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Comment on Server upgrade/replacement help

WFloyd@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

A few things that might help narrow options down:

What’s your budget?
Do you expect to host more stuff in the future? Do you need more RAM/CPU performance?
How much physical space do you have? Do you have a place where could store equipment if it were noisier?
How expensive is your electricity? Is efficiency important?
How much of your 100TB is full?

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WFloyd@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In short, I’d recommend option B/C, where you buy used enterprise grade equipment, learn to run Linux, and build out that way. I can’t overstate just how good a deal can be had on eBay, even from reputable sellers. This goes for everything, from the computer itself, to disk shelves, to HDDs and SSDs. Plus you’re reducing on e-waste! Used HDDs are a great deal if you buy enough to run redundancy (RAID 6 or equivalent), because the seller will often include a warranty (up to 5 years!). I’ve only had a handful of drive failures and 0 issues with warranty refund/exchanges.

You’re running roughly the same services as I do (though a bit more storage), so if it means anything, I’ve ended up using the following (all purchased used)

spoiler
- HP Z440 Workstation (upgraded over time) - CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2698 V4 (20 core) - RAM: 128GB DDR4 2133MT/s - GPU: Intel Arc A380 - Storage: Boot SSD + HBA card for bulk storage - 2 x Dell EMC KTN-STL3 JBOD - 15 x 3.5" bays - Mix of HDDs spread across the two JBODs - 7 x 12TB - 6 x 14TB - 6 x 10TB - 2 x 16TB - 1 x 8TB - 1 x HP QR490A JBOD - 24 x 2.5" bays - Mix of SSDs - 6 x 3.84TB - 5 x 1TB ___

Broadly, I find the following with my setup:

Pros

Easily expandable storage using a HBA

High reliability (ECC memory, server grade equipment)

Used equipment is cheap

Cons

Running mostly older-gen hardware, not cutting edge performance

Bulky, noisy cooling, less power efficient
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- WFloyd@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Examples of some of the deals I’ve personally gotten (ymmv, some were auctions):
  
  5 x 3.84TB SAS SSDs
  
  $521.54 total (stunning deal, I got lucky)
  
  $104.31/drive
  
  $27.16/TB
  
  5 x 960GB SAS SSDs
  
  $165.17 total
  
  $33.03/drive
  
  $34.41/TB
  
  7 x 12TB Toshiba SAS HDDs
  
  $427.31 total
  
  $61.04/drive
  
  $5.09/TB
  
  2 x 8TB Seagate SAS HDDs
  
  $49.99 total
  
  $25/drive
  
  $3.13/TB
  
  2 x KTN-STL3 JBODs each including 15x3TB SAS HDDs
  
  $532.73 total
  
  $266.37/shelf
  
  $17.76/drive bay+drive
  
  $5.92/TB not including value of JBODs (~$150/each without drives)
  
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ShepherdPie@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
-I don’t have a set budget, but like I said, would prefer to spend the least amount while meeting my needs (I understand this is ambiguous). That could be $500 or $2k, but I don’t want to buy something like a Synology as I feel they’re a big waste of money especially with how many drives I have.

-Possibly. I have thought of hosting a Minecraft server for my daughter, Frigate as mentioned, and who knows what else. I think I have ADHD and pick up new projects left and right

-Physical space is actually a huge issue. I currently have my Fractal Define 6 sitting on my desk but my office is already jam packed with stuff and I can’t think of any other practical space in the house to keep an entire server plus all my networking stuff is in the office. The Define is actually quite silent for having 11 drives, a GPU and 6 fans inside of it.

-Electricity isn’t terribly expensive. I think it’s around $0.12KWh, though conserving energy would be a good thing, so I don’t think an old Xeon server would be a good fit.

-I think I have somewhere around 15TB free still. My storage is JBOD so some are only 8TB while the larger ones are 14TB (currently for parity). I plan on buying at least two more 14TB when I get this going so that I have plenty of space to condense things and form the new pool, and to phase out some of the smaller HDDs so that I can better utilize the storage and not waste TBs of space.

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- WFloyd@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Physical space is actually a huge issue
  
  Ah then I’d recommend keep the existing machine as the server (it sounds like it’s serving you well hardware wise), and get a SFF machine for regular desktop use, be that a new build or a used office machine. The trick will be in migrating the server to Linux, and without endangering your data in the process.
  
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  - ShepherdPie@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I actually do have a couple Optiplex micro PCs sitting around so maybe I’ll try one of those out for my general PC needs. I had considered using them as the brains of a server in the past but there’s no logical HDD storage option outside of a NAS and I’m not going to drop $2k on a box to hold and control some HDDs. DAS boxes and other external drive enclosures just seem pretty risky and unreliable.
    
    You’re right that the migration is going to be the biggest hurdle, especially without adding some new machine in the mix. If anyone wants to volunteer to come hold my hand while I fumble through it, let me know 😅
    
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    WFloyd@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Anything USB connected more likely to be flaky, but a good enterprise disk shelf and a HBA card would be rock solid (just noisy…)
    
    Unfortunately my solution when I did a big data migration was to buy more (cheap) storage lol. Ultimately it was a cost vs. time/stress tradeoff.
    
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