending a single large file from machine to machine?

For these tests, I use Vista as the client, and vary the server; I'm sending from client to server. (I actually get wacky results in the "bytes/interval" settings on the Vista sender in this case. I logged a bug on this during the beta, apparently MS hasn't gotten around to fixing it yet.)

Comparing XP-32 (pro) as a server vs. XP-64, I observed the following results for example:


Vista -> XP-32: 83.4 MB/s
Vista -> XP-64: 117.2 MB/s


Same computers, etc. -- multi-booting the server.

I actually cheated a bit to get XP-32 running that fast... instead of running the server with RAID 5, I ran it with RAID 0. The RAID 5 results under XP-32 were even worse. The above XP-64 results are for RAID 5; RAID 0 would likely be about the same.

E:\tools>dir n:\test\test0\10.gb
Volume in drive N is nvr533264
Volume Serial Number is BC8B-9694

Directory of n:\test\test0

08/24/2006 06:01 PM 10,000,000,000 10.gb
1 File(s) 10,000,000,000 bytes
0 Dir(s) 567,842,832,384 bytes free

E:\tools>time 0 nul
The current time is: 10:42:11.35
Enter the new time:
E:\tools>xcopy /y n:\test\test0\10.gb \\intel-xp64\n\test\test9
N:\test\test0\10.gb
1 File(s) copied

E:\tools>time 0 nul
The current time is: 10:43:36.71

(I had to edit out the input redirection symbol so that the post editor here wouldn't bork.)

This is 10 GB / 85.36s ~ 117.2 MB/s

I get essentially the same results when using the Vista Explorer and hand-timing a copy & paste. The dialog matched this number once I accounted for the MB/s to MiB/s difference (I report in MB/s, Vista reports in MiB/s but calls it MB/s.)

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
I actually cheated a bit to get XP-32 running that fast... instead of running the server with RAID 5, I ran it with RAID 0. The RAID 5 results under XP-32 were even worse.

Here's a run showing Vista -> XP-32 RAID 5:

E:\tools>net use v: \\intel-xp\m$
...
E:\tools>dir n:\test\test0\10.gb
Volume in drive N is nvr533264
Volume Serial Number is BC8B-9694

Directory of n:\test\test0

08/24/2006 06:01 PM 10,000,000,000 10.gb
1 File(s) 10,000,000,000 bytes
0 Dir(s) 567,842,832,384 bytes free

E:\tools>time 0 nul
The current time is: 15:45:57.67
Enter the new time:
E:\tools>xcopy /y n:\test\test0\10.gb v:\test\test9
N:\test\test0\10.gb
1 File(s) copied

E:\tools>time 0 nul
The current time is: 15:51:25.56

That's 10 GB / 327.89s ~ 30.5 MB/s.