linux file server - abit AN-M2, antec solo, passive cooling

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 12:34 am

i just put together a file server with the following objectives: reliability, longevity, quiet, moderate price.

strategies for reliability and longevity:

- use 2 mirrored (RAID1) drives with linux software raid.
- use ECC memory.
- use a motherboard with solid, Japanese-built capacitors.
- use moderately low-power components, and make sure everything is well-cooled and nothing is hot.
- use multiple low-speed case fans and cool the CPU and northbridge with passive heatsinks. with this setup, one or even 2 fans could fail, and everything would just get a little warmer, but no single component would burn up.

here is the list of components i used:

antec solo case
seasonic S12 II 330W power supply
2 x nexus DF1209SL-3 92mm 1500rpm fans, slowed with zalman fanmates
scythe ninja cpu heatsink (used fanless)
thermalright HR-05 northbridge heatsink (used fanless)
2 x western digital WD10EACS 1 TB hard disk drive
Samsung SH-S202N IDE optical burner
abit AN-M2 micro-ATX socket AM2 motherboard
AMD BE-2350 2.1 GHz 45W CPU
kingston KVR800D2E5K2/2G â€“ 2GB kit, unbuffered ECC RAM

the system cost (not including disk drives) was $450. the drives added another $500, for a total cost of $950.

here's a photo:

the one potential down-side of this build is that you couldn't add a video board that's passively cooled with a thermalright HR-03 or comparable heat sink, because it would conflict with the HR-05 on the northbridge. that won't be a problem for this file server, but it would be a problem for any application that requires more video performance than the on-board video can deliver. if you need at add a video board, you'd probably be better off using the stock northbridge cooler.

the system went together easily, and fedora core 8 came up nicely. the fedora installation procedure made it easy to partition the drives and set up software raid. loading a video driver required the following procedure:

surf to rpm.livna.org/rlowiki
click â€œfedora 8 repository RPMâ€

Rackafella · Post by **Rackafella** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:57 am

Looks really nice

but your picture needs some rotating!

2x1 TB is heavy

It looks like the Ninja is blocking the other two RAM-sockets, couldnt this be a future problem?

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:27 am

Rackafella wrote:It looks like the Ninja is blocking the other two RAM-sockets, couldnt this be a future problem?

yes, the ninja does conflict with one pair of RAM sockets; i should have mentioned that.
click here for a close-up photo.
for me, this won't be a problem, since 2 GB is already overkill for this application.

Strid · Post by **Strid** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:03 pm

Looks great! I like the big NB heatsink, I always use aftermarket ones too.

By the way (just a thought) .. Aren't you supposed to put one stick of RAM in the black slot and one in a blue slot for some dual-channel-action?? Looks like it would fit, though only just!

Very cool server, indeed!!

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:50 pm

Strid wrote:Aren't you supposed to put one stick of RAM in the black slot and one in a blue slot for some dual-channel-action??

no. if you are using a pair, you put them both into black slots or both into blue slots.

digtechis · Post by **digtechis** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:48 am

One quick question, how much power does this setup consume?
I looking for almost the same setup.

Thanks in advance!

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:03 pm

nice looking system, very clean.

this might just be my OCD side, but i would have rotated the ninja 90 degrees. only reason i say that is because you have an exhaust fan, and you don't rely on the PSU to bring air over the ninja.
if you look down the center of the ninja, you see the base heatsink, which is small, and the fins are vertical, i'd rather have them horizontal so they don't block air to the VRMs around the CPU socket.

its marginal in difference, if it even has a difference, but i'm just OCD like that.

but the system looks great, i'd love 2TB myself, keep running out of space >.<

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:02 pm

digtechis wrote:One quick question, how much power does this setup consume?

it's in service at the moment. might be a day or 2 before i have a chance to bring it down and measure it.

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:13 pm

bonestonne wrote:i would have rotated the ninja 90 degrees.

IIRC, the ninja's fitting for the AM2 socket only goes on one way, so i don't think i have the option. i do agree that it would probably perform better if it could be rotated 90 degrees, but there actually is some vertical airflow there, from the power supply fan.

i haven't bothered to get lm-sensors working in this system, so i don't have specific temps, but nothing feels overly warm when i press a finger to it. the northbridge is the warmest, but, with the HR-05, it's not uncomfortably hot.

MiKeLezZ · Post by **MiKeLezZ** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:28 pm

Nice. Just a bit overkill for a fileserver.

Why RAID1 and not RAID5?

Also, RAID is not really a backup solution. Wouldn't better than a RAID1 an offline backup on per-week basis?

