Need Help with rebuilding my home network.

Heys guys Im about to start rebuilding my home network, I would love to hear your opions in which way I should go. Best i Post some pics to see whats going to behind the network.


I've finished building the server side, specs are :

*S5000pal Intel Dual Xeon Board
* 2x Intel Xeon 5130 Woodcrest - 2.0Ghz dual core, 4MB L2 cache, 1333mhz
FSB - Socket 771
* Dynatron Heatsink's
* 2xCM72FB1024-667 PC2-5300 1GB 240pin FBDIMM

*Samsung SH-S223C SATA DVD Coverted to usb with external power. (makes setting up raid alot easy.

* 550W "Antec" TruePower ATX Power Supply, 120mm fan
* ANTEC 4U22ATX 4U RACKMOUNT CASE


Hard drives

*2x 200gig Seagates in Raid 0 Configuration for operating system (windows server 2008)

*4x 1tb's in raid 10 configuration.

These hard drives are not for media, they are only for drivers, operating systems, software . I want to build the network before I start expanding on sas and making a media bank.



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Cabling I've already run ( all cat6e) and terminated.


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All my system will be raided, I have 2 test benches, 2 services benches. HTPC and my workstation.

I need your onions is to be able to get the best out of my server which is running server 2008 . Keeping in mind I will be having a rather large media collection thanks to SAS running external hhd boxes.

What size switch? quad port pcie 100/1000 for the server? dual port 100/1000 . Im sure you guys can see where im going with this I would love to hear which way you guys would go about this. Im happy to run as much cable needed .

 

dunno about nic teaming in the windows world, but you can easily bond multiple interfaces together in linux for some good bandwith etc.

your switch would need to support 802.3ad however, ideally anyways.

what other devices will you be connecting to your network? future expansion? this will dictate what kinda gear you will need IE a basic 8port switch or a cisco 3750 for eg

also, depending on budget, quad port nics are around 250$, dual ports are pretty cheap.

looking at the cabling, it is done quite neat ill give you that, but its a pain in the ass to work on. what if you need to add/remove/do something to a cable? i like to use velcro over zippie ties.

anyways goodluck.

 

Goog point about the cable, but they are my main lines. When I add the seconds I'll velcro them in.

Im heading towards the quad pci. 36 port giga

 

raid0 for the OS? What a fantastic way to lose your OS if anything fails.

 

It's only an os,

 

hy do you need 400gb for it. Raid1 them. There is no need for the o/s to run raid0 on that server.

 

Aren't zip ties non spec, as opposed to looms and staples which are cleared for telco applications?

Also, dude, if you need Windows for some reason, VM it on Linux or OSol. It makes management, disaster recovery, etc really nice.

 

My observations.

You're out of your tree running your OS on RAID0. Once it's loaded, it's loaded - you could boot off bloody tape, and it wouldn't change the performance of your network. (and, yes, I''m old enough to have deployed O'S that COULD boot off tape)

Unless write performance is hyper-critical to you, RAID5 will work fine for file-serving. It's easily as fast (if not faster than RAID 10) on read - and will give you more capacity.

Worry less about processor capacity (particularly going massively multicore), and spend more on ECC RAM, redundant power supplies, and properly monitored UPS's - with the money you're spending, I'd take a deep breath, and restructure your system completely differently.

It's a shame you've already blown your cash - otherwise my advice would be:

Get cheap Dell or IBM server hardware - a quad core Xeon of some description - whack 16GB ECC RAM in it, and tie it into 2 cheap-ish UPS's - buy spare drive carriers, and run your own (much cheaper) drives in them,
and drop in a couple of dual port LAN cards - Team them if you must.

Trust me - you'll be a LOT happier than your cobbled fake-server system, and you wouldn't have spent much more money.

Callan
(expecting to be howled down)

 

oh, one question??

How are you planning on backing up all this stuff?
Kinda critical, eh.

Callan

 

RAID 6 is a better option than 5. Single redundancy is not very much considering today's disk sizes and the time required for rebuild.

 

Probably true - I'd go hotspare - but that depends on the controller

 

what he said

+1

is it just my imagination or are you running power lines parallel to data in those photos, really bad practice. guaranteed noise (unless you've got the $$ for STP)

 

Hey listen here forum warrior, you have no idea what I have planned for this system so you have no grounds to even make any comments as you have.

Cobbled fake-server system?

I built this system for 580$ including the case.

UPS? lmfao why?

Before you make yourself look stupid and post such rubbish and waste peoples time. At least have the brains to ask such a user why did i build this server and what I plan to do with it.

Maybe you should pull your dinosaur arse out of your head granpha while im at it.

Im tired of using atx boards to build another server,

Heres the build of the server granpa : http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=907853

O and heres one of my other builds : http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=908954

Wasted my money? No you wasted your time flamming me.

 

Hrm Im pretty sure you would run your power supply cable pretty close your nic card?

Or even your Power supply for that matter, or hey even the power cables to your drives?

 

Im not running ethier.

 

All my critical data is in my HTPC away from raid.

 

I've just spent time going thru the some what over a thousands post on this forum and your a time waster.

This is what i have to say to you.

There are two types of people is this world. You have your Doers and your Talkers. Which one are you you? Talkers flame the Doers, Why? Because thats what talkers do.


YOU HAVE no idea what your talking about.

 

its not so much 'at the back of the box' rather than a longish stretch running parallel to power cables. This isnt my opinion this referenced from my degree (-: its just 'best practices'

Disagree: A). RAID6 supercedes RAID5 in every way now B). if you can afford the costs RAID10 is better - speed and redundancy. Period.

you come off just as bad as callan does with comments phrased like that, no offence, sure SOME of what he said is redundant for a SOHO network
(though he raises a vaguely reasonable points for doing things 'correctly' if you like that sort of thing, as I do.