Low power file server platform?

[Mercutio]

I'm about to start the process of updating my file server systems. My current rigs are older Core 2 Duo machines of one sort or other, each on full ATX motherboards. Most of them use a combination of onboard SATA and IDE port and 8 or 16 port SATA/SAS controllers. They mostly have power supplies in the 500 - 700W range.

These machines have CPUs that are not heavily utilized except for their use in SoftRAID computations. In the past, I let them do a lot of DVD re-encoding, but nowadays I'm doing that stuff on i7 desktops instead.

My file servers are running RHEL or Centos right now, though looking forward I suspect I'd be better off with a more up to date platform. I could look at another Linux, with BSD or Solaris for zFS support, or to Windows Server since that's what I spend most of my time using these days.

I'm contemplating a move to Atom-based machines to get power consumption down while at the same time migrating my disk arrays to what will probably wind up being arrays of 3TB drives, but while I'm mulling it over, perhaps it might be interesting to talk about here.

 

[timwhit]

What version of CentOS/RHEL are you using? CentOS 6 should be released fairly soon, but I thought it would be out by now so who knows. Why would you move to another Linux distro?

I would avoid (Open)Solaris personally, I don't think it has much of a future. BSD could be a good choice if you want to play with ZFS.

 

[Mercutio]

I've been upgrading the Red Hat distros on my file servers for a really long time. They're basically stock Centos 5 at this point, but they're old and crufty installations because I've been maintaining most of them for around 10 years.

I'm worried that Centos isn't going to be around forever. Red Hat is becoming less friendly to it. I could move to SuSE or Debian pretty easily.

BSD and Solaris are interesting because of zFS. Solaris has a much more mature implementation, but of course it's also on the operating system endangered species list. BSD's version is said to be way behind, but it's also an OS with a stable future.

Windows supports dfs and my BD-ripping software, but has limited support for the softRAID setups I favor.


On the hardware front, I could look at Atom or AMD's low-power dual core CPUs as a starting point. I'm fairly certain that either one will have all the computational horsepower to manage my needs for now. I guess I could also look at low-end multicore CPU with the thought that I might some day have a need for more back-end CPUs for something or other. If I can farm video encoding tasks out to those machines again I'd probably do it.

 

[CougTek]

You should take a look at the i3 2100/2120. They are very low power. In fact, I read an article this morning showing that their idle power (when put on an H67 mini-ITX motherboard) is lesser than the one from an Atom+Nvidia ION platform. Less than 10W versus ~16W. It's also several orders of magnitude faster.

Regarding a server motherboard, Asus recently got out their P8B-M and P8B-X. There's two Intel gigabit network chips on each. The µATX has two 4x PCI-E and one 16x PCI-E slots. The power concumption of those boards should also be very low (albeit higher than a standard H67 motherboard)

 

[CougTek]

The article and Asus P8B-M and P8B-X. After browsing through the specifications, I think you should omit the P8B-X since it has no SATA 6Gbps and only two PCI-E 1X slots / 1 PCI-E 4X slot.

 

[timwhit]

I haven't read anything about Red Hat being unfriendly to CentOS, but I haven't looked either.

I run OpenSuse on two desktop systems at home, I think they have a very nice distribution. YaST makes administration quite easy and it's available through KDE/GNOME and the CLI.

You could also look at one of the Ubuntu LTS versions. I don't have any experience with Debian, so I won't comment on that.

 

[timwhit]

Another thing that makes OpenSuse more interesting is the Tumbleweed rolling update repository. This will make it possible to never worry about doing a full upgrade ever again (hopefully).

I'm not using Tumbleweed on my desktops because I need the Nvidia proprietary driver and rebuilding it with every kernel upgrade is not my idea of fun.

 

[Mercutio]

I used to use SuSE quite a bit, but I retired my last Linux desktop a while back. I have distaste for Debian and derivatives that dates back to the mid 90s.

 

[Mercutio]

The i3-2100 is looking like a winner, though the pricing is a little steep.

 

[ddrueding]

If your workstations are on all the time, why not just hang the storage off them? As you said, there isn't much computing demand.

 

[Mercutio]

If your workstations are on all the time, why not just hang the storage off them? As you said, there isn't much computing demand.

Because that's horribly disorganized and part of my personal view is that my workstations should be entirely and instantly disposable if need be. I do have a few machines with several hard drives to facilitate data migrations from one array to another, but nothing I want to keep stays on a workstation, ever.

 

[ddrueding]

In my opinion that actually makes things more complex. I like to have 3 systems each with a copy of all my data. I also like having 3 workstations. So if I were running a "corporate client/server" structure, I would have:

3 mission-critical machines that need top-end parts and attention
-and-
3 workstations that are disposable

Running it the way I do I have:

3 mission-critical machines that need top-end parts and attention
-and-
nothing else.

Of course, each of these machines has a "local" drive with OS/apps on them, and all the data is stored on the "data" array, so in a way the workstation is still disposable. Just put some other SSD/OS in there and get the array on-line again.

 

[timwhit]

Have you considered using Btrfs on Linux as an alternative to ZFS?

 

[Mercutio]

Have you considered using Btrfs on Linux as an alternative to ZFS?

No. I've only read a little about it. I'm not sure it's mature enough to merit serious consideration.


ddrueding: I have a lot more disks and a lot more data than you. I'm not going to be happy or comfortable with anything else than two physical copies plus a copy on tape for every single bit, plus room to expand that equals at least double my present capacity.

