"Globemaster" Server

Much like the gestation period of an elephant, or the development of the actual C17 "Globemaster", the new server build is underway!

In case you're wondering why the home server got a new name...... the size differences makes that pretty obvious. On the floor (on it's side) is the "Spectre" progression of the original C-130 "Hercules" server. It was literally maxed out! All 6 drives spaces had some sort of drive in it. All 6 SATA port on the MB was occupied. I even had to use the IDE (!!!) port for the optical drive! The rather compact Silverstone case was literally stuffed to the brim. It was time.

As I've discuss in earlier posts, I was able to acquire an incomplete Fractal Design Define XL R2 off of Craigs List for $30 a few months ago. In reality it wasn't all that incomplete, just missing the 3 fans, and some screws: items that I have ready replacements, so a non-issue. You can clearly see that sitting next to a regular ATX-sized case like the Define R4, the XL is a beast. 

So much so that it's EATX (Extended ATX) size gave me the option of using full-blown server parts designed to go into "rack-mount" cases. .....which by the way are very cheap to buy on the used market since the demand for them is so limited. I picked up a SuperMicro X7DBE dual processor board for $50 (after shipping). 

It cost me another $30 or so to get the I/O shield and giant heatsinks AND another $10 for the 2 Xeon 5148 processors. Yes, I did say $10! Yup; old server parts are cheap. 

 $30 more for 16Gb (4 x 4Gb) sticks of DDR2 Kingston ECC/FB RAM. 

Why all this trouble? You guys already know that I've convinced myself to go with FreeNAS (especially now that Windows Home Server is dead), but I've also decided to go "whole-hog" and move to ZFS or Zetabyte File System. And after studying up on the subject, I've decided that although I don't need ZFS2 (2 disk failure protection), I'd like to have the highest level of efficiency with ZFS1 (obviously, 1 disk failure protection) which is .8333% space utilization by using 6 drives. That'll give me roughly 10Tb of storage space using 6, 2Tb drives. That's a lot of drives, right?

Oh No, there's more! Since I'd like to use Plex on this machine to serve up the media, I'm going to want to have a caching SSD for that since Plex runs best when transcoding with one of those. Lucky I've already got one, but that's 7 drives!?! I've only got 6 SATA headers onboard!

 

SuperMicro to the rescue.... once again, with a SAT2-MV8, 8-Port SATA controller for another $17.50! Woe is me! It'll give me the ability to add more drives or move to ZFS2 someday if I feel the need.

Hey, at least I don't need to buy another NIC for this thing since it has 2 of those already ..... plus a serial and a parallel port, because everyone needs some of those. 

Unfortunately, I've run into some road-blocks to finishing this monster! The case is so big, I need extensions for my power supply cables! I also need an adapter to run to an extra 12v header on the MB. Since it has dual Xeons, it not only requires an 8-pin aux plug, but another 4-pin as well! On top of that, there's a little problem of screws! Don't get me wrong; I've got lots of those, but the case comes with drive trays with rubber mounting rings, I need extra-long screws. And since I have 6 of those things......

But these are relatively minor issues to the "Globemaster" taking off! Not a bad upgrade for less than $200.