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Homebuilt 19" Mini-ITX Server Rack

Posted by timothy on from the mother-of-invention dept.

TykSak writes "I started to build this rack with Mini-ITX boards almost 3 years ago and today it holds four 3U servers with a total of 28 harddrives. I made this site to describe the process of the build."

30 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Summary by kaosrain · · Score: 4, Informative

    TOTAL SPACE:
    4643Gb > 4.53 Tera bytes (28 Harddrives)

    1. Re:Summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      bad jokes?

    2. Re:Summary by stephenpeters · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is going to interesting for him if he needs to fsck a large filesystem. His hardware specification couples large disk sizes with insufficient memory for fsck to load a large number of ext2/3 inodes during a pass. I hope he has the sense (if using ext2/3 at all) to split his disks into smaller partitions.

      With the current availability of large IDE,firewire and USB disks more and more people will hit resource limits during fsck processes. People using inexpensive systems such as the ones in TFA are unlikley to have the resources to back up tera byte size disks.

      Steve

    3. Re:Summary by AVryhof · · Score: 2, Funny
      This is going to interesting for him if he needs to fsck a large filesystem


      YEAH! FSCK THE SYSTEM!
      --
      Make America grate again!
    4. Re:Summary by antsquish · · Score: 2, Informative

      Given that it seems to be running Windows on all bar the router system, I'd imagine that fsck is a non-issue.

  2. Cool, but... by drivinghighway61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is pretty useless. The mini-itx chipsets aren't really appropriate for server usage, especially considering the weak VIA processors and the high prices for the boards. I'd much rather just set up a couple of AMD boxes for the price.

    1. Re:Cool, but... by pe1chl · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That depends on what load you want to put on the server.
      I have been looking around for info to build such a thing. I'd like to have 1TB of raid-protected storage for a digital video recorder. Performance is not an issue, but I would like it to be quiet, lowpower, and not too big.

      I have not yet decided between building a standalone "server" or just adding a lot of disks to my existing Linux box.

    2. Re:Cool, but... by spagetti_code · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Perhaps - depends on the application.

      If its IO bound, these may function just fine. Given they run cool (low cooling requirements), quiet and with low power usage, they may provide a good mips-per-operating-$$. They are not that cheap on a $/mips from a capex point of view though.

    3. Re:Cool, but... by mcrbids · · Score: 2, Informative

      If its IO bound, these may function just fine.

      One of the servers I manage is a "backup" server that incrementally backs up numerous other hosts using software I wrote (in part) Backup Buddy.

      Basically, it's an old AMD K6-2 450 (yes, it's so ancient it's even AT instead of ATX) with a few PCI IDE controller cards and a crapload of IDE HDDs. CPU performance is irrelevant - it's all I/O bound, rsync over SSH.

      It does the job wonderfully, and has for a long time. I have many months worth of backups of all important hosts and data on this "backup" server..

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    4. Re:Cool, but... by karstux · · Score: 4, Informative

      How about this box? 1.2 TB (with RAID 5) in a neat little package. Since it's an embedded system, it should be ok in the noise/power usage department.

      Unfortunately, I don't own one, so I don't know know if there are any "showstoppers"...

      --
      Don't whistle while you're pissing.
    5. Re:Cool, but... by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're fine, even ideal for home server usage. If you don't need the CPU power anyway (and honestly an athlon XP 2000+ is way overkill for most home servers) the power savings are nice. A file server doesn't need more than a crappy CPU and some good SCSI/SATA cards. This is especially true because the server will likely be on 24/7.

    6. Re:Cool, but... by StressedEd · · Score: 2, Insightful
      We have been looking at this for the purpose of acting as a backup server (disk space is running short). Came across a review which under due consideration I think rules it out. The application we have is for a set of redundent backup servers serving NFS backups. Since this doesn't support NFS out of the box it pretty much rules it out straight away. The lack of hot swap is also a no-no. In my opinion RAID is not much use unless you can couple that with a redundent disk which can be swapped in automatically when one fails. This is also not supported.

      That said, the one aspect of it I like is the ease of extensibility. Daisy chaining these units is quite an attractive thing.

      I have been considering some form of distrubuted storage cluster. In other words an array of machines which presents a single logical drive with redundency on a machine basis. Do people here have any experience with this (GFS et al.)? Care to comment?

      [shameless plug] In case anyone is wondering, the backup s/w is my own concontion yarbu. Which automates hourly, daily, weekly and monthly backups. I've been running this for about a year with ~1TB of backup under its control, spanning about a dozen machines. It's a lifesaver (not as fancy-shmancy as some others but very reliable).

      --
      Be nice to people on the way up. You will meet them again on your way down!
  3. Slashdotted by Omicron32 · · Score: 3, Funny

    4 comments and already crawling. Guess we've melted a few of those hard drives then.

  4. Wow by Jeet81 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wow that's soo cool having a server farm right beside where I sit. :)

    --
    What does your Credit Report look like?
  5. wasn't built recently by Snuggly_Soft · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This sweet and economical rack was built in september of 2003. The project's worklog shows that the only changes have been swapping hard drives since then. It looks like a great file/web server. It's just not that topical. I'm waiting for a water-cooled Beowulf cluster...now that would be something.

