Need help with build server solution for game development

[DeathPheonix]

Need an new build server for our game studio, currently looking at ThreadRipper 3970X + 256G of memory. Need help with the storage solution, will need around 60TB of high speed (ideally all SSD storage) with future expandability. I know that going with HBA's will allow us better expandability in terms of storage in the future instead of populating all the SATA and M.2 ports on the motherboard. Currently have a budget around 13-14k to start with. 

[Freakwise]

It's better to have at least 60% to 80% bulk of the storage to hdd and around 20% to 40% of the storage on sdd though it could be any configuration you want, all ssd storage that big is not ideal...

And definitely raid them, for safety reason

 

 

[DeathPheonix]

1 minute ago, Liam danu said:

It's better to have at least 60% to 80% bulk of the storage to hdd and around 20% to 40% of the storage on sdd though it could be any configuration you want, all ssd storage that big is not ideal...

And definitely raid them, for safety reason

 

 

Our data is being saved on an dedicated server, this is being used just as an build machine.  Each of our branch needs around 6.5TB, and we need to maintain ~8 branches on this machine.  HDD's are just too slow in random writes for our usecase. 

[Freakwise]

I don't know how good it is but there Samsung 870 evo 4tb at $479.00

Currently in Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Inch-Internal-MZ-77E4T0B-AM/dp/B08QBL36GF/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=4tb+ssd&qid=1619692163&sprefix=4tb&sr=8-4

 

And there's also qvo model which is $80 cheaper, but definitely lower performance..

 

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-870-QVO-SATA-MZ-77Q4T0B/dp/B089C5P5SX/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=4tb+ssd&qid=1619692260&sprefix=4tb&sr=8-3

 

And by your targeted requirement 

You need *2 8 port hba like this one...

 

https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-Internal-Express-Controller-SAS2008/dp/B01M2AC40Y

 

 

[DeathPheonix]

5 minutes ago, Liam danu said:

I don't know how good it is but there Samsung 870 evo 4tb at $479.00

Currently in Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Inch-Internal-MZ-77E4T0B-AM/dp/B08QBL36GF/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=4tb+ssd&qid=1619692163&sprefix=4tb&sr=8-4

 

And there's also qvo model which is $80 cheaper, but definitely lower performance..

 

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-870-QVO-SATA-MZ-77Q4T0B/dp/B089C5P5SX/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=4tb+ssd&qid=1619692260&sprefix=4tb&sr=8-3

 

And by your targeted requirement 

You need *2 8 port hba like this one...

 

https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-Internal-Express-Controller-SAS2008/dp/B01M2AC40Y

 

 

Yeah we are looking into the 870 EVO's as well. Having trouble on deciding what  HBA's to use. Not sure the difference between LSI 9200/9300 are. Still googling for information

[Pixel5]

what is your network setup, do you have more than 10G LAN to connect to the server so you could for example benefit from NVME storage?

[DeathPheonix]

19 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

what is your network setup, do you have more than 10G LAN to connect to the server so you could for example benefit from NVME storage?

We have 10G LAN running to everywhere that matters

[Pixel5]

ok so the maximum speed you will ever get out of or into the server will be 1gigabyte/s

Does this storage need to be redundant at all or do you basically need all the raw storage you can get?

 

 

the problem with your budget will be if you need 60TB of use able storage that would cost you ~16000 bucks just for the SSD´s if you want NVME SSD´s assumiing you buy 8x 8 TB so you really end up with 64TB

 

you could get a little cheaper when you buy 16TB SAS drives for data centers that would cost you around 8-10k just for the drives, something like a Samsung PM1643 if you can get your hands on them.

[DeathPheonix]

8 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

ok so the maximum speed you will ever get out of or into the server will be 1gigabyte/s

Does this storage need to be redundant at all or do you basically need all the raw storage you can get?

 

 

the problem with your budget will be if you need 60TB of use able storage that would cost you ~16000 bucks just for the SSD´s if you want NVME SSD´s assumiing you buy 8x 8 TB so you really end up with 64TB

 

you could get a little cheaper when you buy 16TB SAS drives for data centers that would cost you around 8-10k just for the drives, something like a Samsung PM1643 if you can get your hands on them.

We would need some form of redundancy just to keep it running during the day and allowing us to rebuild the drive during night. Right now we are thinking about getting 24 870 4T evos, 4 drives for each RAIDZ1 and 2 4T SN750 for cache. As I understand, when one drive fails I don't have to take the PC offline?

[Pixel5]

if you use SSD´s there is not really a benefit to having anything as cache drives as the SSD´s alone will already be faster then your network speed allows.

 

Generally i would suggest you take the biggest drives you can reasonably get as this is the easiest way to keep some drive bays and SATA or SAS ports free for future expansions.

For the HBA you should make sure its a newer one that has at least PCI-E 3.0 so you can get the maximum bandwidth out of these SSDs

[DeathPheonix]

10 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

if you use SSD´s there is not really a benefit to having anything as cache drives as the SSD´s alone will already be faster then your network speed allows.

 

Generally i would suggest you take the biggest drives you can reasonably get as this is the easiest way to keep some drive bays and SATA or SAS ports free for future expansions.

For the HBA you should make sure its a newer one that has at least PCI-E 3.0 so you can get the maximum bandwidth out of these SSDs

Since we are using it not only as an storage server， m.2 caching might have a difference I guess (local io and stuff)