My New "over the top" System [building in ~6 months from now]

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undeclared

Senior member
Oct 24, 2005
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oh yea last detail, I'm still waiting on those acer lcds to come out.. but I did nab the CRT
might just settle for dells though
 

spc hink

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2005
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Either you are building this machine because you have done well in life financially and for the purpose of making everyone on AT drool, having a full disregard to practicality....or I call shens. We must see pics.
 

undeclared

Senior member
Oct 24, 2005
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heh no im doing alright financially, but im no millionaire. Theres a type of government loan I took out to start my own company as opposed to my work which is the identical work but I have enough clients now to support myself like this.. I was just waiting to have the perfect equipment (on my own) so that I can do work in realtime.
 

spc hink

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2005
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Don't get me wrong, the computer is freakin sweat. But if you are not running a database that requires access from 15+ users, I would build two different machines. I would even break up your file server into 2 different computers. Put them all in a rackmount cabinent, and it would be sweet. I personally think there is no need to have more 1TB+ on one single raid configuration because you are leaving yourself voulnerable to downtime due to other components failing. What is your main reason that you need so much so much space for? If it is mission critical data, then raid 6 would be a good choise, but if it just to store a puch of pron, then it is a little overkill.

edit: speling and grammer
 

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
Moderator
May 13, 2003
13,704
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Originally posted by: spc hink
Don't get me wrong, the computer is freakin sweat. But if you are not running a database that requires access from 15+ users, I would build two different machines. I would even break up your file server into 2 different computers. Put them all in a rackmount cabinent, and it would be sweet. I personally think there is no need to have more 1TB+ on one single raid configuration because you are leaving yourself voulnerable to downtime due to other components failing. What is your main reason that you need so much so much space for. If it is mission critical data than raid 6 would be a good choise, but if it just to store a puch of pron, then it is a little overkill.

LOL. Even I agree that having something like that for pr0n would be overkill. I fell bad about my machine being used as just a gaming machine for now. But it's temporary, so I accept it's current duties for now.
 

spc hink

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2005
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I am no expert on business class servers and I am just using the knowledge I have gained from building a file server. I generally don't think it is a good idea to use one single computer for multiple jobs. Especially if you spending more on it than most cars. I would build one machine for a workstation that requires lot of cpu power, one for mission critical data, that requires lots of redundency (raid 6, redundant power supplies, ect.) and one as an archive machine (lots of space.) But don't let me discourage you from building this monster if your goal is to build the sweetest rig possible, beacause it sure will be.
 

lifeguard1999

Platinum Member
Jul 3, 2000
2,323
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Originally posted by: TheoPetro
Originally posted by: meelk
Unless you actually would have use for such a machine to earn your living, donate some money to charity and stop donating to yourself. There comes a point when excess becomes sickening.

his $ = his choice. you have NO right, as in NONE what so ever to tell him what to do with is.

In the U.S., we do have a right to tell anyone what we think. It is called freedon of speech. We also have the choice not to listen. :)

BTW meelk, nice system. What do you plan to use it for? Just games and video editing?
 

Gamingphreek

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
11,679
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It looks like you are trying to do WAY WAY too much.

First off i will guarantee you that PSU doesn't have the required amps to start all those drives at once. You have to be trying to use Staggered Spin Up.

Second off, why in the world did you go with 250Gig drives. It would seem to me that you would get better performance, save money, lower heat output, and lower power consumption by going with a bunch of 500Gig drives. Not only that the case only supports 23 5.25" bays. Where do you plan on putting 24 HDD's + 3 Optical Drives.

Next, what is with the Phase Change and water cooling. Is there any particular reason you need your system operating at -125C, or is it just for shits and giggles. I may be able to see water cooling, but for a "server style" PC such as that i would think you would have it in its own air conditioned room, with a bunch of fans. For instance even with the Phase Change and water cooling, there is no way 24 HDD's are getting sufficient cooling, absolutely no way unless you are in a seperate A/C controlled room.

Now what is with the Gigabyte I-RAM. You want to waste that much money on a system that:

A. Already consumes and unbelievable amount of power.
B. Is not even remotely quiet
C. You want it to boot up like 30 seconds quick???

I would think that for a system of that caliber you should be looking at only one thing: SCSI (RAID). There is no need for a bunch of SATA or Solid State Drives. Just wasting your money.

Next, the 16 Gig of RAM. You would have to use Vista or Win 2000 Data Center. XP and 2000 Pro (and i dont believe even 2000 Server) supports 16 Gig of RAM. This sort of reinforces what i say later (and i apologize for the harshness) but a person running this machine for a small business is not going to be running a Beta version of Windows...

Finally, as has been said, that system is definitely over the top, but for 15 users or even 5 users to use it simultaneously would be disasterous. There is no way it will be able to support a work load like that, even with the changes i suggested.
_____________________

IMO this system seem poorly configured, and almost like it is just posted to make people appear jealous. I will remain this adamant until i see pics of this thing (sorry, but i bit too unbelievable for me).

