ozziekid

Table of Contents
01. 2013-NOV-14: First Hardware Tests & The Noctua NH-U9DX 1366
02. 2013-NOV-16: Temporary Ghetto Setup, OS Installed
03. 2014-APR-01: PSU Mounting & LSI Controller Testing
04. 2014-APR-02: The Disk Racks
05. 2014-APR-08: Chipset Cooling & Adventures in Instability
06. 2014-APR-09: Disk Ventilation
07. 2014-APR-11: Fan Unit for Main Compartment Ventilation
08. 2014-APR-12: Storage Topology & Cabling
09. 2014-APR-26: Storage and Networking Performance
10. 2014-MAY-10: Sound Dampening & Final Pics
PDF Version of this Build Log
http://alpenwasser.net/repository/files/apollo.pdf
Hardware - Final Config
CASE:               InWin PP689
PSU:                Enermax Platimax 600 W
MB:                 Supermicro X8DT3-LN4F
CPU:                2 × Intel Xeon L5630 (quadcore, hyperthreaded)
HS:                 Noctua NH-U9DX - Socket LGA1366
RAM:                24 GB Hynix DDR3 1333 MHz ECC
HBA CARD 0:         LSI 9211-8i, flashed to IT mode (Tutorial)
HBA CARD 1:         LSI 9211-8i, flashed to IT mode
HBA CARD 2:         LSI 9211-8i, flashed to IT mode
SSD:                Intel 520, 120 GB
HDD 0:              WD VelociRaptor 150 GB (2.5")
HDD 1-3:            Samsung HD103UJ 1 TB F1 × 3
HDD 4-7:            WD RE4 2 TB × 4
HDD 8-13:           WD Red 3 TB × 6
Total Raw Capacity: 29 TB
 
Pics of Final Form - More in Final Post
 
(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

 
Wait, What, and Why?
So,   yeah,    another   build. Another   server,    to   be
precise. Why? Well, as  nice of  a system  ZEUS is,  it does
have two major shortcomings for its use as a server.
When I  originally conceived ZEUS,  I did not plan  on using
ZFS (since it was not  yet production-ready on Linux at that
point). The  plan was  to use  ZEUS' HDDs  as single  disks,
backing up the  important stuff. In case of  a disk failure,
the loss of  non-backed up data would  have been acceptable,
since it's mostly  media files. As long as  there's an index
of  what  was  on  the  disk,  that  data  could  easily  be
reaquired.
But right  before ZEUS was  done, I  found out that  ZFS was
production-ready on Linux, having kept a bit of an eye on it
since fall  2012 when I dabbled  in FreeBSD and ZFS  for the
first time. Using  FreeBSD on the  server was not  an option
though since I was nowhere near proficient enough with it to
use it for  something that important, so it had  to be Linux
(that's why I didn't originally plan on ZFS).
So,  I deployed  ZFS on  ZEUS,  and it's  been working  very
nicely  so  far. However, that  brought  with  it two  major
drawbacks: Firstly, I was now missing 5 TB of space, since I
had been  tempted by ZFS  to use those for  redundancy, even
for our media files. Secondly, and more importantly, ZEUS is
not an ECC-memory-capable system. The reason this might be a
problem is that  when ZFS verifies the data on  the disks, a
corrupted bit in your RAM  could cause a discrepancy between
the  data in  memory and  the data  on disk,  in which  case
ZFS  would  "correct"  the  data  on  your  disk,  therefore
corrupting it. This  is not exactly optimal  IMO. How severe
the consequences of this would  be in practice is an ongoing
debate in various ZFS  threads I've read. Optimists estimate
that it would merely corrupt  the file(s) with the concerned
corrupt bit(s), pessimists are  afraid it might corrupt your
entire pool.
The main focus of this machine will be:
room to install more disks over time ECC-RAM capable not ridiculously expensive low-maintenance, high reliability and availability (within reason, it's still
a home and small business server)
Modding Instead of some  uber-expensive W/C setup, the  main part of
actually building  this rig will  be in modifying  the PP689
for fitting as many HDDs  as halfway reasonable as neatly as
possible. I have not  yet decided if there  will be painting
and/or sleeving  and/or a window. A window  is unlikely, the
rest depends mostly  on how much time I'll have  in the next
few weeks (this  is not a long-term project, aim  is to have
it done way before HELIOS).
Also, since  costs for this  build should not spiral  out of
control, I will  be trying to reuse as many  scrap and spare
parts I have laying around as possible.
Teaser
More  pics  will  follow  as  parts  arrive  and  the  build
progresses, for now a shot of the case:
(click image for full res)

That's all for now, thanks for stopping by, and so long.

Wow these are awesome prizes.