Server hardware queries for New Amahi 7 server-Proxmox
Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:38 pm
Hi Bit unsure as where to post this (here or in installation) but I've been reading forum posts for a while and have found some answers but not all yet.
Anyway here goes
Wanting to upgrade to Amahi 7 as my current server has a few problems from playing with the configurations etc, so now, only a rebuild will resolve elegantly. The problem with this is that I stupidly put the fedora OS partition on a drive that also has some of my storage (greyhole across 3 physical discs of varying sizes) so I can't easily just re-install Amahi and point the fresh install at my storage drives. Been loving the server and so with the new release out and all the goodness of it I want to experience, I decided that I will retire the current machine, which is just a bunch of old parts thrown into a case, and build a more robust system that is capable of replacing a few of the other scrappy machine I have in service also.
The other motivation is that I got the opportunity to purchase a really cheap AMD CPU and motherboard.
I'm planning on building a proxmox server on the initial OS drive but I've been reading that it would probably be best to have the Amahi VM on its own dedicated physical drive. If that's the case do you think it would be possible to use a USB 3.0 thumb drive as that dedicated Amahi VM drive? Other wise I'll get another smaller 2.5 notebook drive and use that as the physical drive for the dedicated amahi VM image or can I just put the VM on the proxmox install drive?
I'm hoping I can use openVZ style containers are there any issue that anyone knows with regards to pointing that type of container to separate storage?(see below for storage) Using proxmox appeals to me as I believe I should be easily do a copy of say the Amahi VM after initial successful installation and configuration and if I stuff it up later on fail it over to the fresh copy and be good to go in relatively short amount of time and many other features including eventually using SPICE remote display system.
Storage
I'm think of going a raid this time around for my storage but I'm not sure, I've been happy with greyhole but from what I understand you can't rebuild if a drive fails unless you've selected to have a copy of data on every drive? I've not purchased storage yet as I want to make sure I'm going to get the right type of disks for the server, I want the storage to be reliable (of course) but I even though it'll be on all the time as it does my Lans dns dchp etc, I would like the discs to spin down when idle which will be a fair amount of the time except on weekends when I'm home working and using the LAN. I've listed all the drive brands and types in the server specs at the bottom of the post if I could get peoples experiences with any of the drive types that would be great!
I would like the storage to be as seperate as it can be from the Amahi installation by that I mean I want to be able to rebuild Amahi and fedora OS easily without the storage being in any danger of being unusable. (hope that make sense) I would also like to be able to point other VMs to that storage for their separate use not sure how to do this or if it will be possible at all, this is a bit of a black area in my comprehension and I maybe over complicating the thinking of how to go about this. I thought one way might be sym linking the /var/hda/files section to the folders on the storage? I like the idea of putting in a new drive and rebuilding the array should a drive fail. I will be using bittorrent sync and open cloud (and possibly crash plan) for the backups of important data to machines out side of physical home. I use the storage for streaming my multimedia collection to my various media center front ends as far as accessing the storage goes.
Hardware
Its a bit of a beasty hardware wise, like I said I got the mobo and cpu cheap (ram two for that matter) I don't mind waiting and saving up for the storage as the box I have running at the moment is working fine for what I use it for. I'm leaning towards the WD greens as I think this the spin down in idle will be most helpful. I'm concerned about heat, I live in a hot part of the world in summer and I don't need the storage spinning away if it's not being used (I've no aircon); as it stands at the moment I can only spin down my wd green drive I have in the current server (get some hdtemp locking out my other 2 drives when I try to spin them down) but the one that's spun down is 7C cooler than the others. I do want to run a few other always on appliances on this server in separate VMs, asterix PABX and a mythTV backend (unless there is something better now days) plus a few centOs boxes for my redhat training. I'll post the current specs below and the other bits I'm planning on getting as I save for them. I want this build to last for a long time I believe it will and I also think the outlay will be worthwhile if I get a few years of reliable service out of this box. If you see something that's glaringly obvious that it won't work please let me know.
My amahi currently serves all my dns and dhcp and I have to routers with two internal lan IPs for no real reason other than I can set it up like that lol.
Specs
Mother Board
SABERTOOTH 990FX Revision 1
CPU
AMD FX 8120 +corsair radiator
Ram
Corsair 32GB (4x8GB) Vengeance CMZ32GX3M4X1866C10R DDR3 Red
Lan
lan1841, PCI Express Quad Gigabit ethernet board
OS Drive
Proxmox Base OS /VM hosts drive WD Black 750gig
250Gig notebook drive for dedicated amahi vm
Storage (To be decided) also think I'll need a sata expansion card of some sort
Thinking ORICO 6205SS 5Bay 3.5" SATA Internal Hot Swap Rack Enclosure
Currently thinking
5 x Western Digital Green 3TB Green 64MB SATA 3 WD30EZRX
or
5 x Western Digital RED WD40EFRX RED NAS- 4TB/INTELLIPOWER/DDR2/3.5
or
5 x Seagate SATA3 3TB 7200RPM Barracuda 64mb Cache
or
5 x Seagate ST4000DM000 Desktop HDD 4TB, SATA3, 3.5", 64MB
So if someone can read that ramble and answer a few of the questions that would be great thanks, my main point on concern is how amahi accesses the storage and also how to keep the storage independent if that makes sense. For instance if I decide that proxmox is not for me or too much hassle down the track and I want to switch back to a dedicated amahi drive install it's as simple as reinstall on the OS drive and point it to the storage drives.
