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Project: Rackmount Overkill

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If you need longer HDMI cables, I've used these guys a couple of times for running cable through conduit for our conference rooms:

http://bluejeanscable.com/store/hdmi-cables/hdmi-cable.htm

Repeaters are available for many signal types, including USB, if you go that route.

I meant to throw this pic in yesterday. This is the network rack in our small office.
 

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I'm pretty sure everyone who was looking for a rack got one, but if anyone is in California, there's a cheap ($20) one on [H].
 
My goal for today is get the rack's cables redone with custom length network cables.

We moved two of the desks upstairs, mine is still in the basement. This allowed me to move the rack a little bit to the right and have more room to work on it. We ran cables up to where the new computers are and hung the cables from the ceiling to the rack. I noticed that the cables would be much cleaner and shorter if the switch was in the back of the rack. I removed and moved it. Every cable in the rack is being replaced and cleaned up, including power cables. Just waiting to get my RJ45 crimper tool back so I can start making cables. I also got the sides panels installed with some crafty hand work (I still don't have keys). I am also toying with the idea of getting the horizontal bars that were recommended to me. It would make cabling a lot easier to work with.

back1_badcabling.JPG


back2_badcabling.JPG


side_panels_on.JPG
 
Just got done re-doing the entire network. There is not a single original cable and they are all cut to the exact length that I need them. I also changed the cables that went up to the entertainment center and re-did all the cables there (to the wireless router, PS3 and HTPC). Power and network cables were tied down using two methods. The rack came with a few clips that snapped into open holes on the rack; I had two of these. For the rest, I just used zip ties. In the future, I'm going to get some velcro strips so they are easy to change out and add cables. Since they are all the same color, I need to make a spreadsheet so that I know where all the cables go and which port they go in.

back1_goodcabling.JPG


back2_goodcabling.JPG


back3_goodcabling.JPG
 
Love your choice of Printers ;)

I have the Brother HL-2040. That thing's worked like a charm for 4 years and counting. For $80, i can't really complain.
 
I've been thinking of scrapping my Perc's for awhile now since they are limited to 8 drives per RAID card. This makes it difficult to add other drives since I'm limited in where I can place them. I've also been meaning to replace my switch since it is unmanaged.

So, I'm looking at the Powerconnect 5224 for a switch. These are easy to obtain and fairly cheap.

For a RAID card, I'm going to use the 3ware 9750-4i:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116110&cm_re=9750-_-16-116-110-_-Product

I will then run a SFF-8087 cable to a SAS expander:
http://www.storageforum.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8012

Total price is ~600 for 32 [internal] drives off a single RAID card. I could then use the external port on the expander and run it to a case that has nothing but another one of these cards and a backplane. The amount of drives you could run off of one card is absolutely insane.

Anyone want a Perc 5? :p
 
I have the Brother HL-2040. That thing's worked like a charm for 4 years and counting. For $80, i can't really complain.
I'm blind and completely missed your post. I picked mine up on sale for around $80 (I think, maybe less), including shipping. I've wanted a laser printer for a long time so that I didn't have to keep paying ridiculous amounts for ink cartridges. I haven't really used it that much (<200 pages), but it works perfectly.
 
I've been thinking of scrapping my Perc's for awhile now since they are limited to 8 drives per RAID card. This makes it difficult to add other drives since I'm limited in where I can place them. I've also been meaning to replace my switch since it is unmanaged.

So, I'm looking at the Powerconnect 5224 for a switch. These are easy to obtain and fairly cheap.

For a RAID card, I'm going to use the 3ware 9750-4i:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116110&cm_re=9750-_-16-116-110-_-Product

I will then run a SFF-8087 cable to a SAS expander:
http://www.storageforum.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8012

Total price is ~600 for 32 [internal] drives off a single RAID card. I could then use the external port on the expander and run it to a case that has nothing but another one of these cards and a backplane. The amount of drives you could run off of one card is absolutely insane.

