Re: Got my new Home Server up and running..

[Sean <thunderchilduk@xxxxxxxxx>]

nice :)

On Dec 7, 2007 11:43 AM, Ian Lowe <ianlowe@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> well, it took a while planning, but I finally implemented my
> replacement server for the house.
>
> I had looked at WHS, and decided that I would rather stick with the
> full-fat Windows Server 2003 OS, with a twist. I'm a MAPS subscriber,
> and wanted to run Exchange Server 2007 - replacing our existing
> SBS2003. I wantd to run VMWare, and have 64 bit VMs, so I needed a
> pretty capable machine.
>
> I wanted a nice fast processor - our home server has always been a
cast-
> off desktop machine, and this time I wanted a decently fast machine
> rather than just what was last on my desk - so I opted for the Quad
> Core Q6600.
>
> In motherboard terms, I wanted something with PCI-X support (all the
> good raid cards seem to be PCI-X!) as well as VT support for running
> x64 VMs.
>
> I liked the look of ASUS' Professional Workstation range, and chose
the
> P5WDG2-WS Pro - an absolutely kick-ass board with 7 SATA connectors on
> board, PCI-e, PCI-X and able to handle loads of RAM.
>
> I used the multiple drive SATA caddies that let you have 5 drives in 3
> bays (and the smaller one that does 3 in 2) for a total of eight drive
> bays, with 6 500Gb Samsung Spinpoint drives in it on day one.
>
> 4Gb of OCZ RAM (probably the first thing I'll upgrade) finished off
the
> Spec, along with a silent nvidia Graphics Card (with component video
> out - just in case!).
>
> I experimented a bit with various OSes, and decided that for this job
I
> wanted to use Ubuntu 7.10 - the maturity of the Linux Kernel is just
> amazing now, and it can do some pretty funky tricks - as I found out.
>
> I found a little problem with the P5WDG2 - 3 of the SATA controller
> ports are tied up to a "FakeRAID" controller, where the bulk
of the
> work is done in the drivers - this can't be supported properly under
> Linux without a lot of mucking around, and I wanted a nice simple
> install.
>
> This left me with 4 500Gb disks on day one, with another two in the
> case but uncabled until the new controller arrived (a fairly generic
> promise SATA controller).
>
> I built the Ubuntu 7.10 install (using the Alternate 64 bit CD
version,
> which allows you to conifgure raid devices during install), and
> partitioned up my disks with a 20Gb RAID1 mirror set on the first two
> disks, and a big 471 Gb per disk RAID5 set - 1.5Tb of useable space,
> which I mounted as /home
>
> Once up and running I installed Vmware Server 1.0.4 (free) and created
> a set of VMs for the network servers - a Server 2003 R2 64bit domain
> controller, and Exchange 2007 Server, a dedicated Gallery appliance
and
> a Development server for Jen to play with.
>
> So, day one result, Q6600 Quad Core with 4Gb of PC6400 and 1.5Tb of
> diskspace, hosting four Virtual Servers at about 4% CPU and using less
> than 1.2Gb of real physical RAM.
>
> A few days later, the new SATA controller arrived, so I downed the
> server, re-cabled and rebooted - the new disks were partitioned like
> the existing ones (adding a linux raid partition on each disk)
>
> Using mdadm (the linux software RAID manager) I then added the two new
> disks into the RAID array (they added as spares), then dynamically
grew
> the raid array from four to six disks ONLINE - the process took about
> 18 hours as the array was re-shaped... during which Jen and I watched
a
> movie streaming from the volume *and* 300Gb of data was being copied
on
> from an external USB drive... awesome.
>
> At the end of the process, I have a 2.2Tb volume with two hot swap
bays
> still free for future expansion.
>
> So, very cool technologies, big winners are the Quad Core proc
> (amazingly quick), vmware server - all this, for free?, Ubuntu 7.10
and
> Linux Raid
>
> chuffed!
>
> Ian.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>



--
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to
build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying
to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

- Unknown