Build Log Data Server 'Baldur'

[Ahnzh]

Baldur - Germanic god of wisdom

Build Log

Introduction

Hey guys, thanks for visiting at my log. First off: English isn't my native language so if somebody finds a mistake he can keep it
 
Let's start with the reasons to build a case from scratch.
My requirements for a case were:

• Capacity of 12 SATA/SAS 3.5in drives
• HotSwap
• m-ATX Motherboard size
• 210mm/8.2in width (can be less, but 210 at maximum)
• Up to 550mm/21.6in maximum height
• Up to 600mm/23.6in maximum depth
• Quiet
• Style because it's going to be located in my living room

I was searching for a case for a longer time and finally found one (iStarUSA S-919) but there are no distributors in Germany so i wasn't able to buy it here. But i really wanted it so i wrote some US friends, asked people in this forum, wrote to iStarUSA directly, talked to iSG (iStarUSA appeared to be a distributor rebranding the product), wrote to different shops (Newegg, various US located shops) ... to keep things short there was no way of getting my hands on one of those cases. So i spent some additional days looking for a proper case but didn't find one that met my requirements. Either they were too large in size or m-ITX, or they had 6 or less drive bays. There simply was no reasonable compromise, so building a case by myself is the only possible way to go.
 
 
 

What not to expect

 
Flashy inside LED, graphics power, high end gaming power, water cooling! This is going to be a Data Server. It's going to do it's job quietly and with good performance. So please don't expect stuff that usually belongs into gaming rigs. That doesn't mean though that i don't use any LEDs. Things like HDD drive activity LEDs and a bit of external designing is going to happen. There won't be a side window though.
 
 
 

What to expect

 
I'm not limiting myself to the building of the case so expect benchmarks, some guides for building a Linux NAS and so on. There will be lots of tinkering, smoldering, Aluminum welding (yes, it's difficult but I was in an apprenticeship as a toolmaker/precision engineer in GERMANY before i did my master in computer science, I learned welding Aluminum),  let's say expect craftsmanship. I've got some things i want to do that might surprise some people, including custom made hot swap drive cages (I'm producing the SAS backplanes by myself I found THESE, which do exactly what i wanted to do, just a simple backplane connector with LED pins based on the 11th pin in SAS/SATA drives which give out drive activity. Since they run on 300 micro Ampere the signal needs to be amplified and this single drive backplane does exactly that. I will come up with something else instead, stay tuned). So feel free to follow. I will update the log at least once a week.
 
 
 

Hardware

 
Cpu: Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1285L v3 (8M Cache, 3.10 GHz)
RAM: 4x Kingston ValueRAM 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 CL11 (KVR16E11/8) - it's a PDF
Motherboard: Asus P9D-M
SSD: 4x Samsung 840 PRO 2,5 Zoll SATA 256 GB
HDD:12x Seagate Constellation ES.3 7200RPM SATA-6Gb/s 2TB - again, it's a PDF
PSU: BeQuiet Straight Power E9 580W with Cable Management, Workstation/Server certified
Backup: Synology RS814+ with 4x4TB Seagate NAS drives (Server Housing)
Host Bus Adapter: LSI Host Bus Adapter SAS 9201-16i (16x SAS)
Network Card: Intel x540-T1
 
 
 

Software

 
It's going to run Linux. I will do a step to step documentation (expect a lot of stuff here as well)
 
 
 

Network

 
It's going to be integrated into a 10GbE network, so expect benchmarks (iSCSI transfers, general SAMBA performance, IOPS, everything in detail)

[Ahnzh]

So let's start with an update. I got my hands on a used (2 Months) test rig. It's got the PSU, the CPU, half of the RAM and the Motherboard in it. Here is a picture:

 

And a pic to confirm the hardware:

[Ahnzh]

FreeNAS runs best off an USB stick, so I looked for one and found this one: Kingston DataTraveler Workspace

 

It's designed to run an OS off of it
 
I got the 32GB version. It's far too much for a FreeNAS (it needs like 2GB) but i went with a reliable stick and it happened that i could not get my hands on a smaller one that I trust as much.I got 2 of them, the second one in case the first one's conking out. I got Kingston DataTraveler R3.0 G2 USB-Sticks as well for saving my config files and jails on (2 as well).

