Homebuilt server (NAS/SAN) vs the prefab ones? Peformance differences? SAN vs NAS vs Homebuilt Server

I'm working on building a new server to basically be the backup server
for all of our 800GB or so of data.

IE: Symantec BackupExec will run on this server.. communicating with
remote agents on 4 other servers. Those 4 servers total 800gb of data
in a full backup via gigabit ethernet.

I'm still not sure I see the difference between a NAS, SAN, or a server
with lots of harddrive capacity and dual gigabit ports?

For instance.. here is what we are considering doing:

Building the server piece by piece for a total of $3200, inclusive of
drives and controller cards etc, using either of these 2U rackmount
systems:

http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid=2918 (I can get a
combination of all needed hardware with a 3 year warranty on the whole
deal for around $3700 instead of $3200)

http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/merc...tid=233&step=4

That $3200 included a Woodcrest 2.0GHZ cpu with virtualization ability
(not really needed for the backup server though). We've already got
server 2003 storage edition. This would include a 4x PCI-e 3ware
9590SE-8ML card and 2GB of 667 DDR2 ram.

I'm assuming that with a NAS or SAN you can install 2003 onto it and
use it just the same as any other server?



The other option appears to be going with a system like this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...OTC-GOOGLEBASE


The price is alittle more and the CPU type is not a Woodcrest, but
there are 2 of them now.

I've also seen these units without DVD/floppy drives, I'm assuming with
one like that you would have to use a usb dvd rom drive to install the
OS?


Any thoughts on all this?

Differences between server designated as storage vs a NAS vs a SAN..
and perfomance differences in say my homebuilt model and the ones that
come already to go.


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...OTC-GOOGLEBASE

Thanks for any input.

markm75 wrote:
I'm working on building a new server to basically be the backup server
for all of our 800GB or so of data.

IE: Symantec BackupExec will run on this server.. communicating with
remote agents on 4 other servers. Those 4 servers total 800gb of data
in a full backup via gigabit ethernet.

I'm still not sure I see the difference between a NAS, SAN, or a server
with lots of harddrive capacity and dual gigabit ports?

For instance.. here is what we are considering doing:

Building the server piece by piece for a total of $3200, inclusive of
drives and controller cards etc, using either of these 2U rackmount
systems:

http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid=2918 (I can get a
combination of all needed hardware with a 3 year warranty on the whole
deal for around $3700 instead of $3200)

http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/merc...tid=233&step=4

That $3200 included a Woodcrest 2.0GHZ cpu with virtualization ability
(not really needed for the backup server though). We've already got
server 2003 storage edition. This would include a 4x PCI-e 3ware
9590SE-8ML card and 2GB of 667 DDR2 ram.

I'm assuming that with a NAS or SAN you can install 2003 onto it and
use it just the same as any other server?



The other option appears to be going with a system like this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...OTC-GOOGLEBASE


The price is alittle more and the CPU type is not a Woodcrest, but
there are 2 of them now.

I've also seen these units without DVD/floppy drives, I'm assuming with
one like that you would have to use a usb dvd rom drive to install the
OS?


Any thoughts on all this?

Differences between server designated as storage vs a NAS vs a SAN..
and perfomance differences in say my homebuilt model and the ones that
come already to go.


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...OTC-GOOGLEBASE

Thanks for any input.

Also forgot.. I'm not sure what SAS refers to at this point.. the
controller says it has a mini sas connector.. I'm assuming this is
Serial Attached Storage.. Is this type of HD supposed to replace SATA's
eventually? I dont see much bigger capacity than 146gb out there, not
to mention the homebuilt server just says it has mini sas ability.. the
drive bays are SATA, not sure what benefit this would be...

"markm75" wrote in
oups.com:


markm75 wrote:
I'm working on building a new server to basically be the backup
server for all of our 800GB or so of data.

IE: Symantec BackupExec will run on this server.. communicating with
remote agents on 4 other servers. Those 4 servers total 800gb of
data in a full backup via gigabit ethernet.

I'm still not sure I see the difference between a NAS, SAN, or a
server with lots of harddrive capacity and dual gigabit ports?

