Disclaimer: The purpose of this SAN is not to provide disaster-proof recovery, it is simply to have a reliable secondary location for your data at a low cost per gigabyte.
Selecting Your Hardware
When selecting hardware components for your SAN, it’s important to balance reliability with cost. Generally, the most reliable parts are also the most expensive, so you want to look for budget-priced hardware that comes with an extended manufacturer’s warranty, and for the best reliability buy two of almost everything. This allows you to have replacement components on hand should a failure occur, and can easily be done within our $2800 budget. Click here for a full parts and quantities list.
iStarUSA D-400-6
1. Rackmount Case
First, you’ll need a case to hold your equipment. Two important things to keep in mind when selecting a case – it’ll need to have either 10 hot-swappable SATA drive bays or 6 full-size CD bays, and support an ATX motherboard. I chose the iStarUSA D-400-6.
Asus P5Q SE Plus
2. Motherboard
Next up, and probably the most important part of the build, the motherboard. You’ll want to look for a mid-range consumer board that’s supported by Linux, preferably an Intel-based board with an extended manufacturer’s warranty. Also, be sure the board includes at least two PCI slots, they’ll be important later on. I chose the Asus P5Q SE Plus.
3. CPU and RAM
For a CPU, your best bet is probably something from the Intel Core 2 line. The Core i-Series platform is still a bit too new for me to consider it stable. For my build, I chose the Core2 Duo E-8400, and Kingston HyperX DDR2-1066 RAM.
Addonics ADST114
4. SATA Controller
The SATA controller is you select can make or break your SAN. This doesn’t mean you need to spend a fortune on a top-end RAID controller, however. For my SAN, I’m letting Linux manage the RAID array, which simplifies things in a number of ways – mainly, I won’t need to rely on proprietary management utilities to work with my array. For my build, I chose the Addonics ADST114. While it’s not the most robust card on the market, it has a reliable Silicon Image chipset, excellent Linux compatibility, supports hot-swapping, and has a great price point at only about $45. It’s important to note that you should avoid using on-motherboard SATA controllers at all costs, because many of them suffer from reliability issues and require proprietary management utilities to work with their arrays.
Enhance Technology S35T
5. SATA Backplane
Unless you opt for a case with built-in hotswap HDD bays, you’ll want to purchase a set of hotswap SATA backplanes. I selected a pair of Enhance Technology S35T backplane/hotswap modules, mainly because of their excellent 3-year warranties.
6. Hard Drives
It wouldn’t be much of a SAN without obscenely large SATA hard drives. For the RAID array, I chose 8 – 2TB Samsung Spinpoint F3EG’s. Something to note: these are only 5400RPM drives. While these drives aren’t as fast as their 7200RPM counterparts, they are much more energy-efficient, and run cooler. For the system drive, a cheap Seagate Barracuda 80GB HDD will work nicely.
Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W
7. Power Supply
Rounding out the build is a reliable, energy efficient power supply. One key thing to keep in mind when selecting a power supply: look for a power supply that uses one high-amp 12V rail instead of multiple lower amp 12V rails, this makes it less likely the system will be overdrawn during the HDD spin-up at boot. I went with the Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W.
Summary
In addition to everything listed above, several accessories and general parts were needed to complete the build.
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16TB SAN for Under $2800 – Part 1
The problem: Several terabytes of data needing offsite backup.
The solution: A custom-built SAN, inspired by the Backblaze Storage Pod, and running OpenFiler.
Disclaimer: The purpose of this SAN is not to provide disaster-proof recovery, it is simply to have a reliable secondary location for your data at a low cost per gigabyte.
Selecting Your Hardware
When selecting hardware components for your SAN, it’s important to balance reliability with cost. Generally, the most reliable parts are also the most expensive, so you want to look for budget-priced hardware that comes with an extended manufacturer’s warranty, and for the best reliability buy two of almost everything. This allows you to have replacement components on hand should a failure occur, and can easily be done within our $2800 budget. Click here for a full parts and quantities list.
iStarUSA D-400-6
1. Rackmount Case
First, you’ll need a case to hold your equipment. Two important things to keep in mind when selecting a case – it’ll need to have either 10 hot-swappable SATA drive bays or 6 full-size CD bays, and support an ATX motherboard. I chose the iStarUSA D-400-6.
Asus P5Q SE Plus
2. Motherboard
Next up, and probably the most important part of the build, the motherboard. You’ll want to look for a mid-range consumer board that’s supported by Linux, preferably an Intel-based board with an extended manufacturer’s warranty. Also, be sure the board includes at least two PCI slots, they’ll be important later on. I chose the Asus P5Q SE Plus.
3. CPU and RAM
For a CPU, your best bet is probably something from the Intel Core 2 line. The Core i-Series platform is still a bit too new for me to consider it stable. For my build, I chose the Core2 Duo E-8400, and Kingston HyperX DDR2-1066 RAM.
Addonics ADST114
4. SATA Controller
The SATA controller is you select can make or break your SAN. This doesn’t mean you need to spend a fortune on a top-end RAID controller, however. For my SAN, I’m letting Linux manage the RAID array, which simplifies things in a number of ways – mainly, I won’t need to rely on proprietary management utilities to work with my array. For my build, I chose the Addonics ADST114. While it’s not the most robust card on the market, it has a reliable Silicon Image chipset, excellent Linux compatibility, supports hot-swapping, and has a great price point at only about $45. It’s important to note that you should avoid using on-motherboard SATA controllers at all costs, because many of them suffer from reliability issues and require proprietary management utilities to work with their arrays.
Enhance Technology S35T
5. SATA Backplane
Unless you opt for a case with built-in hotswap HDD bays, you’ll want to purchase a set of hotswap SATA backplanes. I selected a pair of Enhance Technology S35T backplane/hotswap modules, mainly because of their excellent 3-year warranties.
6. Hard Drives
It wouldn’t be much of a SAN without obscenely large SATA hard drives. For the RAID array, I chose 8 – 2TB Samsung Spinpoint F3EG’s. Something to note: these are only 5400RPM drives. While these drives aren’t as fast as their 7200RPM counterparts, they are much more energy-efficient, and run cooler. For the system drive, a cheap Seagate Barracuda 80GB HDD will work nicely.
Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W
7. Power Supply
Rounding out the build is a reliable, energy efficient power supply. One key thing to keep in mind when selecting a power supply: look for a power supply that uses one high-amp 12V rail instead of multiple lower amp 12V rails, this makes it less likely the system will be overdrawn during the HDD spin-up at boot. I went with the Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W.
Summary
In addition to everything listed above, several accessories and general parts were needed to complete the build.
Click here for a full parts and quantities list.
Total amount spent for all hardware, including replacements of all critical components: $2,756.74
Check back soon for Part 2 – Assembly and Configuration.