Help me assemble cheap server

graudeejs

graudeejs

Hello!

You all know me as happy desktop FreeBSD user.
Hopefully that is about to change. I have idea to start my own company.
I want to create server that will be running FreeBSD-8 jails
In jails I will have mail server, web server, ftp server (maybe), Proxy (most likely). Server will be running on ZFS

The problem is that I have very limited resources... Frankly I have no cash at all, I will lend it, but that's not the point.

I've opened local PC shop and assembled something that I think would be good hardware to start.
If I'd decide to buy it today it would cost me 378.57Ls which is about $800.

I tried to pick hardware that was cheap on one hand, and easily upgradable on other hand. Also I tried to pick hardware which consume less power.

So here is what I Picked:
CPU: Athlon II X3 400E 2,2GHz 1,5MB sAM3 AMD AD400EHDGIBOX (45W) (3 yyear warranty)
MB: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (3 year warranty)
RAM: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz ECC Kit of 2 Crucial CT2KIT12864BA1339 (total 8GB) (3 yearr warranty)
HDD: 3x 3,5" SATA 1000GB 5900rpm 32MB Barracuda LP Seagate ST31000520AS (3 yearr warranty)
PSU: 350W ATX Realpower RP-350 Ultron 53590
+ fans and case.

What do you think about my selection? What can you recommend?
 
Well, I'd recommend you use jails, pubkey+password ssh identifcation, gmirror and, also, invest in an UPS (with apcupsd) :)

Also, what will be the (estimated) load of the machine ? You might buy cheap occasion hardware that perfectly fits a mail/ftp server.
 
If you're paranoid, you might want to use GELI and encypt everything (root, swap and your other partitions).

(Sorry for double post, can't edit :| )
 
About load: I have no idea, but I don't think it will be any high...., especially for first 6 months
about the paranoia and everything... I know that....

yes to UPS, but that's later, when things start moving ;)

What can you tell me about my selected hardware.....
 
Since you'll be running several services I would pick a dual or quad core.

Also note that you may want to separate the OS and your data. It's best to keep the data on RAID5 in case one of the drives dies. You need to think of a backup strategy too (something everybody forgets until it's too late).
 
I will use ZFS raid.... will read more about specific stuff.....

For backups I will use my desktop PC. For start server will stay in house.
Also I think I may use geli encryption (yup, I have paranoia)

Is triple core any worse than dual core (shouldn't be)? I did look at quad core, but it was already 65W, so I decided to pick 3x core
 
One thing I was wondering, does motherboard have to support EEC ram, for it to work?
I didn't saw any notice that this MB support it.
 
Unless you really need the space, I'd think again about those disks. Perhaps put some ekstra $$ in a bigger PSU and buy 3-5 smaller, faster disks.
 
killasmurf86 said:
One thing I was wondering, does motherboard have to support EEC ram, for it to work?
I didn't saw any notice that this MB support it.
Click to expand...

Yes. And motherboards supporting ECC ram are usually much more expansive.

And according to this, the motherboard you choose won't support ECC ram.
 
jalla said:
Unless you really need the space, I'd think again about those disks. Perhaps put some ekstra $$ in a bigger PSU and buy 3-5 smaller, faster disks.
Click to expand...

I think it's good price. Anyway i need at least 3 HDD's to build raid, I figured, that for now they can be 3, and later I can add 3 more, because MB can support 6 SATA2 drives :D

Disks 3,5" SATA 500GB 7200rpm 16MB Barracuda 7200.12 Seagate ST3500418AS costs 30.96Ls/pcs (65.26$/pcs) => 1GB/0.13052$

When Disks which I picked cost 48.07Ls/pcs (101.33$/pcs) => 1GB/0.10133$

And Disks I picked have double cache compered to these 500GB disks. And since I'm going to use ZFS I think big Cache is what i need.

Please correct me If I'm wrong....


Also I may open up some hosting... and with raid with 3x1TB hdd I will have 1 to 1.5 TB available.... on one hand it's a lot, on other hand.... information technology evolve every day, and we use more and more data....

sheeesh..... This is hard... when you have to pick between hardware you want, and hardware you can afford


about ram: Searching for sollutions
 
killasmurf86 said:
about ram: Searching for sollutions
Click to expand...

Don't use ECC ? It's not mandatory if you don't want an absolute 100% uptime.

I agree with you about the HDDs : they have a good capacity/price ratio, though I'd rather use UFS2+SoftUpdates+gmirror on it (more mature thus less risks for a production environment).
 
I'm using geli+zfs for months now... I haven't lost a single bit since then.
And I had some nasty power failures....

Even yesterday, when I was compiling OOO packages my PC froze because of strong power flickering, and I have ups...