For instance.. here is what we are considering doing:

Building the server piece by piece for a total of $3200, inclusive of
drives and controller cards etc, using either of these 2U rackmount
systems:

http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid=2918 (I can get a
combination of all needed hardware with a 3 year warranty on the
whole deal for around $3700 instead of $3200)

http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/merc...&lastcatid=233
&
step=4

That $3200 included a Woodcrest 2.0GHZ cpu with virtualization
ability (not really needed for the backup server though). We've
already got server 2003 storage edition. This would include a 4x
PCI-e 3ware 9590SE-8ML card and 2GB of 667 DDR2 ram.

I'm assuming that with a NAS or SAN you can install 2003 onto it and
use it just the same as any other server?



The other option appears to be going with a system like this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...m-details.asp?
E
dpNo=860174&Sku=V133-2900&SRCCODE=GOOGLEBASE&CMP=OTC-GOOGLEBASE


The price is alittle more and the CPU type is not a Woodcrest, but
there are 2 of them now.

I've also seen these units without DVD/floppy drives, I'm assuming
with one like that you would have to use a usb dvd rom drive to
install the OS?


Any thoughts on all this?

Differences between server designated as storage vs a NAS vs a SAN..
and perfomance differences in say my homebuilt model and the ones
that come already to go.


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...m-details.asp?
E
dpNo=860174&Sku=V133-2900&SRCCODE=GOOGLEBASE&CMP=OTC-GOOGLEBASE

Thanks for any input.

Also forgot.. I'm not sure what SAS refers to at this point.. the
controller says it has a mini sas connector.. I'm assuming this is
Serial Attached Storage.. Is this type of HD supposed to replace
SATA's eventually? I dont see much bigger capacity than 146gb out
there, not to mention the homebuilt server just says it has mini sas
ability.. the drive bays are SATA, not sure what benefit this would
be...

SAS = Serial Attached Scsi. Analogous to SATA = Serial ATA
SAS connector are similar to SATA connectors but, mercifully, not the
same. SCSI disks generally have lower capacity (but higher speed) than
ATA disks.

NAS = Network Attached Storage. Essentially a file server.
SAN = Storage Area Network. A SAN is used to attach storage devices to
servers. Traditionally uses FiberChannel for network, but now we can
use iSCSI which provides SCSI protocol over TCP/IP on Ethernet.
Essentially, storage devices on SANs look like disk or tape drives to
the servers. Very different from a NAS. Some NAS devices these days also
provide SAN LUNs in addition to serving files.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
A L B E R T A Alfred Falk
R E S E A R C H Information Systems Dept (780)450-5185
C O U N C I L 250 Karl Clark Road
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
http://www.arc.ab.ca/ T6N 1E4
http://outside.arc.ab.ca/staff/falk/

markm75 wrote:
I'm working on building a new server to basically be the backup server
for all of our 800GB or so of data.

IE: Symantec BackupExec will run on this server.. communicating with
remote agents on 4 other servers. Those 4 servers total 800gb of data
in a full backup via gigabit ethernet.

I'm still not sure I see the difference between a NAS, SAN, or a server
with lots of harddrive capacity and dual gigabit ports?

For instance.. here is what we are considering doing:

Building the server piece by piece for a total of $3200, inclusive of
drives and controller cards etc, using either of these 2U rackmount
systems:

http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid=2918 (I can get a
combination of all needed hardware with a 3 year warranty on the whole
deal for around $3700 instead of $3200)

http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/merc...tid=233&step=4

That $3200 included a Woodcrest 2.0GHZ cpu with virtualization ability
(not really needed for the backup server though). We've already got
server 2003 storage edition. This would include a 4x PCI-e 3ware
9590SE-8ML card and 2GB of 667 DDR2 ram.

I'm assuming that with a NAS or SAN you can install 2003 onto it and
use it just the same as any other server?



The other option appears to be going with a system like this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...OTC-GOOGLEBASE


The price is alittle more and the CPU type is not a Woodcrest, but
there are 2 of them now.

I've also seen these units without DVD/floppy drives, I'm assuming with
one like that you would have to use a usb dvd rom drive to install the
OS?


