Need Help! Price estimate on server build

[zinfamous]

Yeah, I know it's probably the wrong forum, but my boss is looking for a quick estimate to build "a large server for data storage" within the next hour or two.

I've only built regular desktop PCs, and we do have a regular desktop acting as a data server (currently 6 TB+, and growing rapidly), but I think she's looking for something more serious...like a rack with an array, or something.

I'm not sure where to start with these--Really expensive is quite fine (this is a grant proposal), and high performance is a must. We are pushing~500gb data/week. (we do a lot of whole genome/transcriptome sequencing)/

Any ideas on where to start looking?

Thanks in advance!

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Yeah, I know it's probably the wrong forum, but my boss is looking for a quick estimate to build "a large server for data storage" within the next hour or two.

I've only built regular desktop PCs, and we do have a regular desktop acting as a data server (currently 6 TB+, and growing rapidly), but I think she's looking for something more serious...like a rack with an array, or something.

I'm not sure where to start with these--Really expensive is quite fine (this is a grant proposal), and high performance is a must. We are pushing~500gb data/week. (we do a lot of whole genome/transcriptome sequencing)/

Any ideas on where to start looking?

Thanks in advance!

500 GB per week and she wants a quote in an hour or two for a "server"? For this amount of data, you just don't throw a quote together -- it will require some serious design.

You might consider a SAN of some variety, not a server with DAS. SANs can range wildly in cost, but expect several hundred thousand dollars. Check out EMC, HP, and any of the other major vendors. How long do you intend to keep the data? How much total storage are you looking for?

Of course, if you're doing 500 GB/week but don't keep the data around for any length of time, maybe a server with DAS would be sufficient. I guess we need to know more about data retention, etc. before we can answer.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

my boss is looking for a quick estimate to build "a large server for data storage" within the next hour or two.

Say what? That's like asking how high is up? What's the best car or, how many people does it take to screw in a corporate light bulb?

"One meeelion dollar$!"
Start my contacting several suppliers, CDW comes to mind, who have entire departments focused on meeting the needs of your business for SANS, servers and, support.

 

[zinfamous]

OK, so she just gave a little more info: "I want to spend maybe $20,000 or more. Oh, and any other expensive equipment you can think of?"

Yes, it's grant time.

I'm thinking something like this, but I'm not sure what's appropriate.
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/x86/index.htm

 

[Gothgar]

so, you knew it was in the wrong forum but did it anyways?

BAD ZIN

 

[IndyColtsFan]

OK, so she just gave a little more info: "I want to spend maybe $20,000 or more. Oh, and any other expensive equipment you can think of?"

Yes, it's grant time.

I'm thinking something like this, but I'm not sure what's appropriate.
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/x86/index.htm

Honestly, I'd stay away from Sun hardware unless you're intending to run Solaris. Here is a 24 TB network storage system from HP:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en...6-4209116.html

As I mentioned in my prior post, we don't have enough information to really give you a great solution, only suggestions. If you want a heavy-duty storage solution with lots of concurrent users (again, we need more detail), you would probably want to go with a SAN solution of some sort and spending $300K or $400K would not be hard to do at all.

Another question -- are you just looking for a storage box OR are you looking for an apps box as well?

 

[zinfamous]

so, you knew it was in the wrong forum but did it anyways?

BAD ZIN

was trying to get a lot of traffic as fast as possible. :sneaky:

 

[IndyColtsFan]

was trying to get a lot of traffic as fast as possible. :sneaky:

Can you answer a few of the questions we've posed and maybe we can get a better idea?

 

[SKORPI0]

Old article last Sept 2009 --- Petabytes on a budget:How to build cheap cloud storage
Blackblaze Pod - 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867.

You can use the $5400, to build a 90TB using current 2TB drives (approx $120 each)

 

[zinfamous]

Honestly, I'd stay away from Sun hardware unless you're intending to run Solaris. Here is a 24 TB network storage system from HP:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en...6-4209116.html

As I mentioned in my prior post, we don't have enough information to really give you a great solution, only suggestions. If you want a heavy-duty storage solution with lots of concurrent users (again, we need more detail), you would probably want to go with a SAN solution of some sort and spending $300K or $400K would not be hard to do at all.

Another question -- are you just looking for a storage box OR are you looking for an apps box as well?

that HP looks pretty good. not sure what an apps box is? Basically, we'll be storing a metric shit-ton of data and running MySQL and various other custom data analysis packages.

Honestly, the guy that handled this type of thing recently left for another job. I do all the other stuff.