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:06 pm

MiKeLezZ wrote:Why RAID1 and not RAID5?

RAID5 requires at least 3 drives.

Also, RAID is not really a backup solution. Wouldn't better than a RAID1 an offline backup on per-week basis?

apples and oranges. RAID provides the ability to keep running, without a hiccup, in the presence of a drive failure (a situation that has happened to me). backup can provide protection against drive failures, as well as software bugs, user error, fire, etc.

i have an old laptop running nightly incremental backups of the file server to an external USB drive, using retrospect (a great program), and i occasionally make offsite backups to 2.5" external USB drives.

MiKeLezZ · Post by **MiKeLezZ** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:02 pm

AlpineCarver wrote:
MiKeLezZ wrote:Why RAID1 and not RAID5?
RAID5 requires at least 3 drives.

You spent $500 for 2*1TB drives; with RAID5 this would have been cut in half: $250 for 3*500GB drives.
RAID5 has also a reading speed advantage (useful for a fileserver).

WD's 1TB HDs use 4*250GB platters, while 500GB ones 2*250GB.
So RAID1 uses a total of 8-platters, while RAID5 a total of 6.
This means even if you use 2 disks (RAID1) instead of 3 (RAID5), you don't gain in energy efficiency or failure-tolerancy.

Least but not last, with a RAID5 array you wouldn't have the problem of running out of space: just add a drive (provided it isn't a S/W RAID) and this would give you another 500GB increase.

Also, RAID is not really a backup solution. Wouldn't better than a RAID1 an offline backup on per-week basis?
apples and oranges. RAID provides the ability to keep running, without a hiccup, in the presence of a drive failure (a situation that has happened to me). backup can provide protection against drive failures, as well as software bugs, user error, fire, etc.

Not really: I don't think you are a corporate, where a 24-hours stop means a $ *insert 4-5 digit* loss.
This is what RAID1 is aimed for.
A home user can withstand a 5-hours downtime for the OS image to be restored, and 1TB data copied...

At least, my opinions.

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 6:42 pm

MiKeLezZ wrote:You spent $500 for 2*1TB drives; with RAID5 this would have been cut in half: $250 for 3*500GB drives. ...

no doubt RAID5 would have been cheaper. my thinking was that it would be better to have 2 things, rather than 3 things, that can fail, make noise, draw power, generate heat, take up space, and obstruct air flow. i realize that many factors could invalidate one or more of these assumptions, and i can easily see why you might prefer the RAID5 solution, but i'm still content with the choice i made.

Also, RAID is not really a backup solution. Wouldn't better than a RAID1 an offline backup on per-week basis?
apples and oranges. RAID provides the ability to keep running ...
I don't think you are a corporate, where a 24-hours stop means a $ *insert 4-5 digit* loss. This is what RAID1 is aimed for. A home user can withstand a 5-hours downtime for the OS image to be restored, and 1TB data copied.

this is a judgment call. we can all agree that a separate backup is a good thing. additionally having some type of RAID in the file server adds cost but might save a day of the family's work and gives me the flexibility of dealing with a potential drive failure when convenient, instead of immediately having to run out and buy a replacement drive off the shelf and rebuild the system and have the whole family down in the meantime. the last time i lost a drive in a RAID file server, i greatly appreciated that flexibility. but i can easily see how some might not consider that flexibility to be worth the price.

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:59 pm

digtechis wrote:One quick question, how much power does this setup consume?

i finally got around to measuring it. i measured total power consumption at the wall plug, with an extech 380935 true RMS clamp meter.

at idle, the system constantly varies from 0.31A to 0.35A, averaging 0.33A = 36W. i suspect there's some on-going activity (possibly generated by the windows machines on the network) that could be reduced, thereby reducing power consumption by a watt or 2, but i'm not interested enough to go looking for it.

i set 2 PCs continuously writing files thru samba, and power consumption varied from about 0.45A = 50W to 0.59A = 65W. the max recorded by the meter was 0.59A = 65W.

leaving the file traffic running and adding 2 instances of "md5sum < /dev/zero" to load the cpus, and running a simple screen saver (i didn't have any graphics intensive ones), the max power draw i could produce was 0.68A = 75W.

i guess i could have done with a smaller power supply.

AlpineCarver · Post by **AlpineCarver** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:46 pm

one other little detail that probably most people who read this already know, but somehow escaped me:

if you just put ECC memory into these boards without paying attention to the BIOS settings, it will run just fine, but ECC won't be enabled! you have to enable it manually in the BIOS.