Any thoughts on all this?

Well, if I were going about this and weren't going to use spare pieces
that I already had sitting around the house, I'd budget under $1000 for
the whole thing (*'way* under unless you want to mirror the backup
storage rather than use RAID-5) - excluding any costs for the backup and
system software (I'd probably use Linux and some form of open-source
backup, but since you apparently already have the Win2K3 server system
and seem to want BackupExec, that's fine too).

Any relatively current processor should be up to the task (Athlon64s are
under $100 these days, but even a middle-of-the-road Sempron might do
the job: even if you opt to use software RAID-5 the main load should be
handling the Gigabit Ethernet I/O at link speed, which shouldn't be too
bad if you can use jumbo frames - though using double GigE ports adds to
that unless you use add-on NICs that include TCP/IP offload engines,
which aren't very expensive any more).

The lowest-end quality motherboard (probably microATX so you won't need
to mess around with video or sound cards) you can find with one (or two)
on-board Gigabit Ethernet ports (unless you go the TOE NIC route) that
has enough (4 should do it) SATA connectors to avoid the need for an
add-on card (IIRC Win2K3 Server includes software RAID support by
Veritas - more than adequate for a backup server) should do nicely for
backup-server operation (though a motherboard with just the
what-used-to-be-normal pair of ATA connectors would do in a pinch, since
three 400 GB backup disks plus a modest system disk would be enough, and
if you wanted to mirror instead of using RAID-5 you could make one of
the 4 drives 500 GB to leave room for the system - or make two of them
500 GB and mirror the system). MB and processor together (including fan
& heatsink, which given a modest processor can also be modest) should
total $200 or less - a *lot* less if you find Outpost (Fry's), Newegg,
or ZipZoomFly offering a combination special (I do like the three-year
warranties on retail processors, though, and on MBs as well, so I'd hold
out for those if I were building this and use a well-recognized brand
like Asus or Gigabyte for the MB).

At $180 (on the WDC.com Web site, which means you could likely get a
somewhat better deal if you looked around - ah, yes, Newegg has them,
shipped, for $136) Western Digital's 400 GB Enterprise (5-year warranty,
1.2 million hour MTBF @ 100% duty cycle) RE2 drives should be more than
sufficient for backup-service tasks. Even the Enterprise Seagate
Barracuda ES 400 GB drive (which appears to have replaced their NL
'Nearline' series and purports to be suitable for more general
enterprise use) only runs $176 shipped by Newegg, but I'd have to
consider that overkill for this application. You could save a bit more
and get conventional desktop drives ($126 shipped for a 400 GB Seagate
or WD SATA drive from Newegg), which given that you're going to protect
them with RAID anyway should be more than adequate for use in a backup
server (if I went with desktop drives I'd probably opt for the Seagates
because of their 5-year vs. 3-year warranty - and because I have just a
smidge more confidence in their durability). Bottom line is that you'll
find it difficult to spend much over $600 on the disks, and could get by
for under $500 using RAID-5.

RAM's kind of expensive at the moment, but you can still get 1 GB for
under $100 if you shop around (and it's not clear why you'd need even
half that much for a backup server: it's not as if you wanted to cache
data as you would on a file server).

Other pieces don't add up to all that much. If you'd rather not have to
take the server case apart to change a disk, you can find ATA
removable-drive bays (to place in a 5.25" drive bay and hold a 3.5"
drive), including trays, for as little as $7 (at geeks.com, of course;
they're plastic but have worked just fine for me, though I wouldn't
recommend them for constant day-in/day-out disk substitutions). I
haven't searched much for SATA removable racks, but IIRC xpcgear has one
for $20.

