#232110 - 01/09/2004 20:01
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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addict
Registered: 04/11/1999
Posts: 649
Loc: Reading, UK
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I recently bought a case and so on for a home server, partially prompted by the recent RAID 5 thread on here ... I ended up getting a Lian Li 6070. this has room for 4 3.5 HD's inthe bottom, cooled, in a vertical placement, for better access/airflow. It's also sound-proofed, and I honestly can't tell when it's on or not any more. Probably the best £100 or so I'ev ever spent on a case. There are a bunch of reviews of it wandering around on the web too. I ended up using a Promise SATA RAID5 card as well, but I use it under Windows 2003, so I've no idea if it has Linux drivers or not. The windows software is a little hokey. Cheers, Paul.
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Paul Haigh, Reg. 4120
(mk1) 6GB, Blue, 00254
(mk2) 12GB, Red, 00357
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#232111 - 11/09/2004 08:01
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Hard disks -- I'm considering going for RAID5 for reliability, and maybe sticking 3 or 4 disks in it, but that means that I'll probably want to opt for SATA
So I splashed some cash last week. I'm now the proud owner of a 3ware 8506-4LP SATA RAID5 card, a 3ware 4-in-3 SATA drive cage, which supports hot-swapping, and 4x 200Gb Seagate Barracude 7200.7 SATA disk drives.
For the moment, I was planning to install it in my existing case, with my existing motherboard, but I've run into a bit of a problem -- the RDC-400-SATA drive cage is quite deep, and won't go in all the way without colliding with some important looking capacitors on the motherboard.
Moreover, while the 3ware drive cage takes up 3x5.25" bays, and my CD-RW drive takes up another, the claimed 4-bay space on this PC actually appears to be 3.99-bay, so it won't squeeze in vertically either.
So, it looks like I'm off to Tottenham Court Road this afternoon to pick up a new case.
On the good news front, however, the card/cable installation went fine. The card works fine in a 32-bit PCI slot on my Asus A7V, and I've installed the drives in the cage. The RAID5 array creation took well over an hour, but it's done now, and I'm just reinstalling the kernel to add support for the controller card.
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-- roger
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#232112 - 11/09/2004 08:03
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Where did you buy the card and the cage from Roger ?
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#232113 - 11/09/2004 10:11
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Where did you buy the card and the cage from Roger ?
http://www.hamiltone.co.uk/
I also got the disks from them. They were a little bit more than from Dabs, say, but I opted for the convenience of getting everything from the same supplier.
_________________________
-- roger
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#232114 - 11/09/2004 10:54
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Quote:
http://www.hamiltone.co.uk/
Wow, that web site looks dodgy.
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Cheers,
Andy M
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#232115 - 11/09/2004 12:19
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Wow, that web site looks dodgy.
Yeah, I'll grant you that they've not spent a lot of effort on the website, but they were friendly enough on the phone, and the stuff turned up when they said it would.
I get the impression that they're mainly trade (schools, councils, etc.) suppliers, rather than for individuals, so they're probably not so bothered about the website.
_________________________
-- roger
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#232116 - 11/09/2004 15:49
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
I'm now the proud owner of ...
Code:
roger@vague:~$ lspci | grep 3w
0000:00:0a.0 RAID bus controller: 3ware Inc 3ware 7000-series ATA-RAID (rev 01)
roger@vague:~$ df -H /home
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 591G 34M 561G 1% /home
Quote:
So, it looks like I'm off to Tottenham Court Road this afternoon to pick up a new case.
Not a great selection. I'll have to leave the lid off for the time being.
_________________________
-- roger
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#232117 - 11/09/2004 17:44
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Size 591G
Used 34M
Avail 561G
You might want to turn down, or off, the root reserved space, since it's eating 30 gigs. using mke2fs, you need -m 0 for 0% reserved. Not sure if it can be changed after format.
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#232118 - 11/09/2004 18:19
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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tune2fs will do it for an existing FS. It's -m 0 as well.
