Need help with server specs for a school's robotics and tinkering lab

[ManitVig]

Hi Everyone,

My school is planning to get a server for our robotics and tinkering lab (STEM Lab) and as the student incharge it is my responsibility to find the server to buy.

 

The server would act both storage as well as working directory for our projects since we are fed up of searching a dozen of pc and laptops everytime we need a single file for a single project.

 

The server would have to store all our codes, video editing projects, CAD CAM designs, blender projects etc. and I want to work on them directly of the server nothing to be stored on workstations.

 

Can anyone please suggest configurations for this project. I personally love the server Linus recently deployed at his new home the one 90tb of nvme storage with Kioxia CD6 drives but I feel something like that is a bit overkill and would be costly as hell.

 

Edit: Forgot to add the budget 5000 USD

Edited September 30, 2021 by ManitVig
Forgot to add the budget

[adarw]

you need a budget. no one can help you if you dont have a budget.

 

[GDRRiley]

so your after a nas thats easy to do,

budget?

[ManitVig]

9 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

so your after a nas thats easy to do,

budget?

 

 

13 minutes ago, adarw said:

you need a budget. no one can help you if you dont have a budget.

 

USD 5000

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, ManitVig said:

 

 

USD 5000

current storage needs and expect growth, backup plan?

[ManitVig]

4 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

current storage needs and expect growth, backup plan?

Would like to have atleast 10tb of storage to begin with and based on our current workload our storage requirements increases by around 500gb per year. I prefer having weekly backups and that would also be ideal for the use case.

[GDRRiley]

3 minutes ago, ManitVig said:

Would like to have atleast 10tb of storage to begin with and based on our current workload our storage requirements increases by around 500gb per year. I prefer having weekly backups and that would also be ideal for the use case.

are you going to have the backups off site or cloud?

Synology DiskStation DS420+ software stack is easy here my one complaint is only 1gb nics, why they haven't moved to 2.5gb or 5gb is beyond me

 

I'd get 5 of these drives, keep one as a cold spare next to the NAS

https://www.newegg.com/seagate-exos-x16-st16000nm001g-16tb/p/1Z4-002P-015K6?Item=1Z4-002P-015K6&nm_mc=AFC-RAN-COM&cm_mmc=AFC-RAN-COM&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-PCPartPicker&AFFID=2558510&AFFNAME=PCPartPicker&ACRID=1&ASID=https%3a%2f%2fpcpartpicker.com%2f&ranMID=44583&ranEAID=2558510&ranSiteID=8BacdVP0GFs-arXA3JoO8eTBp_XLGPCZEw

[ManitVig]

9 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

are you going to have the backups off site or cloud?

Synology DiskStation DS420+ software stack is easy here my one complaint is only 1gb nics, why they haven't moved to 2.5gb or 5gb is beyond me

 

I'd get 5 of these drives, keep one as a cold spare next to the NAS

https://www.newegg.com/seagate-exos-x16-st16000nm001g-16tb/p/1Z4-002P-015K6?Item=1Z4-002P-015K6&nm_mc=AFC-RAN-COM&cm_mmc=AFC-RAN-COM&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-PCPartPicker&AFFID=2558510&AFFNAME=PCPartPicker&ACRID=1&ASID=https%3a%2f%2fpcpartpicker.com%2f&ranMID=44583&ranEAID=2558510&ranSiteID=8BacdVP0GFs-arXA3JoO8eTBp_XLGPCZEw

Thanks for your suggestion but I was thinking for a rackmount server for ease of maintainance and would a 2 core cpu would be able to handle such a workload I mean we are going to edit videos directly off the server and I want to be able to access the files from atleast 8 machines simultaneously

[GDRRiley]

5 minutes ago, ManitVig said:

Thanks for your suggestion but I was thinking for a rackmount server for ease of maintainance and would a 2 core cpu would be able to handle such a workload I mean we are going to edit videos directly off the server and I want to be able to access the files from atleast 8 machines simultaneously

file sharing takes very little power. what kind of videos? that will give me some idea of the nic speed needed?

rackmount server means its going to be loud and you won't want to be in the same space as it.