 

Here are some quick performance tests:

 

[sirtoby]

This will be awesome. It is really unfortunate, that iStarUSA doesn't ship to Germany.

Have you thought about going with a case that has a lot of 5.25" slots, like the Lian Li D-600, and puting some of those into them? 

Did you go with the low voltage Xeon for a particular reason?

[Ahnzh]

This will be awesome. It is really unfortunate, that iStarUSA doesn't ship to Germany.

Have you thought about going with a case that has a lot of 5.25" slots, like the Lian Li D-600, and puting some of those into them? 

Did you go with the low voltage Xeon for a particular reason?

It's going to be used semi-professional so the L-Xeon was the better option. I mean, it's going to be used like 9-10 hours a day. While being used it's getting stressed so i went with the most powerful L-Xeon. Additionally core clock is important because SAMBA still is based on a single thread. More Power per core means more data transfer, building a machine with 12937468 cores does not give me that much of a profit.

 

I gave Lian-Li parts a thought. I most likely will go with a m-ATX Motherboard tray (I can buy it separate) but i expect to do the rest by myself. If i'm doing it myself I am not accepting a compromise. The thing is, that i am getting LOTS of HDD for a pretty small size. I did a rough design drawing and I'm going to publish it during the next minutes. I promise you will be amazed.

[Ahnzh]

So here is the schematic:

 

 

To explain it a bit: To the top left and bottom right there are ventilation areas. The smallest boxes are fans. The slightly larger (horizontal) boxes are HDDs.

 

What you see on the bottom left part of the drawing is the hardware layout and a front hatch that is opened towards the TOP. When it's opened the whole system is able to slide out to the front, including the fans, the motherboard, the PSU and the drives.

 

As of now the drawing is already outdated since i realized i will have to integrate some sort of weight in order to prevent flipping the case to the front side when i'm sliding the hardware out to the front but it will give you a general understanding of what I'm going to do.

 

 

/edit: if needed i can color the parts and give you a color key, but i think it shouldn't be needed

[Ahnzh]

Oh and i forgot to add, the HDDs are sliding out to the left side of the case. So i would have to slide out the hardware to the front and then pull out the HDDs to the left

 

/edit: and I'm looking for somebody to do a lil bit of GFX to give this thread some FIRE ;D

[Anthony10]

Love it, followed.

[darkspeedy26]

thats an interesting place for a psu

also, i would love to see the custom hot swap system

[Ahnzh]

thats an interesting place for a psu

also, i would love to see the custom hot swap system

 The PSU is located there because i need to get a counterweight somewhere on the left side. a heavy one because everything inside the case is going to be slid out to the right side. No place for the PSU there because of the counterweight. It will draw the air from the left side (motherboard side) because of the location of the cables leading out of the PSU. That way they will be near the back side and when sliding the board out it's not in the way. Even if i consider a gaming rig the Layout would be able to take the longest card on the market but i would sacrifice a bunch of HDD slots. I like that layout pretty much, there will be problems with the cables though when i slide out the hardware so i have to think of a solution, nothing too difficult to solve though...

[Ahnzh]

I started calculating the counterweight. Those 12 HDDs will weight roughly 700g each. That makes 8.4 KG. The Aluminum that I am going to use will weight 2.3 but i calculate with 3.6kg (because of the various stuff that's going to be added, drive cages ec) and because it's a round number. So i get 12 Kilograms that I have to balance. To make it safe i need more than that. I mean i don't want it to flip over when I touch it a bit...

I calculated in an area of 100mm*100mm*210mm.