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#232119 - 11/09/2004 20:25
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
You might want to turn down, or off, the root reserved space, since it's eating 30 gigs.
Good point. That's something I'll look at doing soon. Since it's mounted as /home, I don't think root really needs any reserved space on that particular drive.
_________________________
-- roger
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#232120 - 11/09/2004 20:28
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
It appears that one of my 250Gb IDE disks has just snuffed it.
I plugged it in today to see what data I could salvage, and it wouldn't spin up. It just kept going crunch, crunch, whir, and wasn't detected in the BIOS.
In the end, I figured that I had nothing to lose and just gave it a sharp tap with a heavy screwdriver, and it's sorted itself out to the point where I can start trying to get the data off.
I'm still getting a huge number of read errors, but I hope to get some of the data back. Obviously, all of the retries are taking their toll, and it's probably not going to be finished until the morning.
_________________________
-- roger
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#232121 - 12/09/2004 06:59
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Not a great selection. I'll have to leave the lid off for the time being.
As mentioned, my existing case isn't deep enough -- the 3ware drive cage fouls the motherboard if it's pushed in all the way. My existing case also doesn't quite fit the RAID cage and another 5.25" device properly.
I've spent a couple of hours casting around on the 'net (mainly at Overclockers.co.uk -- they've got a good selection of cases), and I even found a case that I liked in PC World on Tottenham Court Road (yeah, I know -- I was shocked, too).
The problem is that I have no way of knowing if they're large enough. To get the drive cage to fit, I need one of the following:
- 250mm of depth between the drive bays and the edge of the motherboard. The 3ware cage is about 40-50mm deeper than most CD-ROM drives.
- 3x 5.25" drive bays that are totally clear vertically above where the motherboard tray goes.
- If the case is wider than average, about an inch of space between the edge of the drive cage and the motherboard tray (so that the components on the board don't collide with the cage).
The problem with Internet retailers (and case manufacturers) is that they don't actually have any information about clearances inside their cases -- in some instances, they don't even have any pictures of the insides of the cases. And when they do, they're completely empty, so you have no way of knowing where an ATX motherboard will come to on the motherboard cage.
So I have a question for those who've been recommending cases that they own:
How much room actually is in there?
_________________________
-- roger
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#232122 - 12/09/2004 07:11
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
the claimed 4-bay space on this PC actually appears to be 3.99-bay, so it won't squeeze in vertically either.
Ah. 3ware appear to think that one bay should be 43.5mm -- the cage is 130mm, and my case manufacturer seems to think it's 42.5mm. My CD-ROM drives all appear to be 42mm. Actually the specification's probably in inches.
Basically, I think that my case manufacturer and 3ware have interpreted 43mm +/- 0.5mm in opposite directions.
Either way, I'm not going to get 130mm + 42mm in a 170mm space.
Hmmm.
_________________________
-- roger
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#232123 - 12/09/2004 19:34
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: Roger]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 21/07/1999
Posts: 1765
Loc: Brisbane, Queensland, Australi...
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We've always bought Hudson cases for this arrangement. The intel sc5200 is based on it. Chunky case tho; very much server market. Not sure if there's a variant which takes non server boards.
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--
Murray
I What part of 'no' don't you understand?
Is it the 'N', or the 'Zero'?
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#232124 - 13/09/2004 08:45
Re: New Linux Server
[Re: muzza]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
We've always bought Hudson cases for this arrangement.
Hudsons are nice (some of our servers at Empeg are in Hudsons) but they aren't cheap.
Quote:
Not sure if there's a variant which takes non server boards.
A normal ATX board should work fine in an EATX case -- all the PCI slots, screwholes etc. are in the same place. It just won't fill it so much. This could in fact be an obvious way of fulfulling Roger's clearance criteria: if it's built for 12x13in boards and yours is 12x10in, that's 3in of extra clearance right there.
Peter
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