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Basement Data Center Lab - Mini-Update 12/10/2010

22K views 153 replies 45 participants last post by  raiderxx 
#1 ·
This is an awesome setup but I have to warn you, eyes may explode (pics will be up tomorrow). My stepdad and I have been working on this as a lab setup for my mom so she can use it to learn FAS and whatnot for her job.

This is currently what we have:

2 selves of 10000 RPM 72GB Fiber channel drives
1 shelf of 15K 144GB fiber channel drives
1 shelf of 10K 300GB fiber channel drives
1 shelf of 7200RPM 500GB SATA drives.

Each self has 14 discs

After you take out overhead, formating, blah blah blah, you come out to about 8TB of storage but you consume like 3200W of power XD

The 3 pizza boxes are these:

SC200 - 2 PIII 1.4GHz - 1GB ram (soon to be 4GB) - will run linux
Another Dual PIII - 2 1.4GHz - 1.5GB ram (soon to be at least 4GB) - will run Server 2008
EMC BJ26 - P4 3.4GHz 2GB ram (soon to be 4GB) - will run Exchange
1u running Celly 433MHz - not sure what to do with it
Dell Insperon 2400 - 2.4GHz celly w/ 512MB of ram, soon to be 2GB (and maybe a P4 2.8GHz) - will run linux
+ a Cisco switch which has 24 Ethernet ports on it

and a SilkWorm Fiber swtich

Each item can and usually has to be configured via console lol

Right now we are in the process of getting everything working. Pics will be up tomorrow (hopefully).

Tell me what you think!

Here is what we have setup ATM... Note that is is incomplete. Also, please note, these are Enterprize class!!!!!!!!! They are meant to stay on for extended periods of time (a year or more) without ever going down. Basically, these are what is in a data center.





 
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7
#2 ·
*scratch head*

PICS!
 
#3 ·
I got some sneak photos uploading now. But for some reason OCN does not like them... so I have to put them on Photobucket e_e
 
#4 ·
awesome, all i understood in the OP was:

Fiber
PIZZA!
Pentium
and storage

lol.
 
#5 ·
Sneak pics added
 
#6 ·
Quote:


Originally Posted by Cerberus
View Post

awesome, all i understood in the OP was:

Fiber
PIZZA!
Pentium
and storage

lol.


Let me knock it down (although I am still wrapping my head around this stuff too because it is all new to me
. And I love new stuff!)

Fiber channel. Basically, imagine something similar to fiber optics.
Pizza box - General term given to a slim computer (will have pics of them tomorrow). They can be used as application servers, support consoles, stuff like that. Thick thin PC
<.<
And as for storage, these things are very secure as they can have up to 2 drives fail! And instead of RAID, you have RAID groups and stuff... still learning. Basically, it is fast but more secure than RAID 5. Yet you do not loose as much disc as you would with RAID 5 (Over large volumes, you loose a lot of space. And for RAID 10, forget it. In large volumes you are going though disc space like air!).
 
#7 ·
awesome!
 
#8 ·
Quote:


Originally Posted by Lord Xeb
View Post

And as for storage, these things are very secure as they can have up to 2 drives fail! And instead of RAID, you have RAID groups and stuff... still learning. Basically, it is fast but more secure than RAID 5. Yet you do not loose as much disc as you would with RAID 5 (which is essentially half of your storage).

Actually. No.

RAID-5 is (N-1)S. You don't lose half the storage. You have a storage equivalent to (N-1) disks. The amount of parity data is equal to 1 disk, but spread out over all the drives.

RAID-1 and RAID-10 is half. RAID-10 is a stripe-set composed of mirrored sets. That is, you take a bunch of RAID-1 arrays, and put them in RAID-0, to create the RAID-10 set. Theoretically, you can lose 1 disk in each RAID-1 array and the whole array will still be up. Of course, if you lose both disks in a RAID-1 array, you're f***ed.

Quote:


Originally Posted by Lord Xeb
View Post

EMC BJ26 - 1 P4 2.8GHz (soon to be upgraded to 3.8GHz) 4GB of RAM - will run Windows Server 2003

I hope you're getting that 3.8GHz upgrade for *really* cheap, because it's not worth upgrading (i.e. not worth spending more money on outdated technology). Granted it's a 1GHz speed increase, unless you're doing something that's CPU-intensive, you won't notice the difference. The system will be fast because you (should) have fast disk system I/O.

Going to be loud as hell with everything going...
Guess that's why you have the area sealed (or trying to get it sealed), lol


Have fun with it all
 
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#9 ·
Quote:


Originally Posted by ComGuards
View Post

Actually. No.

RAID-5 is (N-1)S. You don't lose half the storage. You have a storage equivalent to (N-1) disks. The amount of parity data is equal to 1 disk, but spread out over all the drives.