[ManitVig]

5 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

file sharing takes very little power. what kind of videos? that will give me some idea of the nic speed needed?

rackmount server means its going to be loud and you won't want to be in the same space as it.

space is not a problem since we have a spare room adjacent to the lab. Basically we shoot videos of the projects since almost all events require them. currently we shoot them using phones but we might end up getting a good quality dslr camera. For editing we use either premier pro or davinci resolve. We would also want to work on our autocad and fusion 360 projects while editing as well on different workstations obviously.

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, ManitVig said:

space is not a problem since we have a spare room adjacent to the lab. Basically we shoot videos of the projects since almost all events require them. currently we shoot them using phones but we might end up getting a good quality dslr camera. For editing we use either premier pro or davinci resolve. We would also want to work on our autocad and fusion 360 projects while editing as well on different workstations obviously.

okay.

I still wouldn't go rack mount over desktop here Synology DiskStation DS1821+ can have a PCIE 10gb nic added, get ether an intel one or use one of synolgys recommended ones.  I'd use the same drives but get 9

[ManitVig]

3 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

okay.

I still wouldn't go rack mount over desktop here Synology DiskStation DS1821+ can have a PCIE 10gb nic added, get ether an intel one or use one of synolgys recommended ones.  I'd use the same drives but get 9

why shouldn't I go for a rackmount?

[GDRRiley]

Just now, ManitVig said:

why shouldn't I go for a rackmount?

loud, getting a 8-12 drive RU box in a 2U is going to easily be 3k+ and unless you've already got a rack its pointless

[ManitVig]

2 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

loud, getting a 8-12 drive RU box in a 2U is going to easily be 3k+ and unless you've already got a rack its pointless

wouldn't it be good in the long run though if we end up adding more servers in the future also one more thing I forgot to mention that maybe it ends up being used by the entire school and not only for the purposes of the lab but for storage and working directory for the whole staff so that is something it should be capable of doing

[GDRRiley]

Just now, ManitVig said:

wouldn't it be good in the long run though if we end up adding more servers in the future also one more thing I forgot to mention that maybe it ends up being used by the entire school and not only for the purposes of the lab but for storage and working directory for the whole staff so that is something it should be capable of doing

for that your talking about building out a lot more than just a NAS for a robotics club and stem lab

thats a full school wide cluster of servers for doing a variety of things.

1. way outside the budget and original scope

2. something that IT staff or contractors should be planning

3.Going from 10 users to 100+ isn't a minor change

[ManitVig]

2 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

for that your talking about building out a lot more than just a NAS for a robotics club and stem lab

thats a full school wide cluster of servers for doing a variety of things.

1. way outside the budget and original scope

2. something that IT staff or contractors should be planning

3.Going from 10 users to 100+ isn't a minor change

its not 100+ just around 50-60

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 hours ago, ManitVig said:

wouldn't it be good in the long run though if we end up adding more servers in the future also one more thing I forgot to mention that maybe it ends up being used by the entire school and not only for the purposes of the lab but for storage and working directory for the whole staff so that is something it should be capable of doing

Does your school have a IT dept, Id work with them here.

 

What os are you using? Do you need to work with AD?

 

What network speeds do you have setup.

 

13 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

okay.

I still wouldn't go rack mount over desktop here Synology DiskStation DS1821+ can have a PCIE 10gb nic added, get ether an intel one or use one of synolgys recommended ones.  I'd use the same drives but get 9

If you got a rack why not go rack mount, the synology rack systems are pretty quiet, and most schools ive seen have a rack already.

[GDRRiley]

2 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you got a rack why not go rack mount, the synology rack systems are pretty quiet, and most schools ive seen have a rack already.

because most racks I've seen in schools are not planned to be hot racks, its 2 post networking and because until this point the need was for a NAS not a full server stack

while 300W is a minor power increase in a rack built for 60A of 208/240 its a lot of a rack planned from 120 20A/30A.  did they spec cooling high enough?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, GDRRiley said:

because most racks I've seen in schools are not planned to be hot racks, its 2 post networking and because until this point the need was for a NAS not a full server stack

Those synologys are kinda made for those racks, there not very deep or heavy.

 

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

while 300W is a minor power increase in a rack built for 60A of 208/240 its a lot of a rack planned from 120 20A/30A.  did they spec cooling high enough?

Yea plan power, 

 

but the synology 1/2u systems are normally about 100-150w peak, not 300w.

 

 

Really work with IT, they hate it when you just add stuff like this to a network.