Office Video Server

Joe James · February 23, 2020

Hello, so im new to the server side of the tech world, but realized im really missing out on some workflow optimization by doing so.

My setup is a dell Poweredge 510 a custom built encoding server running a 3950x and my main work station. I do video editing btw. So my plan is to have my poweredge configured as a nas running raid 10 or something similar with two 10gb cat7s running to a switch that is running two cat7s to my main work station and is also connected to my encoding server. I want to dump my new footage onto my encoding server and have that encode it, then send both the original files and encoded ones to my nas where I can edit off of them. Yeah 20gbs is overkill for now, but I will likely outgrow this if i dont future proof it a little. My questions... Can I add storage to the 510 in the same data pool? What cheap rack would you recommend, i have the 2u r510, my 1u r200 firewall, my 1u cyberpower ups, my 2u encoding server, i also want to be able to add more storage later, plus I need a switch. That brings me to my next question, anyone have switch recommendations? I have heard ubiquiti is good. Last, software or better raid recommendations? Ill probably throw a hypervisor on them and mess around, but I would love some input on where to start. Thank you!

GDRRiley · February 23, 2020

microtick has some models. I'd probably go 40gb

MikroTik CRS354-48G-4S+2Q+RM would give dual 40gb quad 10gb sfp+ and 24 1gb

MikroTik CRS317-1G-16S+RM 16 port sfp+ unit. CRS309-1G-8S+IN is an 8 port

CRS312-4C+8XG-RM 8 cat, 4sfp+/cat

theres others but most of these are sub 500$ and manged Level 2

Jarsky · February 23, 2020

9 hours ago, Joe James said:

So my plan is to have my poweredge configured as a nas running raid 10 or something similar with two 10gb cat7s running to a switch that is running two cat7s to my main work station and is also connected to my encoding server. I want to dump my new footage onto my encoding server and have that encode it, then send both the original files and encoded ones to my nas where I can edit off of them. Yeah 20gbs is overkill for now, but I will likely outgrow this if i dont future proof it a little.

Not overkill at all when it comes to connecting storage to application services, just make sure you get a managed switch so you can create a LAG/Port-Channel for the connection.

9 hours ago, Joe James said:

My questions... Can I add storage to the 510 in the same data pool?

It depends on your setup but for a hardware RAID10 yes you can. If you require more disk space and have a spare PCI-E slot you can also use an external HBA to connect a diskshelf (Dell have a range called PowerVault) to extend the number of supported drives.

9 hours ago, Joe James said:

What cheap rack would you recommend, i have the 2u r510, my 1u r200 firewall, my 1u cyberpower ups, my 2u encoding server, i also want to be able to add more storage later, plus I need a switch.

The advantage to your R510 over my R710's is that its only something like 26" deep, so assuming thats your deepest server, you have a wide range of cabinets in that depth.

So thats 7U plus possibly space for a PDU, KVM, etc...i'd be looking at a 12RU-18RU cabinet. Personally I think an open rack like this one from StarTech is great: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Open-Frame-Server-Rack/dp/B00P1RJ9LS

9 hours ago, Joe James said:

That brings me to my next question, anyone have switch recommendations? I have heard ubiquiti is good.

For a rack it's really hard to go past a Arista DCS-7050S-64 second hand. 48 x SFP+ ports which you can use 10gbe copper tranceivers, 4 x QSFP+ ports for 40Gbps (e.g Infiniband), and managed so you can create LAG's (LACP), do VLAN's, etc.....

9 hours ago, Joe James said:

Last, software or better raid recommendations? Ill probably throw a hypervisor on them and mess around, but I would love some input on where to start. Thank you!

Personally i'd keep the PowerEdge as storage and use it either as a hardware RAID with Linux or if you wanted to go Software, consider using an HBA card and going ZFS on FreeNAS. The other advantage of FreeNAS is if you wanted to use a Hypervisor like ESXi, then you can easily create iSCSi targets through the FreeNAS GUI for creating your VMWare Datastores. If you create say 5 disk RAIDZ2 vdev's, then you can easily expand your zpool 5 disks at a time also. If you do 4 disk Striped mirror vdev's, then you can expand your zpool 4 disks at a time.

Joe James · February 24, 2020

Awesome info! Two questions now. So I put an hba in my 510 and use that to connect to a diskshelf? Will i still get higher raid speeds using this method? Second I use rj45, what is the best way to convert the sfp ports to rj45?