RAID-1 and RAID-10 is half. RAID-10 is a stripe-set composed of mirrored sets. That is, you take a bunch of RAID-1 arrays, and put them in RAID-0, to create the RAID-10 set. Theoretically, you can lose 1 disk in each RAID-1 array and the whole array will still be up. Of course, if you lose both disks in a RAID-1 array, you're f***ed.

Thanks for clearing that up... LOL <.<
 
#10 ·
What do you actually intend to do with it all?

You enterprise disks are great if you need high capacity and high IOPS, but if you want to do is run a media server then a few 2TB disks would be a better buy - even if you got the above kit for free, you power bill will be so high running it all that buying modern drives will make more sense financially. If you are doing anything cpu-intensive then a newer system will be considerably faster, and if you don't need lots of capacity then an SSD or 2 would be faster still.
 
#12 ·
Theres only one thing I would do with all that. FOLD!
 
#13 ·
Quote:


Originally Posted by Erick Silver
View Post

Theres only one thing I would do with all that. FOLD!

what good is that going to do? There is very little cpu power there - it's all disk subsystem, and folding isn't likely to be I/O bound even on a high-end brand new system.
 
#14 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by the_beast View Post
What do you actually intend to do with it all?

You enterprise disks are great if you need high capacity and high IOPS, but if you want to do is run a media server then a few 2TB disks would be a better buy - even if you got the above kit for free, you power bill will be so high running it all that buying modern drives will make more sense financially. If you are doing anything cpu-intensive then a newer system will be considerably faster, and if you don't need lots of capacity then an SSD or 2 would be faster still.
They are their for learning and training. My mom is moving from the VTL field to FAS (to different beasts) and my step dad wants to get back into hardware. Also, it gives my bro and I (we love computers. I actually drool at them) to mess with enterprise level stuff. And please note, these things will not be on 24/7. TOO MUCH POWER!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaMirrorLink View Post
did i mention that i love you?
I love you to bro. Wanna get some coffee?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erick Silver View Post
Theres only one thing I would do with all that. FOLD!
Your an idiot. All there is here is nothing but disc space. There are CPUs in the head and in the to pizza box computers, but there is no use even bothering folding on them. I mean, have you ever tried to fold on a PIII? *smacks you*

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_beast View Post
what good is that going to do? There is very little cpu power there - it's all disk subsystem, and folding isn't likely to be I/O bound even on a high-end brand new system.
BINGO! Besides, we are really not using this for storage. My step dad would just get a 4TB FAS if he wanted that. In a way, this is just something to mess with.

More pics coming later today hopefully.
 
#15 ·
Well, if you can afford the power bill, then alright, anything you want....

But I can just see it now...

Saturday Night, At a movie
"Psst, son, did you turn off the storage system in the basement before we left?"
"No dad, I didn't have time to log in to each on console to shut 'em all down"
"WHAT?!?!"
"We were late for dinner!"
"This month's power bill is coming out of YOUR allowance"

To be continued...
 
#16 ·
Quote:


Originally Posted by ComGuards
View Post

Well, if you can afford the power bill, then alright, anything you want....

But I can just see it now...

Saturday Night, At a movie
"Psst, son, did you turn off the storage system in the basement before we left?"
"No dad, I didn't have time to log in to each on console to shut 'em all down"
"WHAT?!?!"
"We were late for dinner!"
"This month's power bill is coming out of YOUR allowance"

To be continued...




Nice one
 
#18 ·
Quote:


Originally Posted by ComGuards
View Post

Well, if you can afford the power bill, then alright, anything you want....

But I can just see it now...

Saturday Night, At a movie
"Psst, son, did you turn off the storage system in the basement before we left?"
"No dad, I didn't have time to log in to each on console to shut 'em all down"
"WHAT?!?!"
"We were late for dinner!"
"This month's power bill is coming out of YOUR allowance"

To be continued...


Actually, this is not my toy. It is his. So it is HIS responsibility.

Also I got more pics!
 
#19 ·
PICS!

Pentium 3 SC200 (1 socket with dummy chip)



EMC machine without CPU heat sink:

W/ heat sink and shroud (those little fans move a LOT of air):

The 144F shelf (drives pulled out <.<):

Cisco switch (bro in the background):


Hard drives compared. Can you tell which is fiber channel and which is SATA?:


So just how old is the PIII machine? Well, it has a Rage XL on it
 
#21 ·
<.< Once everything is setup and I understand what is going on, will do a full explanation.
 
#23 ·
That is not going to happen
 
#24 ·
Bump!
 
#25 ·
The shelf of 500GB SATA drives is pretty slick - that should give you some pretty decent storage even with just 500GB drives (say around 6TB - 13*500gb-parity + one hot spare) - that'd be pretty useful. It'd be really sweet if you stuck some 2TB WD RE4GP drives in there - lots o storage, low power.

The FC shelves are pretty sweet too for database and I/O intensive work. I'd recommend playing with those for virtualized environments. You've got enough I/O and storage there to get some pretty decent virtual machines going.

What's the interconnect for the different shelves? Looks like FC from what I can tell - is it 1G, 2G, 4G?
 
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