Since I'm an amateur photographer I tend to use disk space very quickly. Most is not consumed by digital photography however. I have a large collection of slides that have been scanned at 4800 dpi. Each file is approximately 50 MB so this adds up very quickly. Thus, I decided that I would build a relatively large file server to hold my photography.
What I'm going to do in this post is summarize the configuration I came up with and explain my decisions. So, first the parts list:
- Chenbro 22300 2U rack mount case with 300 watt PSU
- ASUS K8N-LR motherboard
- AMD Opteron 148 socket-939 processor
- 2x Kingston KVR400X72C3A/512 ECC RAM
- LG SuperMulti DVDRW GSA-H50N
- 3Ware SATA RAID controller 9550SX-4LP
- 4x Seagate 500 GB SATA hard disk
- Western Digital 250 GB EIDE hard disk I had lying around for the OS
Chenbro 22300
My requirements for a case were that it be relatively compact and have room for four SATA drives for my RAID 5 configuration. I looked around and decided that a 2U case would work fine. Later on I decided to leave the operating system off the RAID and put it on its own disk. Thus, the floppy drive slot would be used for the fifth disk. Based on availability and my requirements I came up with the Chenbro case with the assistance of my local store.ASUS K8N-LR
I have a 1U IBM Opteron server that hosts my websites. I really like the performance of that server and also my Athlon 64 X2 that I have at home. Thus, I chose to go with an Opteron motherboard for this build. Based on support given by Chenbro, I selected this motherboard. It met all my criteria for a motherboard (eg. Opteron, dual channel RAM, dual gigabit ethernet, etc.) and was one of the few AMD options listed.Opteron 148
The Opteron was the chosen architecture based on my experiences above. The model 148 was chosen purely based on cost. Once we went beyond the 148 the prices increased exponentially. This processor is more than enough for a file server and was attractively priced.Kingston RAM
This ram was chosen because I trust Kingston and because it was the suggested RAM on their website. I also chose two 512 MB DIMM's to take advantage of the dual channel mode. One gigabyte of RAM is plenty for this server.LG DVDRW
I wanted to use a DVD recorder in this server so that I could easily move files to DVD or CD from the file server itself without having to copy them to another computer over the network. My local store supplies LG equipment so although I've never used one before, I gave it a try. We'll see how well it works out. At a minimum I require a CDROM to install the OS.3Ware SATA RAID
I opted for this RAID controller over the on-board controller or most others because it is a true hardware RAID. The system CPU is not required for parity calculation. All work is performed by the controller itself. In fact, the 3Ware 9550SX-4LP utilizes a PowerPC processor. I also checked around and decided that 3Ware's support for multiple OS's is excellent. I'll be configuring my SATA drives in a RAID level 5.Seagate 500 GB drives
Seagate was my only drive option for this build because of their 5-year warranty and reliability. I chose 500 GB drives because of the cost per GB ratio. Drives above 500 GB cost more per GB. Four of these drives in RAID level 5 will give me about 1.5 TB of storage. That should keep me going for a while anyway.Western Digital 250 GB drive
This drive is just one that was in a failed server I had already. I decided to leave the OS off the RAID and this was the best drive I had available.Next I'll start with the build.
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