Re-using server grade hardware

[Jonas algoet]

Hello, 

 

In my dads company we have this big sorting machine for peppers. We had to renew the matrix photo measuring machine to a more modern one. 

 

Inside the old matrix there were some server hardware rack installed things:

 

- 2x netgear 24 port switch

- 1x ups wich i believe is dead

- 3x asus rs300-e9-ps4 (i believe could be e10)

 

The asus rs 300's all have 4gb ram and a xeon e3-1220. I know its not the best hardware but this is installed 8y ago.

 

I also found another pc wich was used as a local server. This one had 8gb ram 2 hdd from 500gb fully redundant. Xeon e3-2124.

 

What i want to do!

 

I want to clean this things up and than take them home with me, build a rack from 2 by 4s and make a server at home wich i can acces and store files and photos on. BUT i want to be able to acces the server at the company of my dads. 

 

This is the part where im kind of stuck is this possible? Do i need to do something special to get all these rs300 to work with the pc and than make it 1 server ? Its all very confusing to me as i am quite the noob in server hardware and networking. I saw some videos from LTT and others on YT but when i am listening to all this stuff i find it to be to general and i am gonna need some "type specific explanation" on this one i'm affraid.

 

Hope to get some good feedback from you network experts out there, thank you.

 

Jonas.

[Drama Lama]

7 minutes ago, Jonas algoet said:

Inside the old matrix there were some server hardware rack installed things:

 

the Servers might be a little loud and powerhungry so you should keep that in mind 

[jj9987]

https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/

 

There's a wiki with a lot of useful information.

 

[Jarsky]

2 hours ago, Jonas algoet said:

Do i need to do something special to get all these rs300 to work with the pc and than make it 1 server ?

 

You don't really make 1 server from multiple servers. 

There is specific "cluster" software for combining resources, but it depends on what you're trying to achieve, and it relates to specific software. 

 

You could for example have drives in all 3, and then use GlusterFS to build distributed storage across the 3 by combining the "bricks".

You couldnt however have an application like Plex use the CPU/Memory resource of all 3 like its a single computer.

[Jonas algoet]

4 hours ago, Drama Lama said:

the Servers might be a little loud and powerhungry so you should keep that in mind 

Hi, tnx for the fast reply, wasnt expecting that.

 

Power consumption isnt a problem, we have our own powerplant generating 2Megawatts/hour :p. And noise doesnt matter as i will put the rack in the basement.

 

Kind regards,

 

Jonas

[Jonas algoet]

4 hours ago, jj9987 said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/

 

There's a wiki with a lot of useful information.

 

Going to check it out tnx!

 

Kind regards,

 

Jonas

[Jonas algoet]

1 hour ago, Jarsky said:

 

You don't really make 1 server from multiple servers. 

There is specific "cluster" software for combining resources, but it depends on what you're trying to achieve, and it relates to specific software. 

 

You could for example have drives in all 3, and then use GlusterFS to build distributed storage across the 3 by combining the "bricks".

You couldnt however have an application like Plex use the CPU/Memory resource of all 3 like its a single computer.

Thank you for that,

 

So i could make in Theory 2 of them combined for files. And than 1 run something like plex for media?.

 

Or is it just easier to make 3 total seperate "servers", lets say install freenas on all 3 of the rs300's

[Jonas algoet]

Decided to upload a picture... As you can see they are very dirty altough i opened them and inside they look quite OKAY only the cpu coolerfins and all the fans are kind of dirty but thats allways the case after 8 years of running in a industrial enviornment.

[Jarsky]

41 minutes ago, Jonas algoet said:

So i could make in Theory 2 of them combined for files. And than 1 run something like plex for media?.

In theory you can do that. You can even go as far as to do GlusterFS on ZFS. 

Great for stability having a distributed storage system like that, and for expandability. Horrible for performance. 

The downside, is that you really need dedicated network for storage to talk to each other, seperate from the access network. So each of your servers would need at least a second 1Gbps port for configuring communication between them. 

 

GlusterFS is a bit to get your head around, especially when you have issues. There are a number of distributed systems you can check out though. 

 

https://www.gluster.org

https://moosefs.com

http://www.xtreemfs.org

 

41 minutes ago, Jonas algoet said:

Or is it just easier to make 3 total seperate "servers", lets say install freenas on all 3 of the rs300's

For a home environment, especially if you arent really confident with shell and how storage systems work...the nitty gritty of blocks and bricks and addressing things....then yeah easier to keep the servers seperate. 

 

Ultimately with something like FreeNAS, you can create 3 FreeNAS servers; dedicate 1 of them as the "Primary", and have the other 2 as "Slaves". Set the slaves up as iSCSi targets and share the disks as LUN's. Then import them into your Primary, and aggregate them into your zpool. But this to me would just be a thought experiment, you'd get basically no support in a configuration like this. 

[Jonas algoet]

2 hours ago, Jarsky said:

In theory you can do that. You can even go as far as to do GlusterFS on ZFS. 

Great for stability having a distributed storage system like that, and for expandability. Horrible for performance. 

The downside, is that you really need dedicated network for storage to talk to each other, seperate from the access network. So each of your servers would need at least a second 1Gbps port for configuring communication between them. 

 

GlusterFS is a bit to get your head around, especially when you have issues. There are a number of distributed systems you can check out though. 

 

https://www.gluster.org

https://moosefs.com

http://www.xtreemfs.org

 

For a home environment, especially if you arent really confident with shell and how storage systems work...the nitty gritty of blocks and bricks and addressing things....then yeah easier to keep the servers seperate. 

 

Ultimately with something like FreeNAS, you can create 3 FreeNAS servers; dedicate 1 of them as the "Primary", and have the other 2 as "Slaves". Set the slaves up as iSCSi targets and share the disks as LUN's. Then import them into your Primary, and aggregate them into your zpool. But this to me would just be a thought experiment, you'd get basically no support in a configuration like this. 

I guess the best thing to do will be installing 3 times freenas on all of them as i am really not understanding a thing from the first part about gluster fs... Sorry.

 

Eventhough im not understanding a thing about the second part of your message (im really noob) i find that one more explanetory and so i guess i can try that one hahha.

 

Funny enough, these 3 rs300's actually only contain 1 HDD of 250GB... The guys from the machine told me that 1 was a master and the other 2 were slaves but i never really understood what the point was of this... 1/4 of a rs300 has a 250gb drive in and the other 2 rs300's are empty .. why is that?