I'm gonna try to push this HP box up to $20-30k... :hmm:

 

[zinfamous]

Can you answer a few of the questions we've posed and maybe we can get a better idea?

sorry, reading and looking through all of this. This is really not my area, so I don't even know how to answer your questions. Plus, I'm not analyzing the data (I just create it, so to speak), so I can only answer half of such questions. :\

 

[classy]

Yeah, I know it's probably the wrong forum, but my boss is looking for a quick estimate to build "a large server for data storage" within the next hour or two.

I've only built regular desktop PCs, and we do have a regular desktop acting as a data server (currently 6 TB+, and growing rapidly), but I think she's looking for something more serious...like a rack with an array, or something.

I'm not sure where to start with these--Really expensive is quite fine (this is a grant proposal), and high performance is a must. We are pushing~500gb data/week. (we do a lot of whole genome/transcriptome sequencing)/

Any ideas on where to start looking?

Thanks in advance!

Contact, Dell, HP , or IBM. Contact their enterprise sales and they will take care of you. It ain't gonna be cheap, but it will be correct.

 

[classy]

sorry, reading and looking through all of this. This is really not my area, so I don't even know how to answer your questions. Plus, I'm not analyzing the data (I just create it, so to speak), so I can only answer half of such questions. :\

Don't do this yourself at all. IBM, HP, and Dell all have folks that can ask the right questions and get you the correct server and type of server. I am partial to Dell, but any of them will know how to address your situation.

 

[classy]

Old article last Sept 2009 --- Petabytes on a budget:How to build cheap cloud storage
Blackblaze Pod - 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867.

You can use the $5400, to build a 90TB using current 2TB drives (approx $120 each)

That is a great article, we read about it at work.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

that HP looks pretty good. not sure what an apps box is? Basically, we'll be storing a metric shit-ton of data and running MySQL and various other custom data analysis packages.

Honestly, the guy that handled this type of thing recently left for another job. I do all the other stuff.

I'm gonna try to push this HP box up to $20-30k... :hmm:

Ok, hold on -- the HP box I showed you was a storage server solution. It isn't optimized to run apps like MySQL.

I highly suggest that you tell your boss that this is a major project and that you call CDW, HP, etc. to get someone in to talk to you.

 

[shiner]

Pick your favorite model and Thunderbirds are go!!

 

[MotF Bane]

Old article last Sept 2009 --- Petabytes on a budget:How to build cheap cloud storage
Blackblaze Pod - 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867.

You can use the $5400, to build a 90TB using current 2TB drives (approx $120 each)

I came.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

That Backblaze is really cool, but take my advice -- for something mission critical, use a big time vendor and have a service agreement in place.

 

[Platypus]

I replied to your PM, but your price range is woefully low and you need to seriously architect this solution. It will NOT be found off the shelf by any means and you will definitely want a big company to support it.

 

[zinfamous]

Alrighty, this is totally last second dumped on me, as she's been away for more than a month and suddenly needs to finish this grant. Nothing unusual here, actually....

I'll have to look over some stuff at home. le sigh...

so you guys are saying $20-40k won't be able to run MySQL, for example, and handle some 20-40 TB of data?

:hmm:

 

[Platypus]

Alrighty, this is totally last second dumped on me, as she's been away for more than a month and suddenly needs to finish this grant. Nothing unusual here, actually....

I'll have to look over some stuff at home. le sigh...

If you want to call me later feel free, we can talk about it. I would gather all the requirements (and get more than 'it has to be fast') and call a company that has relationships with big hardware vendors to get a system spec'ed out and quoted.

 

[rudeguy]

just tell her it all depends if she swallows or spits. See how the conversation goes from there.

 

[shiner]

If you think you might want to go the SAN route look at the XIV...nice unit. We have one of those as well as an IBM DS8300, IBM DS4300 and an old IBM FS20 that we use in a test environment.

The XIV is by far the easiest to manage, not the best performing, but holds its own. It is also considerably cheaper. I think you can get their "starter" model with 27TB for around $200,000.

 

[classy]

I replied to your PM, but your price range is woefully low and you need to seriously architect this solution. It will NOT be found off the shelf by any means and you will definitely want a big company to support it.

Yep. This is San territory.

 

[Platypus]

Alrighty, this is totally last second dumped on me, as she's been away for more than a month and suddenly needs to finish this grant. Nothing unusual here, actually....

I'll have to look over some stuff at home. le sigh...

so you guys are saying $20-40k won't be able to run MySQL, for example, and handle some 20-40 TB of data?

:hmm:

It can be done on that price point but it's not going to be that great, probably awful... we need a more realistic sense of how fast it needs to be, how people are connecting to it, what your network is like, how much the data is going to grow over the next 3 years, large files/small files?, etc