Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device
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I'm putting together the final design of the first SAM-DR device that will be receiving a SKU and be available for order. Of course, being a SAM-SD family device, the specs are open and you are always welcome to build your own (and always welcome to buy support separately, too.) This first device design is a four bay, 8TB - 16TB usable capacity 1U rackmount model aimed at the SMB. Only looking at the hardware in this thread.
Proposed Specs:
- Dell PowerEdge R320 1U LFF Server
- Intel Xeon E5-2403 1.8GHz Quad Core
- PERC H710 Controller 512MB NV Cache
- Dual 550W Power Supply
- Broadcom 5720 Quad Port GigE On Board NIC
- 16GB RAM
Drive Specs:
All four drive options are four drives that are identical in RAID 10 configuration. In theory, this could be configured as a two drive RAID 1 but I'd assume that that would almost never happen. All configurations as NL-SAS, not SATA, as there is really no cost difference so the performance of SAS is a bonus.
- 4x 3TB NL-SAS RAID 10 for 6TB Usable
- 4x 4TB NL-SAS RAID 10 for 8TB Usable
- 4x 6TB NL-SAS RAID 10 for 12TB Usable
- 4x 8TB NL-SAS RAID 10 for 16TB Usable
For a 1U rackmount server, this is a really effective model for use in backups. The RAID 10 is needed, along with the NL-SAS over SATA, for ingress write performance as there is the 2x write factor to consider, write speeds will be relatively limited by the drive performance. Controller cache is not a big factor as writes are nearly always streaming, not random, so flushing to disk continuously is needed.
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Of course a 1U rackmount solution will not directly compete with an SMB NAS device on cost, as those will come in desktop form factors that are very inexpensive. This adds benefits like hardware RAID, NV Write cache acceleration, hot swap power supplies, NBD parts (including drives), SAS drvies, more GigE ports, bigger processor, "on appliance" backup utilities (not included in this direct discussion), etc.
Also of important note is that with the right software, this model will be scale out design, adding a lot of flexibility to start with one and grow with another when the time comes, instead of a forklift upgrade.
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How an e3 impact on cost. Less core higher freq. More cheap?
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@scottalanmiller Is there much performance difference between SATA and SAS? Or is it marginal so for the same money SAS just makes a bit more sense?
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@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller Is there much performance difference between SATA and SAS? Or is it marginal so for the same money SAS just makes a bit more sense?
Nope, for many of the drives they were literally the same!
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@matteo-nunziati said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
How an e3 impact on cost. Less core higher freq. More cheap?
E5 is the lowest we could get in this scenario.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller Is there much performance difference between SATA and SAS? Or is it marginal so for the same money SAS just makes a bit more sense?
Nope, for many of the drives they were literally the same!
I'll stick with SATA then, easier to get replacements.
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@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller Is there much performance difference between SATA and SAS? Or is it marginal so for the same money SAS just makes a bit more sense?
Nope, for many of the drives they were literally the same!
I'll stick with SATA then, easier to get replacements.
Up to 20% drop in performance. Is it REALLY easier to get replacements? At least in the US it is very much the opposite. SATA is much less common because no one buys them, so they practically don't exist. For exactly the reason you mention, we'd not put SATA in servers.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller Is there much performance difference between SATA and SAS? Or is it marginal so for the same money SAS just makes a bit more sense?
Nope, for many of the drives they were literally the same!
I'll stick with SATA then, easier to get replacements.
Up to 20% drop in performance. Is it REALLY easier to get replacements? At least in the US it is very much the opposite. SATA is much less common because no one buys them, so they practically don't exist. For exactly the reason you mention, we'd not put SATA in servers.
!?!?! I just asked you that below and you said there wasn't much difference! lol
I will consider SAS then.
SATA is much easier to get replacements (for us) because we don't deal with any large IT vendors, almost ever.
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@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@scottalanmiller Is there much performance difference between SATA and SAS? Or is it marginal so for the same money SAS just makes a bit more sense?
Nope, for many of the drives they were literally the same!
I'll stick with SATA then, easier to get replacements.
Up to 20% drop in performance. Is it REALLY easier to get replacements? At least in the US it is very much the opposite. SATA is much less common because no one buys them, so they practically don't exist. For exactly the reason you mention, we'd not put SATA in servers.
!?!?! I just asked you that below and you said there wasn't much difference! lol
I thought you were asking about price. They are the same price, but no one buys SATA because they are the same price. The SCSI protocol is vastly more efficient than the ATA protocol.
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@MattSpeller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
SATA is much easier to get replacements (for us) because we don't deal with any large IT vendors, almost ever.
But in this example of the Dell parts, only Dell drives work reliably, so dealing with big vendors for SAS drives is the best option as SATA drives that aren't tested specifically easily won't work.
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There's no talk of vendor here so I'll just ask
Would these come from XByte? -
Now if you do your own testing and know ahead of time that WD RE generic drives will work just fine, then that's different. However, WD RE SAS is likely easier to get than WD RE SATA for the same reasons.
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@NashBrydges said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
There's no talk of vendor here so I'll just ask
Would these come from XByte?That would be my recommendation
In the US at least. @MattSpeller is in Canada, so while he can do that, the benefits are not the same. -
@NashBrydges said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
There's no talk of vendor here so I'll just ask
Would these come from XByte?xByte provides these parts on their own, you can spec this out from them exactly (except the memory, their site doesn't allow that memory config - I'm getting info on that) or you can request it as a SAM-DR build proper, with full support.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@NashBrydges said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
There's no talk of vendor here so I'll just ask
Would these come from XByte?That would be my recommendation
In the US at least. @MattSpeller is in Canada, so while he can do that, the benefits are not the same.Yeah I'm in Canada as well and last time I got a quote from XByte once and it was significantly higher than a local provider. Granted, they aren't the same in terms of NBD support, etc.
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I wish Xbyte had Canadian distributors. Other than the exchange rate (which right now is a killer), I found that often, suppliers in the US don't know that shipping servers or parts to Canada is supposed to be customs exempt (no additional duties other than the HST tax). That's bit me more than once.
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@NashBrydges said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
I wish Xbyte had Canadian distributors.
No kidding, that would make so many things so much easier.
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@NashBrydges said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
Other than the exchange rate (which right now is a killer), I found that often, suppliers in the US don't know that shipping servers or parts to Canada is supposed to be customs exempt (no additional duties other than the HST tax). That's bit me more than once.
Well, YOU say that it is exempt. But Canada doesn't agree with you. I can tell you that they demand customs at the border and saying that it is not required isn't really something that you get to decide at that time. They might tell citizens that it is exempt, but they are lying to you.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
@NashBrydges said in Hardware Design for SAM-DR Small Rackmount Backup Device:
Other than the exchange rate (which right now is a killer), I found that often, suppliers in the US don't know that shipping servers or parts to Canada is supposed to be customs exempt (no additional duties other than the HST tax). That's bit me more than once.
Well, YOU say that it is exempt. But Canada doesn't agree with you. I can tell you that they demand customs at the border and saying that it is not required isn't really something that you get to decide at that time. They might tell citizens that it is exempt, but they are lying to you.
No, actually, the tarif is 0 (at least to Ontario it is). Encourage you to have a read...
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/trade-commerce/tariff-tarif/2013/01-99/01-99-t2013-eng.pdf
Look for section 8471.41
When paperwork properly completed (and this is where the failure happens most often - no lying needed), I've purchased goods from the US on dozens of occasions with zero tarif. Only paid HST.
