JBOD RAID

[OSUwrestler]

Is there anything preventing me from running RAID in a JBOD server chassis. specifically this one: https://www.sourcecode.com/system/superchassis-216be1c-r741jbod

[shoutingsteve]

The link you posted shows that you have "your own controller card" checked.... So, it would really be up to your controller card, right guys?

EDIT:
You can certainly use that case to run a raid configuration, yes.

Not that you asked for software advice, but I recommend FreeNAS, because it is super awesome.

Edited November 19, 2020 by shoutingsteve
More info after reading OP's other thread

[OSUwrestler]

2 hours ago, shoutingsteve said:

The link you posted shows that you have "your own controller card" checked.... So, it would really be up to your controller card, right guys?

EDIT:
You can certainly use that case to run a raid configuration, yes.

Not that you asked for software advice, but I recommend FreeNAS, because it is super awesome.

thanks, i'd probably buy three of the ones they have listed.

[OSUwrestler]

2 hours ago, shoutingsteve said:

The link you posted shows that you have "your own controller card" checked.... So, it would really be up to your controller card, right guys?

EDIT:
You can certainly use that case to run a raid configuration, yes.

Not that you asked for software advice, but I recommend FreeNAS, because it is super awesome.

do i need a controller card? or can i just get some sata cards and then software raid?

[TargetDron3]

That is not a server.  That is a "disk shelf". It is essentially a container that you plug all of your drives into. Depending on the backplane you'll probably need SAS drives.

You will need a SAS controller in an actual server that will connect to this shelf to be able to use it. This isn't home/hobby grade stuff.  This is enterprise level equipment. And it's going to be loud. 

[shoutingsteve]

Have you ever considered just making something super ghetto?  Like throw a bunch of expansion cards onto  a mobo and just hot glue it all to some plywood...  Sure would be cheaper and you can use whatever software you want to run a RAID.

[OSUwrestler]

21 hours ago, TargetDron3 said:

That is not a server.  That is a "disk shelf". It is essentially a container that you plug all of your drives into. Depending on the backplane you'll probably need SAS drives.

You will need a SAS controller in an actual server that will connect to this shelf to be able to use it. This isn't home/hobby grade stuff.  This is enterprise level equipment. And it's going to be loud. 

This case does accept SATA drives. and It'll have its own server room so I'm not too worried about noise

[Electronics Wizardy]

14 minutes ago, OSUwrestler said:

This case does accept SATA drives. and It'll have its own server room so I'm not too worried about noise

what drives are you putting in there, you probably want 3.5 in enclosures.

 

 

[OSUwrestler]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what drives are you putting in there, you probably want 3.5 in enclosures.

 

 

i was planning on WD RED SSDs. this is a future build. maybe a year and a half out. trying to learn until then 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, OSUwrestler said:

i was planning on WD RED SSDs. this is a future build. maybe a year and a half out. trying to learn until then 

Why those ssds? How many tb do you need?

 

If you want cheap fast storage, id get used sas or pcie ssds, faster much more endurance, and cheaper.

[OSUwrestler]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why those ssds? How many tb do you need?

 

If you want cheap fast storage, id get used sas or pcie ssds, faster much more endurance, and cheaper.

Well, they come with a 5 year warranty, which im guessing the used parts don't. The WD RED line is specifically for NAS storage which is the intended use (im not exactly privey to what that means but im guessing theyre called NAS drives for a reason). not sure what storage size i'll need. I'm planning on doing three Vdevs (three groups of 8 drives). i'm hoping 8TB drives are available by build time, so that'd give me 56TB with RAIDZ1. And these would be plenty fast for my use case.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, OSUwrestler said:

Well, they come with a 5 year warranty, which im guessing the used parts don't. The WD RED line is specifically for NAS storage which is the intended use (im not exactly privey to what that means but im guessing theyre called NAS drives for a reason). not sure what storage size i'll need. I'm planning on doing three Vdevs (three groups of 8 drives). i'm hoping 8TB drives are available by build time, so that'd give me 56TB with RAIDZ1. And these would be plenty fast for my use case.

what is your use case? Your gonna need a pretty beffy network to use that performance.

 

The nas marketing is prettymuch marketing bs, those used server drives are much better for nas and server use, and more reliable.

 

The used drives don't have a warrantly normally, but there cheaper and more reliable, so even with a few failures, your still saving money.

 

If you need performance, id stay away from parity raid, as it can really hurt performance, and go mirrors, and nvme may be nice to have here for the lower cpu overhead, and much higher iops.

[OSUwrestler]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what is your use case? Your gonna need a pretty beffy network to use that performance.