With a RAID-5, system-on-the-backup-disks approach, you need only three
drives to reach 800 GB of net backup storage (one or two being 500 GB
drives to include room for the - possibly mirrored - system if you don't
want a small separate system drive that you'd have to remove the case to
get to), and can get an Ultra mid-tower case with three 5.25" external
bays free after rebate (with free shipping) for the next couple of weeks
at outpost.com. Outpost also has a free-after-rebate (but you'll pay
under $10 for shipping) Ultra 500W power supply, with plenty of 12v
current to spin up over a half-dozen drives simultaneously and power the
motherboard without breaking a sweat: Ultra, while relatively
well-known, is not a first-tier name in power supplies, but if you look
at Newegg's recent customer reviews of Antec units (which used to have a
great reputation) you begin to wonder how much difference this makes (I
got one of the Ultra cases and PSUs and am happy with both). If you
were impressed by the redundant power supplies in Tiger Direct's server,
consider that you could instead build *two complete servers* (mirroring
each other rather than using redundant storage internally) for around
$1400 using these parts (you'd have to wait for another rebate cycle on
the case and PSU to get them for free, though). If you don't like
dealing with rebates (or want to mirror your backed-up data and thus
need a case with four external 5.25" bays), just add $40 each for the
case and, if applicable, PSU. Of course, you *can* spend close to $200
for a case plus power supply, just as you *can* spend close to $4K for
an 800 GB backup server...

That's about it, save for some SATA drive cables. You said you wanted
to 'build' a server - here's your chance.

Good luck,

- bill

Bill Todd wrote:

....

That's about it, save for some SATA drive cables.

And one or two case fans, of course, plus an inexpensive DVD or CD ROM
drive (even decent - e.g., NEC - dual-layer DVD+/-RW drives only run
about $40 these days if you're willing to shop around). I'd probably
throw in a floppy drive for old times' sake (burning a CD for what you
could fit on a floppy just seems so silly) if USB thumb drives hadn't
effectively taken over that role.

- bill

markm75 wrote:

Also forgot.. I'm not sure what SAS refers to at this point.. the
controller says it has a mini sas connector.. I'm assuming this is
Serial Attached Storage..

Close, it's Serial Dttached SCSI


Is this type of HD supposed to replace SATA's eventually?

No, SAS has the same relationship to SATA as old-style SCSI had to PATA
drives. In some situations SAS & SATA drives are interchangeable though.

I dont see much bigger capacity than 146gb out there, not
to mention the homebuilt server just says it has mini sas ability.. the
drive bays are SATA, not sure what benefit this would be...

If you put a SAS controller in, then you will be able to use SAS drives
in the SATA bays.

--
Nik Simpson

Nik Simpson wrote:
markm75 wrote:

Also forgot.. I'm not sure what SAS refers to at this point.. the
controller says it has a mini sas connector.. I'm assuming this is
Serial Attached Storage..

Close, it's Serial Dttached SCSI


Is this type of HD supposed to replace SATA's eventually?

No, SAS has the same relationship to SATA as old-style SCSI had to PATA
drives. In some situations SAS & SATA drives are interchangeable though.

I dont see much bigger capacity than 146gb out there, not
to mention the homebuilt server just says it has mini sas ability.. the
drive bays are SATA, not sure what benefit this would be...

If you put a SAS controller in, then you will be able to use SAS drives
in the SATA bays.

I realized that you could connect an SATA drive to an SAS port (though
not necessarily that you could do so directly, with no need for any kind
of adapter), but didn't realize that you could plug an SAS drive into an
SATA connector (not that this is particularly surprising if indeed they
use the same connectors and cables - I just didn't know that they did).

- bill

On Jan 24, 8:24 pm, Bill Todd wrote:
markm75 wrote:
I'm working on building a new server to basically be the backup server
for all of our 800GB or so of data.

IE: Symantec BackupExec will run on this server.. communicating with
remote agents on 4 other servers. Those 4 servers total 800gb of data
in a full backup via gigabit ethernet.

I'm still not sure I see the difference between a NAS, SAN, or a server
with lots of harddrive capacity and dual gigabit ports?

For instance.. here is what we are considering doing:

Building the server piece by piece for a total of $3200, inclusive of
drives and controller cards etc, using either of these 2U rackmount
systems:

http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid=2918 (I can get a
combination of all needed hardware with a 3 year warranty on the whole
deal for around $3700 instead of $3200)

http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/merc...&lastcatid=233...