How am I going to fit eight to sixteen drives in a standard desktop chassis?

 

[timwhit]

No. I've only read a little about it. I'm not sure it's mature enough to merit serious consideration.

I've only read a little as well. I would do more research though before making my final decision.

 

[Mercutio]

No fsck, no dice.

 

[MaxBurn]

One of the atom boards and a SASLP-MV8 and you have ports enough for 14 drives. Supermicro has some new atom offerings but i still really like my X7SPA-HF. I really like that you never have to touch the box, not even to install windows or change bios settings.

I still happen to have my old SASLP-MV8 for sale with cables if you want to buy more stuff off me too

 

[Mercutio]

I have enough SATA ports for my needs but how much do you want for it?

 

[CougTek]

How am I going to fit eight to sixteen drives in a standard desktop chassis?

Piece of cake : Norco RPC-4020. A 4U enclosure is about the same size as a standard desktop chassis.

 

[Mercutio]

I already own four of those.

 

[CougTek]

Why did you asked in the first place then? Fitting a bunch of 3.5" drives in a standard size desktop case isn't that hard for any tech-head around here.

 

[Mercutio]

I didn't ask. ddrueding told me to put a bunch of shit in my desktop cases, which are most assuredly not 20-bay Norco monsters.

 

[CougTek]

ddrueding told me to put a bunch of shit in my desktop cases,...

I hope they are passively cooled, because otherwise, when it'll hit the fan...

 

[ddrueding]

You were looking for energy efficiency. The most energy efficient environment is only attainable through consolidation.

 

[ddrueding]

I hope they are passively cooled, because otherwise, when it'll hit the fan...

I love the jokes that those to whom English is a second language come up with. Warped yet correct

 

[ddrueding]

Ugh. That sentence was awful, and English is my primary language. Sorry.

 

[CougTek]

My sentence or yours? I did my best to write it correctly.

 

[Mercutio]

You were looking for energy efficiency. The most energy efficient environment is only attainable through consolidation.

Hopefully, I'll be able to consolidate to two file servers rather than four. That means I need to at least triple storage density compared to what I have now when I consider my needs for long term expansion.

 

[LunarMist]

With which 3TB drives?

 

[Chewy509]

BSD and Solaris are interesting because of zFS. Solaris has a much more mature implementation, but of course it's also on the operating system endangered species list. BSD's version is said to be way behind, but it's also an OS with a stable future.

Solaris 10 u9* (9/10) is on zpool version 22. (which has triple parity RAID and deduplication support).
Solaris 11 Express is on zpool version 31. (which adds encryption support).

FreeBSD 8.2 is on zpool version 15.
FreeBSD 9.0 is/will be on zpool version 28**.

Linux w/ZFS kernel module is on zpool version 28.

* This is what I'm personally running.
** If it gets completed in time. Otherwise will be on zpool version 15.

If looking long term, I would look at FreeBSD if you want/need ZFS support, simply as no-ones know what Oracle plans for Solaris in the future (in regards to licensing). IIRC, FreeBSD 9.0 release is due in late H1-2011, but current development snapshots are available.

PS. Solaris 10 and 11 is free for educational use or development testing. It can't be used in a commercial environment with spending $$$ for a support contract. (AFAIK, a basic support contract for non-Sun/Oracle hardware starts at US$1200 per socket).

 

[Mercutio]

With which 3TB drives?

In light of recent developments I am going to give up on magnetic storage and will be moving on to Massively Redundant Arrays Of Punched Card Readers (MRAOPCR) technology.

 

[ddrueding]

Chewy,

Based just on the versions of zpool you listed, there seems to be no reason not to just go Linux unless you absolutely need the latest, in which case you need Solaris.

 

[Chewy509]

Chewy,

Based just on the versions of zpool you listed, there seems to be no reason not to just go Linux unless you absolutely need the latest, in which case you need Solaris.

The only problem with the Linux w/ZFS solution is either you use FUSE and get crappy performance, or use the kernel module and enter an area which even the main-line kernel developers won't touch with a ten foot pool.

On Linux I wold look at brtfs as a serious contender. Otherwise just use BSD or Solaris for ZFS.

The one from left field is HAMMER with DragonFLY BSD - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAMMER

Does anyone have an update on the Apple ZFS situation? Last I read all references to ZFS have been dropped on the Apple website, but it's a AFAIK it's a core component of the Time Machine backup device.

 

[Bozo]

Three Linux distros you don't want to try.

 

[CougTek]

I downloaded the satanic one yesterday's afternoon after reading that article. I'm curious where they put the heavy metal songs.

 

[Handruin]

Three Linux distros you don't want to try.

Awesome, I just forwarded the Hannah Montana one to a coworker as a joke. :-D

 

[Mercutio]

The better joke would be to actually install it you know.

 

[ddrueding]

The better joke would be to actually install it you know.

Exactly what I was thinking. At least make it a bootable ISO and have it up and running when he gets back from lunch...

 

[Mercutio]

Well, every little bit of reading seems to suggest that the low-power i3 is the way to go, hardware-wise. I'm going to have to put together a proof of concept machine or two to test things out with FreeBSD, but probably is the best available option if I want zfs. And I think that I do.

I haven't had FreeBSD loaded on anything since, oh, 1994 and my last experience with a BSD derivative was an old HP 9000 running OpenBSD that died in 2005 or so. This might be interesting.

 

[Adcadet]

Merc - why is ZFS so important to you?