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We currently are using custom built servers as standalone backup machines (using rsync/zfs snapshotting). They run freebsd (just so we can use ZFS) and have 16 SATA HDD's in them all connected as straight jbod's and zfs handles the rest.

We have had a lot of trouble and have put in a lot of time and expense maintaining these things, and I am considering replacing them with a supported server from one of the big dealers (HP, Dell, Oracle etc).

Our only real requirements are that

  • It needs to house 16 HDD's (and an internal boot disk)
  • It needs to be a standalone server (not a DAS/SAN/NAS appliance.. we want to run a proper OS on it)
  • We want to run ZFS for disk management
  • It needs to be affordable. We don't need any fancy features, we basically just would need SATA disks to run the arrays, not alot of compute power. But I guess either FreeBSD or solaris would be needed for zfs.

Like I said we have been doing this ourselves and we just find it eats up alot of time for the system administrators (there are plenty of stories out there like the backblaze blogs of doing it yourself). But we're looking for an off the shelf solution so we can get onto doing other things.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks!

ewwhite
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bobinabottle
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4 Answers4

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My favorite standalone ZFS server is the HP ProLiant DL380 G7 with extra drive cage. SD boot. 16 drive bays. But all the same, SuperMicro, Dell and IBM have models that can work. For my purposes (ZFS), I connect the drive cages to ZFS-friendly LSI controllers, bypassing the onboard RAID.

Here's an example of a single zpool build with a DL380 G7, LSI 9211-8i controllers and dedicated ZIL and L2ARC.

Community
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ewwhite
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You might also consider a separate 'dumb' directly attached storage unit (SAS JBOD) connected via a SAS 4x cable (SFF-8088 or SFF-8470). These allow aggregate throughput of 4x a single SAS connector, so 12Gbps or 24Gbps depending depending on whether your controller/enclosure is SAS or SAS2 (3Gbps or 6Gbps). On most (all?) of these you can use SATA and not just SAS disks. SAS enclosures have the added benefit of being scalable past 16 disks (just add another enclosure) as well as being easily migrated to other hardware in the event of server failure/upgrade. Each of the major manufacturers have them:

  • HP D2600/D2700 2U SAS 6Gbps (12x3.5in or 25x2.5in)
  • Dell MD1200 2U SAS 6Gbps (12x3.5 or 24x2.5)
  • Dell MD1000 3U SAS 3Gbps (15x3.5)
  • Promise VTrak Jx30 3U/4U 6Gbps (16x3.5 or 24x3.5)
  • Promise VTrak Jx10 2U/4U 3Gbps (12x3.5 or 16x3.5)
  • Oracle J4420 4U 6Gbps (24 x 3.5in)
  • Oracle J2400/J4400/J4800 2U/4U/8U SAS 3Gbps (12/24/48 x 3.5)
notpeter
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SuperMicro. 2.5": up to 72 discs per server in 4u. Pluss all kinds of assorted other cases. Makes them pretty unique. It is using SAS internally, though - makes it a little pricy but also a little high quality.

TomTom
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Check out FreeNAS, which is version of FreeBSD which specializes in storage and ZFS. It has pretty good community support.

As Chris S says above, consider IXsystems if you need hardware support. Check out the FreeNAS.org webpage, look at the ad in the upper right which shows that IXsystems is a supporter of the FreeNAS project.

Stefan Lasiewski
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