Can I have some views on this please?

[Sniper Xls]

Hey guys,

Would like some views on my current storage solution and see what is best where and when to spend money ect. My current sever stands as the following.
 

Streaming and Download server PC
I7 4790K
H100 corsair Gtx Cooler
MSI gaming 7 board
16GB DDR 3 Corsair Vengenace Ram
980 Reference SLI
850 evo 250GB
2tb WD black 
Sp 120mm fans
AF 140mm x3
AF 120mm x1
Corsair briaded Cables
M1 Parvum case

As you can see this is a high end server designed for VMware virtual box a lot of network virtualization in GNS3 as well as a remote log in box to access my physical server and rack devices.  I am a bit of a storage nut to give you some background I currently have a server 4tb 2x2Tb wd red in raid 0 with a 4tb external back up. I was not happy with this as raid 0 while fast the back up is on a normal desktop grade seagate drive. I wanted something more expandable and more faster ect. This is where Parvum really stepped up I contacted them as I wanted an M1 to match my R1.0 and my X2.0 but I wanted to know how many drives they could physically put inside an M1. The answer 6 3.5 and 2 2.5 perfect! 

Now with the questions.
My current thought is to use the 2tb wd black for vm ware ect and to get 2 6TB wd reds and use them as media storage stuff I dont mind if I loose so to speak. Then 1 4tb wd red as a better more reliable back up to my NAS a back up I can do once a day or week or run a program that once a change is made in the NAS its changed on the drive. That is one way of going about it.

2nd way would be to take out the drive from teh external put it inside the new case and leave that as my NAS back up and carry on. Then rather than buying the 4tb wd red use the money to get two 8TB wd reds. But this would cause a little bit of a mix of dives in the server with a seagate a WD black and two WD reds. 

I am more than open to other ways of doing this as I just want a huge server for all my remote needs but dont want to spend LOADS on the drives.

Any help is welcome! 

 

[iRileyx]

Thats more of a gaming PC than a server..

[OPSJono]

27 minutes ago, Sniper Xls said:

<snip>

 

 

18 minutes ago, RKRiley said:

Thats more of a gaming PC than a server..

^ Yeah.

 

Why the dual 980's for a server exactly?

 

It's a high spec gaming for sure. But I wouldn't say it was built for server use. (even if that's what it's doing now).

[Sniper Xls]

Been honest the server was not design to be a server from the bat. It is my old PC gaming rig but I will make use more of the GPUs in applications such as GSN3 and rather than selling it storage server and making it a OTT virtual host for my network needs is always good. 

[Mikensan]

My current thought is to use the 2tb wd black for vm ware ect 
-You won't be able to run too many virtual machines on this, maybe 1-2 if they're active/busy.
and to get 2 6TB wd reds and use them as media storage stuff I dont mind if I loose so to speak. 
-Are you going to stripe them or mirror them? Or just put them into a storage pool? I'd try to break it out to multiple disks.
Then 1 4tb wd red as a better more reliable back up to my NAS a back up I can do once a day or week or run a program that once a change is made in the NAS its changed on the drive. That is one way of going about it.

-It's good you are looking to back up your data to a separate disk. This could be a USB external, no need for it to be a red internal.

 

2nd way 
take out the drive from teh external put it inside the new case and leave that as my NAS back up and carry on. 

-This is only 4TB correct?
Then rather than buying the 4tb wd red use the money to get two 8TB wd reds. But this would cause a little bit of a mix of dives in the server with a seagate a WD black and two WD reds. 

-I would get 4x 4tb or 8x 2tb instead of 2x 8TB - so you can create some sort of parity solution. Having 16tb of data live on only 2 disks is risky business.
I am more than open to other ways of doing this as I just want a huge server for all my remote needs but dont want to spend LOADS on the drives.
Any help is welcome!  

 

 

What operating system do you plan to use?

[leadeater]

Personally I would sell one or both 980's, while nice to have some good spare GPUs around they don't serve much purpose in a server designed for storage and running VMs. Not a big deal just seems like a good way to raise extra funds, I would also be very torn to sell them but as we all know even high end GPUs become very obsolete quickly.

 

Running VMs is a job for SSDs now days, don't bother spending extra on WD Blacks/Reds since ultimately you'll be able to run as many VMs on it as a WD Blue.

 

I would upgrade the storage/server in multiple stages to keep the cost down and to make sure you have a solid plan to follow.

 

Part 1:

120GB SSD for OS/Boot: Almost anything will do i.e WD Green SSD, Samsung 750/850 EVO, Crucial MX300, Intel 540s

250GB SSD for VMs: Reuse existing Samsung 850 EVO

3 large HDDs for storage: Reuse 2TB black and add required size WD Blues.

 

For the large storage pool use Storage Spaces two-way mirror to start off with, this gives good read/write performance at the cost of 50% usable space. Mixed disk size is supported. For backups just use an external USB device.

 

Part 2:

2x 120GB SSD RAID 1 for OS/Boot: Almost anything will do i.e WD Green SSD, Samsung 750/850 EVO, Crucial MX300, Intel 540s

2x 250GB SSD Two-Way Mirror for VMs: Reuse existing Samsung 850 EVO

IBM M1015-IT HBA with 2 SFF-8087 to 4x SATA so 8 SATA ports total (cheap on ebay)

4 large HDD: at this point stop using the 2TB Black as it's too small to bother with. 4 large WD Blues.

 

Continue running Storage Spaces in a two-way mirror configuration for the HDDs and use Storage Spaces two-way mirror for the SDDs storing the VMs.

