Ideal Specs for Offloading Pool to Dedicated System

[bzowk]

Hey Guys - 

 

Over the past few years, the size of my pool has grown dramatically in size where I'm getting to the point where upgrading requires going from 4tb disks to 8tb ones instead of adding a new disk.  The pool is in my primary PC (specs below) which I use for everything you can imagine including work, gaming, VMs, personal web hosting, scripting, and more.  

 

 

I'd really like to have the pool offloaded from this PC to another device.  Unfortunately, I'd probably have to sell my truck to afford an 11 disk NAS or similar enterprise-level device. As I still have another case, I'm instead considering purchasing an inexpensive motherboard, CPU, etc then migrating the pool (disks + RocketRAID card) over to it to build my own dedicated pool device.  Given that, I have 2 questions, please:

 

 

1. If you had to build a dedicated system like this, what hardware / OS would you use that you would consider the most stable yet still offer same features?

 

 

2. Given my pool, what are the minimum specs I would need to do this?  I'm not trying to be cheap, but have some slightly older workstations around here and would be great if I could use their guts and possibly do this all for free!

 

 

Thanks!!!

 

Disk Pool PC Stats

 

- Windows 10 x64 Creator's Update

 

- Intel 3770k CPU OC'd to 4.0Ghz

 

- 32 GB RAM

 

- 44tb Drive Pool

 

- Samsung 850 Pro SSD for OS & primary apps (not in pool)

 

- 1tb Hybrid drive for App Caches & VMs (not in pool)

 

- 256gb SSD for VR Gaming Installations (not in pool)

 

- RocketRAID 2720 SAS Controller

 

- Nvidia GeForce 970 GTX

 

- Oculus Rift (3 sensors + 2 touch controllers)

 

- x3 monitors

 

- Huge tower with much cooling

 

- Many other devices & accessories

 

 

Disk Pool Stats

 

- StableBit DrivePool 2.2.0.651 Beta + SSD Optimizer Plugin

 

- 43.9TB Total / 42.9 unduplicated / 69kb duplicated / 50.7gb other

 

- RocketRAID 2720 SAS Controller connects 7 of the disks with remaining connected to motherboard / 6Gbps used where possible but 1-2 have 3Gbps

 

- 11 disks (10 Standard / 1 SSD)

 

- Balances immediately every 2 hours unless 25gb+ needs moving

 

- All 4 options for performance enabled (Lots of network I/O)

 

[lee1978]

Hi check the hardware/my rackmount server section some members have listed there setup's with pictures it will help give you an idea of what people are running and there requirements hope it helps its very hard to give this kind of advice as the budget ultimately dictates the advice eBay is a great source of cheap parts

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, to be honest, ebay and craigslist are your friends.   I found my rack (a nice 42U HP rack) on craigslist, and most of my server parts on ebay.   For dirt cheap. 

 

As for hardware....

 

It really depends on what you want to do with it.  A simple Intel Celeron or Atom CPU would be enough to just host the files.  StableBit DrivePool and StableBit Scanner are very light on resources, so don't require much. 
As for OS, that depends on entirely what you want to do. 
But Windows 10 Pro is a great choice here. It gives you file shares, hyperV, IIS (web server), etc.  And supports dual socket boards and up to 1TB of RAM..... so, it's no chump! 

 

 

Also, your budget is a massive factor here too.     For instance, if you have the $1300, this is a FANTASTIC buy: 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-4U-36-Bay-Storage-Server-SAS2-FREENAS-2x-Xeon-E5-2660-128GB-SATA-Dom-/132256902205?hash=item1ecb202c3d

 

That's a full system, great hardware.  Only thing it lacks is an OS and storage drives.   

 

(If you check my stats, I have something not too far off of this, and am very happy with it) 

[bzowk]

Thanks for the replies!

 

OK, I'll check out that part of the forum.  As for the 4U 36 bay server, I'd love to have that.  If I weren't married, it would be a no brainer but I'm lucky to get the limited budget I have now

 

Was considering upgrading my motherboard & CPU then using my existing ones in a dedicated tower for this.  Unfortunately, I'll have to replace the RAM too as newer motherboards don't support what I've got and have sunk a good chunk into my 32gb.  

 

In fact, while at it I thought I'd ask for opinions.  My primary PC has a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H, QuadCore Intel Core i7-3770K, 4000 MHz (overclocked from 3.5Ghz), and 32723 MB  (DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM).  I'd barely be able to afford getting a new MB / CPU combo currently so would probably have to start with 8gb of compatible RAM and upgrade later.  

 

Now a good time to buy this hardware or are there new things on the horizon that I should wait on - if not to even make upgrading to currently released hardware cheaper?  

 

Thanks!

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Totally understand.  

 

Yeah, the newest systems require all new parts.  Nothing (but drives) usable on them.  It sucks.

 

And now is a fine time to buy new hardware.  As long as you're not looking for video cards .......   

That said, you may want to wait, for ... well, Intel and AMD to really start going after each other.  Finally good competition, and that may drive prices down, or drive out better hardware, in general.  Regardless of "which camp" you are part of, the whole Ryzen thing is good for EVERYONE.  

 

But otherwise, I haven't really heard of anything (other than new line of AMD video cards coming out soon)