Anyway here goes
Wanting to upgrade to Amahi 7 as my current server has a few problems from playing with the configurations etc, so now, only a rebuild will resolve elegantly. The problem with this is that I stupidly put the fedora OS partition on a drive that also has some of my storage (greyhole across 3 physical discs of varying sizes) so I can't easily just re-install Amahi and point the fresh install at my storage drives. Been loving the server and so with the new release out and all the goodness of it I want to experience, I decided that I will retire the current machine, which is just a bunch of old parts thrown into a case, and build a more robust system that is capable of replacing a few of the other scrappy machine I have in service also.
The other motivation is that I got the opportunity to purchase a really cheap AMD CPU and motherboard.
I'm planning on building a proxmox server on the initial OS drive but I've been reading that it would probably be best to have the Amahi VM on its own dedicated physical drive. If that's the case do you think it would be possible to use a USB 3.0 thumb drive as that dedicated Amahi VM drive? Other wise I'll get another smaller 2.5 notebook drive and use that as the physical drive for the dedicated amahi VM image or can I just put the VM on the proxmox install drive?
I'm hoping I can use openVZ style containers are there any issue that anyone knows with regards to pointing that type of container to separate storage?(see below for storage) Using proxmox appeals to me as I believe I should be easily do a copy of say the Amahi VM after initial successful installation and configuration and if I stuff it up later on fail it over to the fresh copy and be good to go in relatively short amount of time and many other features including eventually using SPICE remote display system.
Storage
I'm think of going a raid this time around for my storage but I'm not sure, I've been happy with greyhole but from what I understand you can't rebuild if a drive fails unless you've selected to have a copy of data on every drive? I've not purchased storage yet as I want to make sure I'm going to get the right type of disks for the server, I want the storage to be reliable (of course) but I even though it'll be on all the time as it does my Lans dns dchp etc, I would like the discs to spin down when idle which will be a fair amount of the time except on weekends when I'm home working and using the LAN. I've listed all the drive brands and types in the server specs at the bottom of the post if I could get peoples experiences with any of the drive types that would be great!
I would like the storage to be as seperate as it can be from the Amahi installation by that I mean I want to be able to rebuild Amahi and fedora OS easily without the storage being in any danger of being unusable. (hope that make sense) I would also like to be able to point other VMs to that storage for their separate use not sure how to do this or if it will be possible at all, this is a bit of a black area in my comprehension and I maybe over complicating the thinking of how to go about this. I thought one way might be sym linking the /var/hda/files section to the folders on the storage? I like the idea of putting in a new drive and rebuilding the array should a drive fail. I will be using bittorrent sync and open cloud (and possibly crash plan) for the backups of important data to machines out side of physical home. I use the storage for streaming my multimedia collection to my various media center front ends as far as accessing the storage goes.
Hardware
Its a bit of a beasty hardware wise, like I said I got the mobo and cpu cheap (ram two for that matter) I don't mind waiting and saving up for the storage as the box I have running at the moment is working fine for what I use it for. I'm leaning towards the WD greens as I think this the spin down in idle will be most helpful. I'm concerned about heat, I live in a hot part of the world in summer and I don't need the storage spinning away if it's not being used (I've no aircon); as it stands at the moment I can only spin down my wd green drive I have in the current server (get some hdtemp locking out my other 2 drives when I try to spin them down) but the one that's spun down is 7C cooler than the others. I do want to run a few other always on appliances on this server in separate VMs, asterix PABX and a mythTV backend (unless there is something better now days) plus a few centOs boxes for my redhat training. I'll post the current specs below and the other bits I'm planning on getting as I save for them. I want this build to last for a long time I believe it will and I also think the outlay will be worthwhile if I get a few years of reliable service out of this box. If you see something that's glaringly obvious that it won't work please let me know.
My amahi currently serves all my dns and dhcp and I have to routers with two internal lan IPs for no real reason other than I can set it up like that lol.
Specs
Mother Board
SABERTOOTH 990FX Revision 1
CPU
AMD FX 8120 +corsair radiator
Ram
Corsair 32GB (4x8GB) Vengeance CMZ32GX3M4X1866C10R DDR3 Red
Lan
lan1841, PCI Express Quad Gigabit ethernet board
OS Drive
Proxmox Base OS /VM hosts drive WD Black 750gig
250Gig notebook drive for dedicated amahi vm
Storage (To be decided) also think I'll need a sata expansion card of some sort
Thinking ORICO 6205SS 5Bay 3.5" SATA Internal Hot Swap Rack Enclosure
Currently thinking
5 x Western Digital Green 3TB Green 64MB SATA 3 WD30EZRX
or
5 x Western Digital RED WD40EFRX RED NAS- 4TB/INTELLIPOWER/DDR2/3.5
or
5 x Seagate SATA3 3TB 7200RPM Barracuda 64mb Cache
or
5 x Seagate ST4000DM000 Desktop HDD 4TB, SATA3, 3.5", 64MB
So if someone can read that ramble and answer a few of the questions that would be great thanks, my main point on concern is how amahi accesses the storage and also how to keep the storage independent if that makes sense. For instance if I decide that proxmox is not for me or too much hassle down the track and I want to switch back to a dedicated amahi drive install it's as simple as reinstall on the OS drive and point it to the storage drives.