 

The nas marketing is prettymuch marketing bs, those used server drives are much better for nas and server use, and more reliable.

 

The used drives don't have a warrantly normally, but there cheaper and more reliable, so even with a few failures, your still saving money.

 

If you need performance, id stay away from parity raid, as it can really hurt performance, and go mirrors, and nvme may be nice to have here for the lower cpu overhead, and much higher iops.

use case is a plex server. i'll have 10Gb networking.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, OSUwrestler said:

use case is a plex server. i'll have 10Gb networking.

then get hdds and save them money. SSDs won't affect performance for plex server uses, and you can still fill 10gbe with a lot of drives. Id save the money with HDDs and spend that money on something else.

[OSUwrestler]

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

then get hdds and save them money. SSDs won't affect performance for plex server uses, and you can still fill 10gbe with a lot of drives. Id save the money with HDDs and spend that money on something else.

I’m certainly considering HDDs but SSDs are quieter, more power efficient, faster, and much more reliable. Again, I’m assuming that price/TB continues to drop like it has been for SSDs. If HDDs are significantly cheaper when I go to purchase like they are now, I’ll go HDDs

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, OSUwrestler said:

I’m certainly considering HDDs but SSDs are quieter, more power efficient, faster, and much more reliable. Again, I’m assuming that price/TB continues to drop like it has been for SSDs. If HDDs are significantly cheaper when I go to purchase like they are now, I’ll go HDDs

With this server equipment, you won't hear the hdds, the fans are much louder, like you don't want to be in the same room as this unit. And if power consumption is a issue, don't buy these sas expansion units, they love to suck up power on their own due to things like the sas expanders. If you want that much storage for plex, id just get something like 4 18tb hdds these days. Lower power than the ssd setup aswell.

 

Id still get those used sas/pcie ssds. There much cheaper per gb, more reliable, can get larger capacities and are just overall much better drives than the reds. Also those red ssds are just marketing bs, id look at other ssd options aswell.

[OSUwrestler]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

With this server equipment, you won't hear the hdds, the fans are much louder, like you don't want to be in the same room as this unit. And if power consumption is a issue, don't buy these sas expansion units, they love to suck up power on their own due to things like the sas expanders. If you want that much storage for plex, id just get something like 4 18tb hdds these days. Lower power than the ssd setup aswell.

 

Id still get those used sas/pcie ssds. There much cheaper per gb, more reliable, can get larger capacities and are just overall much better drives than the reds. Also those red ssds are just marketing bs, id look at other ssd options aswell.

What is a SAS expander? How does it consume power? And would the fan speeds be configurable in the bios?

[TargetDron3]

OP, I'm guessing your heart is set on this.  You are headed down a path of a lot of money for no benefit and seemingly getting in way over your head.

Save yourself a ton of money, time and frustration and just buy a Synology NAS slap in some drives and be done.  They will run Plex, consume way less power and be infinitely easier to manage and configure. 

[OSUwrestler]

1 hour ago, TargetDron3 said:

OP, I'm guessing your heart is set on this.  You are headed down a path of a lot of money for no benefit and seemingly getting in way over your head.

Save yourself a ton of money, time and frustration and just buy a Synology NAS slap in some drives and be done.  They will run Plex, consume way less power and be infinitely easier to manage and configure. 

I’m not set on it. I just have a lot of time to plan and want to explore all options. I never thought of doing an SSD based NAS before and was intrigued by the idea. Want to fully understand it. It can’t hurt to learn new things

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 hours ago, OSUwrestler said:

What is a SAS expander? How does it consume power? And would the fan speeds be configurable in the bios?

A sas expander is whats in that jbod box. Basically it splits up the sas channels so more drives can be used on a controller. The downside is the performance is limited, so 8 channels normally, so you can get a peak of 48gbit with sas 2 sas cards.

 

2 hours ago, OSUwrestler said:

I’m not set on it. I just have a lot of time to plan and want to explore all options. I never thought of doing an SSD based NAS before and was intrigued by the idea. Want to fully understand it. It can’t hurt to learn new things

If your gonna wait a year and a half, just plan it then. By then likely pcie based ssds will be more common and bigger. I wouldn't be suprised if you can just get 2 2.5in pcie ssds that meet you size requirements and would be much faster than this array aswell.

[Blue4130]

4 hours ago, OSUwrestler said:

use case is a plex server. i'll have 10Gb networking.

There is a reason that 99% of plex builds are on HDD. Ssd is just way overkill. The unreliability of HDD is offset by the redundancy of raid. With the savings of HDD over ssd, you will still come out ahead if you need to replace a drive or two.