 

Part 3:

2x 120GB SSD RAID 1 for OS/Boot: Almost anything will do i.e WD Green SSD, Samsung 750/850 EVO, Crucial MX300, Intel 540s

2x 250GB SSD for journal disks in Storage Spaces: Basically a write cache.

IBM M1015-IT HBA with 2 SFF-8087 to 4x SATA so 8 SATA ports total (cheap on ebay)

6 large HDD: 6 large WD Blues.

 

Reconfigure your Storage Space configuration to Dual Parity using 6 large HDDs and 2 SSDs as journal disks.

 

Remember SSDs can be located basically anywhere so save your mounts for HDDs and your not really limited in the number of disks other than 3.5" HDDs. The final system can actually support 8 HDDs if you can mount them.

 

Feel free to alter as you see fit, for example if your storage needs aren't going to grow much you can stop at part 2 and even remove the IBM M1015 and just use 2x 6TB/8TB WD Blues in a two-way mirror.

 

Also you don't actually need to buy WD Reds if using Storage Spaces. WD Reds have a much more demanding workload in mind so if your not continuously reading and writing from them 24/7 WD Blues will save you money in the long run. Even if a disk fails the cheaper cost wins out easily, especially if you end up having 6-8 disks. 

 

P.S. I'm assuming your running Windows and want to continue to run Windows on this system.

[SCHISCHKA]

if your back up disks are only going to be written to once per week then you can use the cheap WD blue drives instead of red. They will last forever used this way. 

You can RAID0 a WD black, its the mirroring RAID levels that need special drives.

Put your VM operating systems on a SSD, you will thank me for this.

[Sniper Xls]

16 hours ago, leadeater said:

Personally I would sell one or both 980's, while nice to have some good spare GPUs around they don't serve much purpose in a server designed for storage and running VMs. Not a big deal just seems like a good way to raise extra funds, I would also be very torn to sell them but as we all know even high end GPUs become very obsolete quickly.

 

Running VMs is a job for SSDs now days, don't bother spending extra on WD Blacks/Reds since ultimately you'll be able to run as many VMs on it as a WD Blue.

 

I would upgrade the storage/server in multiple stages to keep the cost down and to make sure you have a solid plan to follow.

 

Part 1:

120GB SSD for OS/Boot: Almost anything will do i.e WD Green SSD, Samsung 750/850 EVO, Crucial MX300, Intel 540s

250GB SSD for VMs: Reuse existing Samsung 850 EVO

3 large HDDs for storage: Reuse 2TB black and add required size WD Blues.

 

For the large storage pool use Storage Spaces two-way mirror to start off with, this gives good read/write performance at the cost of 50% usable space. Mixed disk size is supported. For backups just use an external USB device.

 

Part 2:

2x 120GB SSD RAID 1 for OS/Boot: Almost anything will do i.e WD Green SSD, Samsung 750/850 EVO, Crucial MX300, Intel 540s

2x 250GB SSD Two-Way Mirror for VMs: Reuse existing Samsung 850 EVO

IBM M1015-IT HBA with 2 SFF-8087 to 4x SATA so 8 SATA ports total (cheap on ebay)

4 large HDD: at this point stop using the 2TB Black as it's too small to bother with. 4 large WD Blues.

 

Continue running Storage Spaces in a two-way mirror configuration for the HDDs and use Storage Spaces two-way mirror for the SDDs storing the VMs.

 

Part 3:

2x 120GB SSD RAID 1 for OS/Boot: Almost anything will do i.e WD Green SSD, Samsung 750/850 EVO, Crucial MX300, Intel 540s

2x 250GB SSD for journal disks in Storage Spaces: Basically a write cache.

IBM M1015-IT HBA with 2 SFF-8087 to 4x SATA so 8 SATA ports total (cheap on ebay)

6 large HDD: 6 large WD Blues.

 

Reconfigure your Storage Space configuration to Dual Parity using 6 large HDDs and 2 SSDs as journal disks.

 

Remember SSDs can be located basically anywhere so save your mounts for HDDs and your not really limited in the number of disks other than 3.5" HDDs. The final system can actually support 8 HDDs if you can mount them.

 

Feel free to alter as you see fit, for example if your storage needs aren't going to grow much you can stop at part 2 and even remove the IBM M1015 and just use 2x 6TB/8TB WD Blues in a two-way mirror.

 

Also you don't actually need to buy WD Reds if using Storage Spaces. WD Reds have a much more demanding workload in mind so if your not continuously reading and writing from them 24/7 WD Blues will save you money in the long run. Even if a disk fails the cheaper cost wins out easily, especially if you end up having 6-8 disks. 

 

P.S. I'm assuming your running Windows and want to continue to run Windows on this system.

 

First off thank you for taking time to write such an indepth reply. Very much appreciated.  

Now down to business. 
I feel I left some information out which could be important to this subject my bad I typed it all out at work and posted then thought I would check replies later.
The 980s are in there from my old rig and while I agree overkill for a server but I will be doing some game streaming to systems all around my house I did forget to mention that. 

I was thinking of sitting with WD reds 8TBs and getting a 2nd 850 evo for vms I took apart the external HDD for the NAS I currently have running its a 4tb seagate desktop good reliability after looking up model number.  I will be running windows 10 on it due to game stream and just downloading films as well as vms can access remote via team viewer externally and use wake on LAN to wake it up remote when needed. 

Without sounding too much of a A** the money is not the issue of getting cheaper drives even though I said I did not want to spend a load I was more hinting at not going enterprise level such as 10TB WD gold line up ect.. 

Thank you again.