Artwork Server

Sir SpankalotUK

Sir SpankalotUK

Sir SpankalotUK

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Joined
14 Dec 2011
Posts
374
Hi all, need some advice.

Our existing W2003 R2 server (DC) is becoming old and has more of less run out of space. Biggest space hogs being the artwork store (10+ years) and Email (6+ years). So I have decided to move the artwork to a new server. I am thinking about waiting for ms server 2012 to drop so I can take advantage of the latest offering, shadow copies and previous copies (most of the desktops are w7pro with a single osx).

Since I need to keep costs down as much as possible, but I need to ensure data integrity, its a lot of artwork to store and tape backup is slowly becoming unfeasible due to the long backup times and prohibitive cost of the hardware/software.

My shopping list thus far

BitFenix Shinobi "Core" USB3.0 Gaming Case (room for 8 drives)
ASRock Z77 Fatal1ty Professional Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) (support for 8 sata drives)
Intel Core i5-3450S 2.80GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155
RAM 16GB (2 x 8GB) (not sure which ram to pick yet)
OCZ Zs Series 750W
Intel 520 Series 180gb SSD (boot, single drive, may clone to a mechanical drive for backup)
Hitachi Deskstar (2tb x 4, 3 for raid, 1 for backup-to-disk)


this is where is gets complicated, the mobo has hardware raid, and windows server presumably still offers software raid, any other raid than straight mirroring scares me that it might disappear, but I like the idea that raid 5 tends to perform better, as some artwork files are large (100mb+).

Is there much of a hit on modern day software raid vs hardware? Without a battery backed raid controller is raid 5 or 10 not feasible? Chances are it will run on a UPS. I presume raid 1 will span more than 2 disks?

Thoughts people?
 
OldCoals said:
Buy a proper server that comes with a proper support contract. I am pretty sure Dell offer a 4 hour onsite response.
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+1.

How much is one day's downtime worth to all of you in terms of business cost?
I usually say Tier 1 storage should be equivalent to 3 days downtime, and then backups to suit.

Since you sound like quite a small shop, take a look at the Dell or HP Tower servers and go with the 2.5" disk options.

How much data are we actually talking about here?
 
As others have said, with the price of the likes of HP tower servers being what they are, it's foolish to go down the DIY route.

You can get a pretty capable HP server for <£500
 
If you find you get better specs for the price with your spec from the op. Then I would make a few suggestions. Raid is not a backup, it is just disk redundancy. If you are going to do need raid in a custom setup to depend on. Then you might want to look at pci express card with hardware raid or a server motherboard like the ones from gigabyte. If data is important then you should save money on performance and spend that on a good backup system, like a HP Ultrium Tape Drives or Teralyte disk backup. Purchase some good backup software and have a weeks worth of backups. Maybe consider also some cloud backup like mozy.

What email system are you using?
 
I understand that raid is not a backup, but if you plan a raid solution properly, hopefully the backup solution will never be required (fingers crossed).

I have looked at the Dells, the chassis don't look big enough, or won't accommodate the number of drives that I want to be able to include for future expansion.

At the moment I have about 400gigs of artwork I need to consolidate, this seems to be growing at the rate of about 3-4gigs a month, thats why I was opting for 2tb drives and why a self build seems the cheaper option.

Incidently, never bothered a support contract on any of the servers, we have. Guess I have been lucky.

I have a ultrium tape drive on the existing server, but the tapes are no longer big enough, so I have to perform partial backups each night. When you price a drive together with backup exec it near the price of the server in the first place, it's why I wanted to see what alternative might be available, like backup-to-disk (either internal or external).

So assuming I get something like a LSI raid card with say provision for 8 ports. Which raid and number of drives would people recommend?
 
Sir SpankalotUK said:
I have looked at the Dells, the chassis don't look big enough, or won't accommodate the number of drives that I want to be able to include for future expansion.
At the moment I have about 400gigs of artwork I need to consolidate, this seems to be growing at the rate of about 3-4gigs a month, thats why I was opting for 2tb drives and why a self build seems the cheaper option.
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I don't understand. The 2.5" disk options can take a minimum of 8 drives (up to 16). That should be plenty for you?

Sir SpankalotUK said:
Incidently, never bothered a support contract on any of the servers, we have. Guess I have been lucky.
Click to expand...
Yep. It's when things go wrong that you need it.

Sir SpankalotUK said:
I have a ultrium tape drive on the existing server, but the tapes are no longer big enough, so I have to perform partial backups each night. When you price a drive together with backup exec it near the price of the server in the first place, it's why I wanted to see what alternative might be available, like backup-to-disk (either internal or external).
Click to expand...
Understandable. 2 or 3 USB3.0 or Thunderbolt external storage devices in rotation would act as a good backup system.

Sir SpankalotUK said:
So assuming I get something like a LSI raid card with say provision for 8 ports. Which raid and number of drives would people recommend?
Click to expand...
Depends how many drives and how large the drives are.
If you're getting 8 drives: 2 for OS (RAID1), 5 for Data (RAID6) and 1 for Data hotspare?
RAID6 and 7.2k RPM disks don't play very well together, so look at RAID10 in that circumstance. RAID5 is bad.
 
What might work better than an external usb 2 for a cheap backup is a external sata. I setup an external sata for my home pc with a pci express external sata and a power extension. I could can get like 70mb a second to it which i think would be sufficient for backing up to 2tb a night. Usb 3 would also be an option but i have not used it yet so not sure about speed etc. I would suggest getting one of those external sata caddies they look pretty easy to work with and come with external power source. Just finding a good way to store the drives then. I would purchase 5 (days) 2tb disks for backup at least.

Maybe consider getting smaller ssd and put the ssd in raid 1. 2x 60gb for example. Why do you need such a big os disk is that for graphic work? Personally I would just get 3 or 4 drives for data and put it it in to raid 5 with. If money was not a consideration then i would say get as many drives as you can put it in to raid 6.

What are you going to do with your old server ? I would use that as a DC and then move the email function and file server to the new one. ups permitting.
 
yes I was considering an esata devices for backup.

I wanted to get the 180gig ssd just in case I want to do some virtualisation on it (probably lamp). Details about the requirements for windows server 2012 are sketchy at the mo. I could opt for two ssd in raid 1. The 5 year warranty on the intel ssd is nicely reassuring though.

The old server will continue its role of DC and hosting the email (our glorious Tobit installation). 1 users email is 60+gig at the moment and its only a small office. 174gig of email for 7 users (1,715,164 files). Crazy.

Still trying to come up with a nice solution to use raid1, but KISS keeps poking me in the brain.
 
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