DIY Server for CAD; about 20TB of storage

[Bismut]

Hi everyone,

 

I am looking to build a server. I need fast access (at least 10GBit) to be able to work off it and also deal with larger files, think ~100GB. The budget is 1000€ and I do not have to pay for power. It is important that the parts are coming from a seller that offers a receipt with tax on it though, because it would be a huge accounting effort not to have that (it would be okay if the parts are CHEAP if bought from a seller that does not offer a receipt).

My thoughts for parts were:

• Case: Inter-Tech 3U-30255 (~115€) or Inter-Tech 4F28 (~135€) for their large 3.5" drive capacity; I could also re-purpose an old tower, but would like to be able to properly mount the server in a rack.
• Ethernet: Intel X540-T2 because it is cheap (~17€) but I am unsure wether it would work? There has got to be some reason for it being so cheap.
• OS: TrueNas or ProxMox, I am leaning towards TrueNas but would be open to pretty much everything
• Drives:
  • There are SEAGATE ENTERPRISE ST4000NM0034 4TB SAS-3 drives listed for 64€/4TB, but you would need some sort of SAS adapter for them and the cheapest one I was able to find is this HP Smart Array P822 SAS RAID Controller; it is supposed to sorta support HBA mode, according to this thread.
  • Another, S-ATA based option would be Seagate Exos E - 7E10 8TB or 7E8 drives for 160€/piece, for which I would need some sort of extra S-ATA controller as well if I go with 4TB drives.
• I am still unsure about the motherboard, CPU, RAM and so on; I might be able to get an old system for pretty cheap/free, the other idea would be a cheap AM4 board (think GIGABYTE B450 AORUS Elite V2, ASRock B450 Pro4 R2.0), AMD Ryzen 5 4500/3600 and as much RAM as I can get, I have a 32GB stick laying around and would likely just buy one or three more, depending on how much RAM I actually need; total would be about 230€.
• I also have an old 600W PSU laying around. It is not that great, but works - I might be interested in a better one, though

I would be happy to hear everyones thoughts/recommendations.

Edited January 31 by Bismut
PSU

[Electronics Wizardy]

Do nyou care about noise? How about power?

 

I'd probably just get something like a 2u 12 bay server Should be a good amount cheaper than the diy board, and with features like ipmi there overall better.  IDK prices in your area though. They also normally come with sas, and ram is pretty cheap too.

 

4 minutes ago, Bismut said:

• Ethernet: Intel X540-T2 because it is cheap (~17€) but I am unsure wether it would work? There has got to be some reason for it being so cheap.
•  

Seems like about right for prices. Check if its SFP+/rj45 to make sure it works with the rest of your network.

 

 

FOr adding drives I'd get the sas HBAs, look at models like the LSI 9300-8i.

 

 

[Bismut]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do nyou care about noise? How about power?

 

I'd probably just get something like a 2u 12 bay server

Power and noise are whatever, it will be in a closet and power is free for me.

 

Where might I find one? I did a quick search, but they started at about 700€.

 

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

FOr adding drives I'd get the sas HBAs, look at models like the LSI 9300-8i.

Those start at about 80€, unless I want one shipped from China.

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, Bismut said:

I was able to find is this HP Smart Array P822 SAS RAID Controller; it is supposed to sorta support HBA mode, according to this thread.

That's an external SAS card for connecting storage shelves, not suitable for connecting internal HDDs in the same server chassis.

 

Any LSI 9211 IT Mode based SAS card will be suitable for you and a lot on ebay.

 

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

look at models like the LSI 9300-8i.

Or this is you want newer and faster but if HDD only it's not going to matter much. 9300-8i will have a longer expected life though, 9211 is getting really old now.

 

12 minutes ago, Bismut said:

Ethernet: Intel X540-T2 because it is cheap

I have one of these, works totally fine. Doesn't have any fancy features you won't actually need, only downside is fibre/DAC isn't an option if you want or ever need it.

[Bismut]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That's an external SAS card for connecting storage shelves, not suitable for connecting internal HDDs in the same server chassis.

 

Any LSI 9211 IT Mode based SAS card will be suitable for you and a lot on ebay.

I would have used the two internal ports, or just run the cable back into the server through a PCI slot.

They are a bit more expensive (~40€), but I guess that is worth it?

 

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Or this is you want newer and faster but if HDD only it's not going to matter much. 9300-8i will have a longer expected life though, 9211 is getting really old now.

Price is more important, especially because they come with a limited warranty.

 

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I have one of these, works totally fine. Doesn't have any fancy features you won't actually need, only downside is fibre/DAC isn't an option if you want or ever need it.

Seems unlikely to happen, but I feel like it would be okay to buy another card if I only spend 17€ on this one.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 minutes ago, Bismut said:

Power and noise are whatever, it will be in a closet and power is free for me.

 

Where might I find one? I did a quick search, but they started at about 700€.

ebay is your friend. Look up things like dell r720 and other options.

 

 

[Bismut]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

ebay is your friend. Look up things like dell r720 and other options.

a) IDK whether Ebay is my friend, I waste a lot of money on that platform.
b) Those Dells seem neat

c) can you point me to some of the other options? I am not too familiar with them because power is not free, usually

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Bismut said:

I would have used the two internal ports, or just run the cable back into the server through a PCI slot.

Ah I was just being blind I see 

 

Yea totally fine then so long as HBA mode supported, which I can confirm is. Just be aware HBA mode on this card is not a true HBA functionality/operating but it'll be fine. If you want the true HBA that'll be the 9211 with IT firmware.

 

Up to you how much you care about how proper the HBA functionality is.