Still zfs works just fine

Frankly, ever since I started using ZFS life is boring..... You won't understand it until you try it

So as for FS, I'm 100% confident in zfs
 
Artefact2 said:
Don't use ECC ? It's not mandatory if you don't want an absolute 100% uptime.
Click to expand...

Ye I was looking for motherboard with EEC support... but didn't find anything....
Anyway, this ram was very cheap.... so I just say with it.
Maybe if I buy another box (one day) it'll have EEC support, and I'll just swap rams :)
 
I'm also thinking, If I add another 22Ls (~46$) I can get Athlon II X4 600E 2,2GHz 2MB sAM3 AMD AD600EHDGIBOX (45w)
 
killasmurf86 said:
I'm also thinking, If I add another 22Ls (~46$) I can get Athlon II X4 600E 2,2GHz 2MB sAM3 AMD AD600EHDGIBOX (45w)
Click to expand...

If you want performance I still think you should spend some extra money on disks. The difference between 5900 and 7200rpm disks is significant, & like in any raid system, you want to maximize the number of spindles if you want maximum performance.

When it comes to price/Gb I guess 1-to-1.5 Gb disks is currently the sweet spot. However, if you need ~2Tb of usable space and you want decent performance, I would definately choose 5x500Gb at 7200rpm over 3x1Tb at 5900.
 
It just strike me....
I can buy 3x 500GB HDD's +1 64GB SSD
Summery:

CPU: Athlon II X3 400E 2,2GHz 1,5MB sAM3 AMD AD400EHDGIBOX (45W) (3 yyear warranty)
MB: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (3 year warranty)
RAM: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz ECC Kit of 2 Crucial CT2KIT12864BA1339 (total 8GB) (3 yearr warranty)
[red]HDD[/red]: 3x 3,5" SATA 500GB 7200rpm 16MB Barracuda 7200.12 Seagate ST3500418AS (3 year warranty)
[red]SSD[/red]: 2,5'' SATA 64GB SSDNow V-Series Kingston SNV125-S2BN 64GB (3 year warranty)
PSU: 350W ATX Realpower RP-350 Ultron 53590
+ fans and case.

This setup will cost: 408.11 Ls (862.63$)..... oh and I wanted Cheap hardware....

It's 100Ls more than I wanted before I started to calculate expenses :)
 
What file system setup with ZFS/UFS are you planning to have?
SSDs are mostly used to store complicated or very high internal bandwidth databases, its kinda pointless to keep anything else there for non-local use.
 
No UFS.....
SSD could be used for zfs cache, it will speed up zfs greatly

It's pretty much optional, I can buy and insert it at any given moment, If I need to improve performace
 
I think 350 watt power in not enough for you
because you use many HDD and they use many power it is better you but powerful power , you wanbt make server and this system is always is ON , you know low power maybe damage your system and you loose many thing like hardware and ...
 
I recently spent a lot of time speccing up new PC hardware to form the basis of a FreeBSD/ZFS file server.

I too was looking for ECC memory initially, as a common consideration in ZFS articles was something like "ZFS itself may be exceptional at maintaining data integrity on disk, but what if the data gets corrupted before it gets to disks by a cosmic ray flipping a bit in RAM?".

What I found though was that in these days of memory controllers being integral in the CPU, not only does the motherboard have to support ECC but the processor does too. This usually means switching to the server-grade CPU products like Xeon. By the time you've bought your more expensive RAM, motherboard and CPU, prices have jumped up considerably.

In the end I opted for normal RAM as my fileserver would only be holding digital media ripped from the originals and it would only be written to rarely.
 
this is from local hp representative, this is dl385, two way server. ram is little bit slow - 400mhz. but still a good start.
i doubt that they ship out of country but you can try to find similar configuration.
Code: 
Part NO:	391110-421
cpu:	           Dual-core AMD 265 (1.8 GHz) Opteron Processor
chipset:	   AMD Opteron 8000 series Chipset
installed ram:	   1024
max ram:	   32 GB RAM
Max hdd, type:	   Up to six (6) 1" Ultra320 SCSI Hot Plug Hard Drives
network controler: NC7782 Dual Port PCI-X Gigabit Server Adapter (embedded)
expansition slots: 2x 64-bit/100MHz PCI-X, 3.3 Volt; 1x 64-bit/133MHz PCI-X, 3.3 Volt
psu:	           575 Watt, CE Mark CompliantOptional Hot Plug AC; Redundant Power Supply
internal ports:	   Serial - 1; Pointing Device (Mouse) - 1; Graphics - 1; Keyboard - 1;
 Network RJ-45 - 3 (1 for iLO); USB - 3 (1 front, 2 back)
optical drive:	   24x IDE CD-ROM
form factor:	   Rack (2U)
dimention and weight:	44.54 x 66.07 x 8.59 cm, 20.41 kg
price:	331 EUR
P.S. all typos are mine! ;)
 
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