My conclusion: It would seem to me that you would be MUCH MUCH better off with a nice Blade server with 10 "blades" in it. Not only will you save money but it would probably do better.

-Kevin
 

undeclared

Senior member
Oct 24, 2005
498
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Gamingphreek:

I have my reasons, my setup, etc.. This is what I'm using.

I don't want you to break down everything I decided based on a LOT of research, the way I wanted to do it, etc..

Staggered spin up - tekram areca raid controller fixes this problem. It boots up fine.

24 hds and 3 optical drives - the hotswap bays allow me to take 3 5.25" bays and turn them into 5 3.5" bays.. so I have 5 of these in the case, and the rest are used for the optical drives (and I might add a fan control later)

phase change - I decided it was not worth it, considering what I had paid for my CPUs to begin with.

Water cooling - just to squeeze some extra performance out of stuff.. and keep the heat low.

Gigabyte i-RAM: I honestly find that this makes my life a lot easier, and I longer have that "oh no, my drive must be fragmented, thats why my system is laggy" feeling. More of a "I'd like to have it" than a necessity.

The space - although I have said in another post that I required it (maybe 1.5-2 TB would be what would be enough for my work), truth be told I bought 30 drives of this type for about $1,200 CDN from a wholesaler going bankrupt.. I'd just like to have it in my system since I got them anyway.. I don't feel like having a seperate rig just for a fileserver, although it would make my life easier in many ways.

Drives cooling - they are hot, yes.. thankfully they are not too loud though, but they have fans all over them and places to go with the eat, so I'm not too worried. I'll report any problems though.

Ram - I did go somewhat overboard, but I'm sure I'm gaining performance too..

Blade servers - that's actually a REALLY good idea, I wish I had thought of it.. but I still got a nice huge cube to work with.

Actual server use - Only myself at this time, not 5 or 15 users. Just a lot of processor power, ram and video cards to make things work well.

 

spc hink

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2005
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We demand pics of this beast. Also, if you dont need so many drives you could always sell me some :)
 

lotus503

Diamond Member
Feb 12, 2005
6,502
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Originally posted by: xtwells
Case: Enermax FS2300SS
Dual PSU: Seasonic S12-600 [one for mobo + video cards, one for hard drives]
Hotswap bays: (5) SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1B Black 5 Bay (24x3.5" capability)
Hard drives: (24) Maxtor MaXLine III 250 GB Sata II NCQ 16mb cache
Raid array: 23 Drive [Raid 6]
Hot spare: 1 Drive
Estimated total hard drive space: 5,500 GB/5.5 TB (give or take)
Raid card: Tekran Areca arc-1170 24-port PCI-X 64bit/133mhz [upgraded to 2gb ram]
Motherboard: Tyan Thunder K8WE S2895
CPUs: (2) Opteron 275
Ram: 16 gigs Samsung ECC Registered DDR400 ram [8 per cpu]
Video cards: (2) Pny Quadro FX4500G 512mb Professional Video Card for CAD/Video Editing
DVD-RW 1: Plextor PX-740UF
DVD-RW 2: Lite-On SHW-16H5S
Phase cooling: 2x Prometia CPU Phase Cooling (if found to be possible to mount)
Water Cooling: Swiftech H20-Apex + extra components if needed for GPU
Extra fans + Control Panel for fans will be decided when system is built..
PCI slot (normal): Gigabyte i-RAM + 8 gigs ECC Registered DDR266 ram
Boot drive: Gigabyte i-Ram
Storage drive: Raid array
Primary Monitor: 24" HP CRT Monitor 2048x1536 @ 85hz
Side monitors (left and right): Acer 24" 6 ms LCD 1920x1200 1000:1 contrast (should be available by then)


Quite a rig, however I would suggest

an actual case that has a sata backplane, seems like a waste to get all those supermicro hot swaps when something liek this is actually suited for what your trying to do

http://www.servercase.com/miva/miva?/Me...91-SS&Category_Code=6U%2F8U+Rackmounts.


I just built out two of these for work. Only I went with eight, 8 port 3ware 8500s's.
Seems like some fo the parts are just silly, like adding 2 gigs of RAM to the controller. I mean Our company writes to our arrays 24/7 non stop IO's and we didnt see a need for such high cache sizes. I cant imaginbe you would be doign anything requiring that.
I figure since you wont really want to go past 2 terabytes per Lun anyway even though the Areca cards can do it, why not split out the controllers for some redundancy.
 

OdiN

Banned
Mar 1, 2000
16,430
3
0
Wow....24 maxtors??? With that many Maxtors you may want to have like 10 hot spares for failures. I would get something else...WD or Seagate.
 

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
Moderator
May 13, 2003
13,704
7
81
Originally posted by: phr0m
no real system
this thread is bullshit

I've got a minor version of this system. And while the person may or may not ever be getting this, I consider it an interesting thread regardless.
 

Howard

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
47,982
11
81
I stopped reading after the line with "two Seasonic 600W PSUs - one for the hard drives".

EDIT: I didn't see how many HDs he specified. Still don't see why he needs all that stuff. I'd say he'll never end up building it.