 

8 minutes ago, Bismut said:

Seems unlikely to happen, but I feel like it would be okay to buy another card if I only spend 17€ on this one.

Yep very true

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Bismut said:

a) IDK whether Ebay is my friend, I waste a lot of money on that platform.
b) Those Dells seem neat

c) can you point me to some of the other options? I am not too familiar with them because power is not free, usually

Those systems typically can have pretty reasonable power. If power is a goal, get fewer bigger drives, like 2x 20TB HDDs is gonna be a lot less power than a few of the older 4TB drives. 

 

Look at Supermicro, HP, Lenovo, and other options too. Something like a DL 380 g8 is a HP option or a x3650 m5 from Lenovo.

[Bismut]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Those systems typically can have pretty reasonable power. If power is a goal, get fewer bigger drives, like 2x 20TB HDDs is gonna be a lot less power than a few of the older 4TB drives. 

Power as in power draw, sorry. Could have been more clear on that one, I  usually care about my systems not drawing too much (a constant 20W load is about 50€/year, I think? Not too much, but it adds up).

This system can draw as much as the outlet is able to provide though (about 3kW), and I have thought that more Drives = more performance because of being able to write data to multiple drives at once?

 

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Look at Supermicro, HP, Lenovo, and other options too. Something like a DL 380 g8 is a HP option or a x3650 m5 from Lenovo.

Will do, thanks

 

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Ah I was just being blind I see 

It happens. Would it be possible to misuse the external cables to connect internal drives, though?

 

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea totally fine then so long as HBA mode supported, which I can confirm is. Just be aware HBA mode on this card is not a true HBA functionality/operating but it'll be fine. If you want the true HBA that'll be the 9211 with IT firmware.

 

Up to you how much you care about how proper the HBA functionality is.

I mostly just need to connect all the drives and have heard that hardware RAID is not the greatest of ideas nowadays, especially with the OSes listed?

Also, can you recommend cables to use in case I go with the DIY version? There are some cheap cables that break out to 4x S-ATA and 17€ cables that break out to SFF-8482.

[PDifolco]

1 hour ago, Bismut said:

Hi everyone,

 

I am looking to build a server. I need fast access (at least 10GBit) to be able to work off it and also deal with larger files, think ~100GB. The budget is 1000€ and I do not have to pay for power. It is important that the parts are coming from a seller that offers a receipt with tax on it though, because it would be a huge accounting effort not to have that (it would be okay if the parts are CHEAP if bought from a seller that does not offer a receipt).

My thoughts for parts were:

• Case: Inter-Tech 3U-30255 (~115€) or Inter-Tech 4F28 (~135€) for their large 3.5" drive capacity; I could also re-purpose an old tower, but would like to be able to properly mount the server in a rack.
• Ethernet: Intel X540-T2 because it is cheap (~17€) but I am unsure wether it would work? There has got to be some reason for it being so cheap.
• OS: TrueNas or ProxMox, I am leaning towards TrueNas but would be open to pretty much everything
• Drives:
  • There are SEAGATE ENTERPRISE ST4000NM0034 4TB SAS-3 drives listed for 64€/4TB, but you would need some sort of SAS adapter for them and the cheapest one I was able to find is this HP Smart Array P822 SAS RAID Controller; it is supposed to sorta support HBA mode, according to this thread.
  • Another, S-ATA based option would be Seagate Exos E - 7E10 8TB or 7E8 drives for 160€/piece, for which I would need some sort of extra S-ATA controller as well if I go with 4TB drives.
• I am still unsure about the motherboard, CPU, RAM and so on; I might be able to get an old system for pretty cheap/free, the other idea would be a cheap AM4 board (think GIGABYTE B450 AORUS Elite V2, ASRock B450 Pro4 R2.0), AMD Ryzen 5 4500/3600 and as much RAM as I can get, I have a 32GB stick laying around and would likely just buy one or three more, depending on how much RAM I actually need; total would be about 230€.
• I also have an old 600W PSU laying around. It is not that great, but works - I might be interested in a better one, though

I would be happy to hear everyones thoughts/recommendations.

I'm pretty ignorant about server stuff, so it's more of a question, but if you just need accessible storage won't a NAS be cheaper and ready to go ?

[Bismut]

14 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

I'm pretty ignorant about server stuff, so it's more of a question, but if you just need accessible storage won't a NAS be cheaper and ready to go ?

I would generally go with a NAS (or just a Hard drive) as well, but there might be three to five people accessing the files at the same time (I... should have put that in the original post), so there might be the need for mo power babey. Doing a quick search provided me with options starting at 600€ if I want 10GBit, with only two or five hard drive bays and celeron class processors.

Since power consumption is no concern and hardware/used business servers so cheap, I felt like it would be better to go that route.

Edit: 10Gb SFP+ is cheaper, if you are okay with 2GB or RAM and a not-so-powerful GPU.

Edited January 31 by Bismut

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Bismut said:

It happens. Would it be possible to misuse the external cables to connect internal drives, though?

Yep can, just will look a little ugly

 

Looks for these cables:

• SFF-8088 to 4 SATA
• SFF-8088 to 4X SAS SFF-8482

[Bismut]

Just now, leadeater said:

SFF-8088 to 4 SATA

Do those work with SAS, though? It seems to me that SAS drives have a different connnector on them.

 

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

SFF-8088 to 4X SAS SFF-8482

Oioioi, 33€ for a pack of two. But oh well, I might just have to do that if I end up going with those drives.

[leadeater]

16 minutes ago, Bismut said:

Do those work with SAS, though? It seems to me that SAS drives have a different connnector on them.

No but the second one I listed does