  6. Actually, it is very useful by WindBourne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At my house, I have a small box as a household/internet server. I am using the mini-itx/via. In addition, it has a gig. ram, and 4 hard disks (a 40G for the system/swap, and 3 samsungs 160G for data). This set-up is located in a very small networking closet, with minimal ventalation. The system is quiet, and produces just a little heat. Had this been an AMD, there would be a lot of heat and a lot of power consumption.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:Actually, it is very useful by InfoTechnologist80 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Real servers can just serve out data on demand. :) This sounds like it is ideal for situation where you need to store lots of data at home.

  7. Pretty, but... why? by Joel+Rowbottom · · Score: 3, Funny
    Is it 1997 again already? I mean, *why*?

    It's nice building stuff on your own but this sort of hardware doesn't cut it when you're talking about servers, and I suspect with all the manpower the cost-per-server is actually *more* than if you'd bought it in its entirety.

    Places like Sight Systems will quite happily spray-paint a case for you or even etch a logo into it, and the 2U cases they do will happily house reasonably cheap P4 boards (they even do fans for them).

    Plus, 4U cases which take standard ATX PSUs are now less than £100 in the UK (you get to do the math if you don't live in the UK). Quite why "bloke makes a rackmount server using rackmount bits" makes Slashdot I don't know.

    Oh well. Maybe I'm just getting old.

    --
    Smegma.
  8. Coral Cache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    As everyone is melting the servers..

    http://rack.modzone.dk.nyud.net:8090/

  9. But what did it cost? by matthew.thompson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously if this was - Man makes own Blade server using Mini-ITX motherboards that would be damn impressive.

    Imagine having a home cluster in a really small space with hot-pluggable units.

    But this is just Man makes 4 PCs and puts hard drives in them - and spends more than if he'd bought the units anyway.

    --
    Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
  10. He made a rack..... by Meest · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why is this something to post about... measureing 19" is not that hard.... Hell i do it on a daily basis as i work in Pro audio/lighting.

    What would have been simpler to me is to just by a Mid-atlantic rack, get the shelving unit (U1 or U3).

    Find a computer case thats 19" tall. Throw it on its side. screw it to the shelf and then mount it in the case.

    Also could have gotten some 19" blanks and lined the back with fans/outtakes, put an AC Plug on there. along with RJ45 jack that goes to the switch. so it looks cleaner with less wires hanging out.

    http://www.rit.edu/~ajw8557/computer/rack/index.ht ml

    I think these guys did a much cooler job making one that this dude.... at least they did it with an old fridge!

  11. Let me be the first to say... by po8 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nice rack!

    Thanks, I'll be here all week...

  12. Hmm by ZorbaTHut · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I think the idea of having a 19" rack at home is every techs dream."

    Know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more! Wink wink, nudge nudge.

    Is she a . . . goer?

    --
    Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
  13. Twenty-Eight harddrives? by concept10 · · Score: 2, Interesting


    My question is what is he serving with that much storage space? After reading TFA, I didn't what he is using his servers for.

    I bet one thing, his prOn selection on the fileserver is TOP NOTCH!

  14. the "U" in 1U by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 5, Funny

    "A little info! A "U" is the measured height of a server case 1U is 44.45mm (1.75inches) 19 inches is 482,6mm"

    Actually, the historical roots of the U are traced back to Bonnie Scotland. The U was the designation of how many sheep could be stuffed into the small slot of a server rack. The server rack would then be set afire as the rack doubled as a barbecue on the weekends. (This is where Al Gore studied the creation of the internet incidentally) The phrase "rack of ribs" was also coined in Bonnie Scotland during the infamous "Troy McLure Cuefest of '79" (1879) during a rendition of "Laddie, fetch me ha'notharack o them ribs" performed by, who else, The Scotsmen.

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    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
  15. Wrong, wrong by hedgehog2097 · · Score: 2, Informative
    I disagree. There are umptimillion inexpensive Mini-ITX boards out there running servers, large and small. You don't need a lot of CPU to chug bits over a network.

    Mini-ITX boards drive the Internet Archive, for instance:

    http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/22/ 0418253&tid=198&tid=126&tid=137&tid=106

  16. Re:you can 4.5 tera with just 9drives these days.. by shani · · Score: 3, Informative

    It depends on what you mean by "performance", doesn't it?

    We have a database server that is limited by seek speed. For us, splitting our databases and adding more disks is the way forward (until we hit the next bottleneck). So in this case, yes adding more drives equals more performance.

    But, if by performance you mean "throughput", then you are correct that adding more drives will help - to a point. At some point your controller won't be able to keep up with all those drives, and adding more will actually give you no additional benefit.

    For instance, the Maxtor Atlas 15K II has a top transfer rate of over 90 Mbyte/sec. Even the highest-speed SCSI interface only has a throughput of 320 Mbyte/sec.

  17. Priceless by ebvwfbw · · Score: 2, Funny

    19" rack for servers - $3000.
    1 U server - $1500 (nicely equiped).
    1 Disk drive (of many) for 4 terrabyte server - $200.
    Weeks to load with content - 5.
    Look at admin's face when a new 4 TB software raid fails - Priceless.

  18. $69 by dickens · · Score: 2, Informative

    Just had to do some googling after I read this. I was amazed to find that one can get a rack mount cases from $69. See here.

  19. Re:you can 4.5 tera with just 9drives these days.. by fnj · · Score: 2, Informative

    You can use more than one SCSI host adapter (they're not really controllers), you know. But then your PCI bus is going to be the bottleneck. Heck, even a 64 bit 66 MHz PCI bus can only move 533 MBps.

    Actually, though, drives are constantly seeking; real world transfers are always bursty; so it's never as bad as the raw drive numbers indicate.