That $3200 included a Woodcrest 2.0GHZ cpu with virtualization ability
(not really needed for the backup server though). We've already got
server 2003 storage edition. This would include a 4x PCI-e 3ware
9590SE-8ML card and 2GB of 667 DDR2 ram.

I'm assuming that with a NAS or SAN you can install 2003 onto it and
use it just the same as any other server?

The other option appears to be going with a system like this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...m-details.asp?...

The price is alittle more and the CPU type is not a Woodcrest, but
there are 2 of them now.

I've also seen these units without DVD/floppy drives, I'm assuming with
one like that you would have to use a usb dvd rom drive to install the
OS?

Any thoughts on all this?Well, if I were going about this and weren't going to use spare pieces
that I already had sitting around the house, I'd budget under $1000 for
the whole thing (*'way* under unless you want to mirror the backup
storage rather than use RAID-5) - excluding any costs for the backup and
system software (I'd probably use Linux and some form of open-source
backup, but since you apparently already have the Win2K3 server system
and seem to want BackupExec, that's fine too).

Any relatively current processor should be up to the task (Athlon64s are
under $100 these days, but even a middle-of-the-road Sempron might do
the job: even if you opt to use software RAID-5 the main load should be
handling the Gigabit Ethernet I/O at link speed, which shouldn't be too
bad if you can use jumbo frames - though using double GigE ports adds to
that unless you use add-on NICs that include TCP/IP offload engines,
which aren't very expensive any more).

The lowest-end quality motherboard (probably microATX so you won't need
to mess around with video or sound cards) you can find with one (or two)
on-board Gigabit Ethernet ports (unless you go the TOE NIC route) that
has enough (4 should do it) SATA connectors to avoid the need for an
add-on card (IIRC Win2K3 Server includes software RAID support by
Veritas - more than adequate for a backup server) should do nicely for
backup-server operation (though a motherboard with just the
what-used-to-be-normal pair of ATA connectors would do in a pinch, since
three 400 GB backup disks plus a modest system disk would be enough, and
if you wanted to mirror instead of using RAID-5 you could make one of
the 4 drives 500 GB to leave room for the system - or make two of them
500 GB and mirror the system). MB and processor together (including fan
& heatsink, which given a modest processor can also be modest) should
total $200 or less - a *lot* less if you find Outpost (Fry's), Newegg,
or ZipZoomFly offering a combination special (I do like the three-year
warranties on retail processors, though, and on MBs as well, so I'd hold
out for those if I were building this and use a well-recognized brand
like Asus or Gigabyte for the MB).

At $180 (on the WDC.com Web site, which means you could likely get a
somewhat better deal if you looked around - ah, yes, Newegg has them,
shipped, for $136) Western Digital's 400 GB Enterprise (5-year warranty,
1.2 million hour MTBF @ 100% duty cycle) RE2 drives should be more than
sufficient for backup-service tasks. Even the Enterprise Seagate
Barracuda ES 400 GB drive (which appears to have replaced their NL
'Nearline' series and purports to be suitable for more general
enterprise use) only runs $176 shipped by Newegg, but I'd have to
consider that overkill for this application. You could save a bit more
and get conventional desktop drives ($126 shipped for a 400 GB Seagate
or WD SATA drive from Newegg), which given that you're going to protect
them with RAID anyway should be more than adequate for use in a backup
server (if I went with desktop drives I'd probably opt for the Seagates
because of their 5-year vs. 3-year warranty - and because I have just a
smidge more confidence in their durability). Bottom line is that you'll
find it difficult to spend much over $600 on the disks, and could get by
for under $500 using RAID-5.

RAM's kind of expensive at the moment, but you can still get 1 GB for
under $100 if you shop around (and it's not clear why you'd need even
half that much for a backup server: it's not as if you wanted to cache
data as you would on a file server).

Other pieces don't add up to all that much. If you'd rather not have to
take the server case apart to change a disk, you can find ATA
removable-drive bays (to place in a 5.25" drive bay and hold a 3.5"
drive), including trays, for as little as $7 (at geeks.com, of course;
they're plastic but have worked just fine for me, though I wouldn't
recommend them for constant day-in/day-out disk substitutions). I
haven't searched much for SATA removable racks, but IIRC xpcgear has one
for $20.

