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Just built my first ever true storage server


Jasper

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Thanks to eBay I was able to assemble the following parts for surprisingly little.

 

1. Supermicro SC846E16-R1200B 24 Bay 4U Chassis with  2x 1200Watt 80plus Gold PSU.

 

2. Supermicro X8DT6-F Motherboard

 

3. 2x Intel Xeon x5570 cpu's.

 

4. 32gb Hynix DDR3 Server Ram (4 x 8gb)

 

5. Supermicro passive heatsinks (brand new in the box)

 

I loaded Win Server 2012 R2 Datacenter (already had) and installed 17.5TB worth of HD's (already had). More to be added later.

 

Everything I got from eBay could have passed for new and it all works flawlessly. :)

 

I decided to go with Drivepool versus RAID / SS / other solutions for 2 reasons 1. Worst case senario all I can loose is a what's on the failed HD. The remainder of the pool leaves my data unmolested and accessible in any Windows computer (this is important to me). 2. I've been using it for quite some time now and it's proven to be totally reliable and simple (too simple but very good at what it does).

 

I'll be using this server for the following -

 

1. Data Storage

 

2. Media Server

 

3. Backups.

 

4. Blue Iris Server

 

Given the expandability of this system, it will probably outlive me. :)

 

Yes, it's noisy and sucks up the juice but it won't be running 24/7 and it's not located in a people area so neither matters.

 

Excluding the HD's and SW which I already had, The system cost me well under $1000. I'm happy. :)

 

 

 

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Very nice buy!

 

Depending on what you're doing, I've found that BlueIris runs better on a dedicated system... (it can be very CPU intensive, as well as disk intensive).

 

But otherwise, it looks like a fantastic system (a couple generations old, but there is no problem with that, especially at that price!)

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Yep, Blue Iris will bog down in a hurry. Right now it's on a dedicated low power server based on a AM1 and it took quite a bit of tweaking to get it running reasonably well. I had to cut the frame rates and update intervals way down just to get BI to fully load. Right now I'm not running the program on the server, just the service and then remoteing in. I'm thinking this new server should be able to handle the load and then some but if I do move BI over I'll have to run it 24/7 and I'm not so sure I want to do this. Decisions decisions.  

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Another thing that may help with BlueIris is to use the "direct to disk" option, and the "BVR" format. This reduces load, as it's not transcoding. Additionally, you can "export" to AVI/MP4 later on if you need.

 

This may help get it running better.

At least, that's how I have it set up on my APU A4 CPU (runs at about 60%, but not HD cameras).

 

And yes, running the service is a very good idea. Don't need to log in that way. And it crashes less often that way.....

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Think I'll leave BI where it's at. The new server pulls almost 300w when running and it doesn't have all the HDs in it yet so I think I'll run it on an as needed basis. the BI server has a 25w Athlon 5350 so it's going to be cheaper to operate 24/7.

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My main system, based on a FX 8350 draws more juice than that, slightly over 300w. :(

I had an FX 8120, and yeah, a beast. Between the power consumption, heat output and ... well it literally burned... I replaced it.

 

That's one of the reasons I like newer hardware. There has been a lot of focus on reducing energy usage. My server (xeon e3, 15 HDDs) and desktop (core i3, gt 740 and a HDD) only using about 250Ws (according to my UPS). And not counting the monitors.

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For what it's worth, I run BI on the same "server" as the rest of my stuff. But, what I've done is set up ESXi, and BI is on a separate VM, and each of my VMs have a dedicated NIC. I've only given it two cores and 4GB of RAM, and works just fine at about 50% utilization under full load. Also, it stores to a separate pair of drives than the rest of my machines. This way, no matter what BI does, it never affects the rest of my system. This will keep you from needing to have a separate system just for BI. I'm sure it work just fine under HyperV if you wanted to go that way.

 

My BI implementation utilizes 7 3MP cameras and two 1.2MP cameras. The 7 3MP are hardwired using PoE, the two 1.2's are wifi, all configured for direct to disk. All cameras come into a different switch on a different IP range, and as I said a separate dedicated NIC. The other VMs I have truly have no clue that the BI machine is even there. The same server is running WSE2012, so it backs up my workstations on the local LAN NIC, and it is also my IIS server for a few websites.

 

I just checked power consumption on my server - 77 watts. 6 hard drives, Xeon E3-1246v3, Intel server motherboard, etc. I am using a Seasonic gold plus power supply, that may help a little bit.

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Lots of options out there. :)

Absolutely. There is a lot you can do.

 

However, "Direct to disk" is the best option for BlueIris, regardless of the situation. It reduces CPU usage, and disk usage, in the long run. And you can export to different formats, and it will transcode at that point.

ALso, the "BVR" format it uses is just uncompressed mpeg, IIRC.

 

 

Also, I don't worry about the power bill, as we have solar. So running more PCs is fine for me, but not for everyone.

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Definitely. And getting everything configured right makes a big difference in performance.

 

As for power... well, I run a small datacenter from home (I'm only half joking). Power isn't exactly cheap here, but .... we use enough that Solar was worth it. Plus, living in San Diego, it's all but necessary to run the AC a lot of the year.

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