Do you think i should go for Copper (18KG, 50€/75$) or Stainless Steel (16KG, didn't find a price) or does anybody have an alternative?

[darkspeedy26]

-snip-

Do you think i should go for Copper (18KG, 50€/75$) or Stainless Steel (16KG, didn't find a price) or does anybody have an alternative?

 

i don't know if you would really need a counterweight, but if you really need it, why not make a metal (or other material) box, and just put sand, stones or even water in it? i'm not responsible for any water leaks

[Ahnzh]

i don't know if you would really need a counterweight, but if you really need it, why not make a metal (or other material) box, and just put sand, stones or even water in it? i'm not responsible for any water leaks

 that's actually a good idea. It has to be heavy though. i will give this a thought, thanks

[Ahnzh]

Today I talked to a company for the Aluminum. I turned in CAD schematics to get laser-cutted Aluminum sheets. I hope i will get them early next week. It's going to be 3mm thick Aluminum.

[Ahnzh]

I'm going to extend the project. I've ordered a Synology RS814+ with 4 5TB Seagate drives as an off-site backup solution. Configuration/Integration n stuff will be done here as well

[Ahnzh]

I proudly present my future backplanes: 

 
I was dead set on creating my own with basically the same circuits because I wasn't able to find a backplane with the requirements i had. Getting the signal of the 11th pin (Shows drive activity) and create an output for LEDs. This backplane possesses Power+Busy LED pin outputs without controllers. Perfect! It can be used for SAS and SATA.
 
 
What do you think Additionally i have to think about colors.

I thought about black-white-malibu blue
 

 

With the case itself powder coated black, black&white Blacknoise NB-eLoop fans, blue highlights, mixed color sleeves and blue CPU cooler (Prolimatech Megahalem) - your opinion?

[darkspeedy26]

it would be nice to finaly see something different than the regular red/green/blue this pastell ish color scheme looks nice.

too bad the PCB is green. any plans on making a cover or painting it? (or maybe they will be hidden good enough)

 

im not an expert, but i guess the fans will be fine (both performance and looks)

[Ahnzh]

it would be nice to finaly see something different than the regular red/green/blue this pastell ish color scheme looks nice.

too bad the PCB is green. any plans on making a cover or painting it? (or maybe they will be hidden good enough)

 

im not an expert, but i guess the fans will be fine (both performance and looks)

 

I'm going to do an Aluminum cover for it that goes around the edges as well and perforated at the bottom side - have to decide the color though but that's one of the last steps, for now i have other priorities. If that isn't enough to cover it up or i run into heat problems I might have to paint it but i hope i can avoid that. Oh and it will have the model number engraved on it

[JokuTyyppi]

Ahh, i just love these server builds :wub:

[Ahnzh]

I once again expanded this project to a 'Linux' build. Here for more information

[AMaleWhale]

another server <3

[Ahnzh]

right now this thing expands exponentially... currently starting to work on a 'real' cloud. Before going to make more promises this thing could turn out huge, not just some pseudo data cloud

[asimrc]

FreeNAS runs best off an USB stick, so I looked for one and found this one: Kingston DataTraveler Workspace

 

It's designed to run an OS off of it

 

I got the 32GB version. It's far too much for a FreeNAS (it needs like 2GB) but i went with a reliable stick and it happened that i could not get my hands on a smaller one that I trust as much.I got 2 of them, the second one in case the first one's conking out. I got Kingston DataTraveler R3.0 G2 USB-Sticks as well for saving my config files and jails on (2 as well).

 

Here are some quick performance tests:

 

 

speed test tool looks neat

[Ahnzh]

I got my backup server today. It's not AS speedy as my main server will be but it will serve it's purpose

 

4x4TB Synology RS814+

 

[alpenwasser]

Sigh, I really need to start keeping a closer eye on the build

log section (so much work though), can't believe I only saw this

now.

Anyway, server scratch build? Yeah, I'm in.