My server build (FlexRAID)
#1
Hi there!

So I finally have built a server, and now that it is more or less finished, I thought I would share some info on it. First, the parts and their cost:

Case: Xigmatek Asgard 381 - 48,28€
Motherboard: Asrock B75 Pro3-M - 63,95€
CPU: Intel Celeron G540 - 35,49€
RAM: GSkill DDR3 1333 2x2GB - 19,99€
HDD (OS): HGST 2,5" 320GB - 36,49€
Power Supply: Corsair CX500M - 52,50€
Xilence fans (x2): 10,90€
Cables: 36,3€ (Sata, molex-to-2xSata, molex-to-1xSata, HDMI, Ethernet, fan regulators; not all of them were used)
Shipping and other extra costs: 8,95€

Total (HW): 312,85€

To that I have to add the FlexRAID license, for RAID-F and Pooling: 48€

Total (HW+SW): 360,85€


For storage, I had 3 2TB USB Hard drives (2 Verbatims and 1 CnMemory), which I dissassembled and mounted internally. They are 2 Seagates (ST2000DL003-9VT166 and ST32000542AS) and a Samsung (HD204UI). In the coming weeks I hope to get 1 or 2 drives, either 2 or 3TB, but probably the later.

I decided on the G540 because lots of people seemed to agree that it's a good CPU for this purpose, also it was easy to get and very cheap, and should be more that powerfull enough for my purposes.

The case was difficult to find, as there were lots of options. Fortunately, I found that Xigmatek, which was cheap and had very nice specs: 8 internal 3,5" HDD bays, 3 external 5,25" and 1 internal 2,5". That allows for up to 13 3,5" drives, plus the 2,5" one. It has also place to place up to 6 12cm fans (some can even be 14cm ones) and has quite a nice cabling system. For the price it's great, althoug the quality is, as expected, on the cheaper side, specially the quick mounts (I may change to screws in the future); it won't compete with the Lian Li ones. For now, I took the easy way routing the cables, and as I add more I will probably keep changing that.

For the Power Supply, I could get quite a good price on the Corsair CX500M, which is modular, which should help keeping everything clean. At the moment, with only 4 HDDs fitted, it's easy, but I'm curious how it will look like when the 8 HDD bays are occupied.

For the OS drive, I ended up using a 640GB 2,5" Samsung drive I had on my Openelec machine for the server, and installed the new smaller HGST to the openelec box, which doesn't need that much space (for now, I store my +150GB music on the openelec box).

I'm still playing with the fan regulators, but as configured now, the temperature of the drives while idle is about 26°C, which I think is Ok. If they get much hotter I can make the fans run faster.

For the Software part, I have installed Linux Mint 14 Mate edition as the OS, and then installed and configured some stuff, like FlexRAID, aMule and Sabnzbd. I also configured Xorg to start headless (no monitor nor keyboard connected) with a resolution of 1366x768, and then configured remote access using the vino VNC server. This way, I can connect via VNC using my laptop, should I need that. Amule runs using the amule daemon, and I can connect using the amulegui app from my laptop or via amule web server on any machine.

And, to finish, pics or it didn't happen:
Image
Some more images here: http://imageshack.us/g/1/10060384/

As you can see, I'm not that good at making photos!

Any comments are welcome!
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#2
I thought I would add some notes on what I have done on the Software side, somebody may find this handy. This is not a complete guide, but rather some guidelines. Should you have any questions I will try to assist and help

-I run Linux Min 14 64bit, Mate edition. Installed to a 640GB 2,5" drive, partition with 15GB for /, 4Gb for swap and the rest for /home
-Using the network manager, I set the server to have a static IP. 192.168.10.25 in this case.
-I installed some extras: ubuntu-restricted-extras, which adds some nice things to the install, all non-free stuff
-I installed amule-daemon and sabnzdb plus, and set /etc/default/amule-daemon and /etc/default/sabnzdbplus with my user name, so that they can run at startup, even if the Mate desktop is not started.
-Since I run a 64bit system, I had to install ia32-libs, as FlexRAID will run in 32 bit mode.
-I installed FlexRAID using this guide: http://www.havetheknowhow.com/Configure-...-v2.x.html
-I set FlexRAID to autostart using this guide: http://www.havetheknowhow.com/Configure-...-boot.html
-Since then, I have changed some things to run FlexRAID under my user. Very short: I reinstalled flexraid to /home/user_name/flexraid, adapted the init.d script (to point to the new folder) and moved to /home/user_name and set "/home/user_name/FlexRAID start" to autostart.
-With FlexRAID installed and autostarting properly, I set up a new configuration. Since at the moment I have no parity drive, I created a new configuration in expert mode and set Pooling, where I added my 3 drives. I hope to add 2 more drives in the coming weeks and the I'll jump to Snapshot RAID.
-I have set the mount point of my HDDs to /flexraid_drives/HD_0x in my /etc/fstab. This way they are automounted on every start and the drives DON'T appear on the desktop, they are kind of hidden.
-I have set my 3 2TB hard drives to go into standby mode after 10 minutes of no use, to save power. My HDDs are /dev/sdb, sdc and sdd, so in /etc/hdparm.conf I set the following:
Code:
/dev/sdb {
  spindown_time = 120
}
/dev/sdc {
  spindown_time = 120
}
/dev/sdd {
  spindown_time = 120
}
-I have configured both Samba shares and NFS. For configuring NFS, this may be helpful: http://www.unixmen.com/install-nfs-serve...buntumint/, although the most basic can be done using the default file explorer that comes with mint (right-click on a folder and the option to share should be there, then select either SMB or NFS). Over NFS, I have shared the Flexraid Pool, the home directory and some more folders. Using the /etc/exports file, I have configured the Home directly to be only accessible from my laptop. On samba, I have also shared some foldes, just in case.
-I have installed vino-server and configured it to autostart, allow remote control and request a password. I can log in from my Mint laptop for convenience.
-I run the Server headless, so I don't need to have a monitor connected and around. I have configured the xorg.conf to start without a monitor attached and start with a resolution of 1366x768, which is my laptop one. This way I can log in remotely (using vinagre as the VNC client) and I can see the whole screen, as it was my laptop. This may be something non-necessary to most of you, but I live in a flat and the Server sits in the living room (quite hidden) and having a monitor attached is a bit of a problem.

So, I think that's it for know. I hope you find this useful!
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My server build (FlexRAID)0