With a RAID-5, system-on-the-backup-disks approach, you need only three
drives to reach 800 GB of net backup storage (one or two being 500 GB
drives to include room for the - possibly mirrored - system if you don't
want a small separate system drive that you'd have to remove the case to
get to), and can get an Ultra mid-tower case with three 5.25" external
bays free after rebate (with free shipping) for the next couple of weeks
at outpost.com. Outpost also has a free-after-rebate (but you'll pay
under $10 for shipping) Ultra 500W power supply, with plenty of 12v
current to spin up over a half-dozen drives simultaneously and power the
motherboard without breaking a sweat: Ultra, while relatively
well-known, is not a first-tier name in power supplies, but if you look
at Newegg's recent customer reviews of Antec units (which used to have a
great reputation) you begin to wonder how much difference this makes (I
got one of the Ultra cases and PSUs and am happy with both). If you
were impressed by the redundant power supplies in Tiger Direct's server,
consider that you could instead build *two complete servers* (mirroring
each other rather than using redundant storage internally) for around
$1400 using these parts (you'd have to wait for another rebate cycle on
the case and PSU to get them for free, though). If you don't like
dealing with rebates (or want to mirror your backed-up data and thus
need a case with four external 5.25" bays), just add $40 each for the
case and, if applicable, PSU. Of course, you *can* spend close to $200
for a case plus power supply, just as you *can* spend close to $4K for
an 800 GB backup server...

That's about it, save for some SATA drive cables. You said you wanted
to 'build' a server - here's your chance.

Good luck,

- bill- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

Thanks for all the great info.. your details on the homebuilt system
are great.

Not far off from the preliminary plans I've made.

My price of $3200 was for a rackmount server.. as we dont have the
space for any more towers.. we are getting a 42U rackmount 4 post
cabinet within a week, I already have a 3U rackmount server jerry
rigged in the bottom of the existing 2 post unit. We have 4 total
servers now (and 1 DC).. the 4 servers would go over ethernet...

Do I need a special kind of nic card to be able to use the jumbo frames
options.. as I dont see this on any of our existing NICs on any of the
servers. I also have a 48 port gigabit managed switch, I bet it has
these options on it though.

Like I said our full load at full backup time is 800 or so , but my a
month's end before the next one after incrementals we are at 1.1TB.. so
for the backup server I was planning on purchasing Seagate 400GB drives
(I dont think they were enterprise class, I'm still unclear on the real
advantage there? Though I agree.. I like Seagate better as far as
reliability).. I was going to put 5 of these in RAID5 giving 2 TB of
space (goal for all of this being to last 3 years at least). the
seagate I was going with: SATAII 3 Gbps.

So I had priced the WoodCrest CPU ($384).. the Ram 2x1gb PC2640 DDR2
667($329).. The 5 400 GB HDs and 2 mirrored 120gb OS drives ($950).
The motherboard Asus DSBV-D $339, finally the 3ware card 3ware
9590SE-8ML $484 and then the SATAII 2U server case at $689 (with mini
sas/ncq) ability.

Maybe the cpu/motherboard is overpriced but I want longevity..

And then ill use the exebyte magnum 224 lto3 (upgradable to lto4) for
offsite backup via u320 scsi...

Bill Todd wrote:
Nik Simpson wrote:
If you put a SAS controller in, then you will be able to use SAS
drives in the SATA bays.

I realized that you could connect an SATA drive to an SAS port (though
not necessarily that you could do so directly, with no need for any kind
of adapter), but didn't realize that you could plug an SAS drive into an
SATA connector (not that this is particularly surprising if indeed they
use the same connectors and cables - I just didn't know that they did).

- bill


That maybe my misunderstanding, not yours Bill.

--
Nik Simpson

Do I need a special kind of nic card to be able to use the jumbo frames
options.. as I dont see this on any of our existing NICs on any of the
servers.

Cheap Intel's PRO/1000MT GigE card has this option. You should turn it on in
Device Manager/Properties in Windows though. By default, it is off.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation

http://www.storagecraft.com