Anyone want a Perc 5? :p

Have you seen those 100TB+ servers on [H]? Crazy I tell you.

ps, maybe interested in a(nother) Perc 5. :chair:
 
Found an issue with the Astaro firewall, not sure where it went really bad. Basically, the firewall OS was not deleting logs and it was nearing 100% drive capacity. Even though I had settings to delete the oldest log at 85%, 90% and 95%, it never did. I had to take emergency action to clear the logs and ended up deleting too much. It stopped sending me daily reports and some of the UI wasn't acting right (not displaying some graphs, etc). Pulled up the system log and saw this:

Thideras Firewall said:
2010:08:06-15:20:23 thideras-firewall postgres[15542]: [3-1] FATAL: could not open relation 16522/16523/1259: No such file or directory
2010:08:06-15:20:23 thideras-firewall ulogd[3047]: pg1: unable to connect: FATAL: could not open relation 16522/16523/1259: No such file or directory
Whoops. 3.3mb of text that repeats this hundreds of thousands of times. Guess I'm reinstalling.
 
Got the firewall reinstalled last night, what a pain in the rear. I had to wait until everyone was done with the internet. Didn't want to just kick everyone off. Pulled the server out of the rack after powering it down and had one hell of a time trying to get it back up and running. I didn't add any new hardware, but I did think about adding one of the PCI-x dual gigabit network cards. I decided against it since I don't really have a reason to go to those speeds. I had downloaded my license (small business), made a backup of my current configuration and downloaded the newest install. Popped the disk in and bounced the server. Went through the install like normal, no problems at all. Gets finished, ejects the disk and restarts. I hear the server beep twice, indicating that the RAID array is initialized and it should be booting from the disks. Sat there....nothing. The heck is going on? Put a VGA cable on the server to see just a blinking cursor, nothing else. Bounce the server again to see what it does. It gets past the initialization screen to where it passes the boot to the hard drives....nothing! Reinstall again, same thing. Ok, this is getting frustrating. Reburn the disk and reinstall. Same thing! Finally gave up on that and got my old 7.500 install disk and used that, finally, working. Restarted, grub goes by the OS loads up; dumps me to a command line (like it should). Plug it into my computer, no IP address. Try all 4 ports on the back in case I selected the wrong one during setup, nothing. I tinkered with that for an hour before getting the bright idea to manually configure the network device on my station. IT LIVES, DHCP is disabled by default! Yay. Gave it the license and told it to restore my backup; it won't. It gives some odd error and doesn't do anything. Great, so I don't have my old install. Do the normal configuration, internet works (Yay!). Found I need to update the system before I can run my restore, ok. I go to the update screen and it is all grayed out saying my license doesn't have this! Nothing on the firewall is enabled, except NAT and some packet filtering. Did some research and found that the "business" license is extremely limited. Requested a home license and got it quickly. Installed that, working! Updated the firmware to 7.506 within an hour, restarted and restored my backup successfully. Shut it down and dropped it in the rack. Everything is working. Current time? 5am. I work at 8, ugg.

I get to work to find out that my server is not accessible from work. I can't SSH into it and LogMeIn sits at 'Connect to...' forever. I'll have to reconfigure it when I get home, I guess.
 
Yeah dont you just hate that when it doesnt go right , and leaves all frustrated and yet again another later night ,
Glad you got it sorted in the end though!
 
Lo, i dont know if this would fit your usage scenario but for a rock solid file server / NAS OS I cant go past FreeNAS. Its bassed on freeBSD and supports ZFS. Good thing is that the web GUI is top rate so you never really have to drop into CLI. It has a very small foot print, runs on just about any hardware you can throw at it and is rock solid stability wise. It also has an active user cmunity and ixsystems are supporting development, oh and its open source too :)

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated w/ the FreeNAS project, i just rave about it.
 
Lo, i dont know if this would fit your usage scenario but for a rock solid file server / NAS OS I cant go past FreeNAS. Its bassed on freeBSD and supports ZFS. Good thing is that the web GUI is top rate so you never really have to drop into CLI. It has a very small foot print, runs on just about any hardware you can throw at it and is rock solid stability wise. It also has an active user cmunity and ixsystems are supporting development, oh and its open source too :)

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated w/ the FreeNAS project, i just rave about it.
Thank you for the for the suggestion, but there is no way I would run this software. I'm already running CentOS with other services that are not normally available on FreeNAS. I ran it awhile back, but the interface was a tad confusing and I didn't get the performance when running a full blown operating system. It works well if you have a lower-powered computer laying around, though.

That being said, I think you should look over the thread. It will explain exactly why I went with the operating system that I did.
 
ye, i read the whole thread last night (i think i did, but it was late so i proly missed a fair bit too), just thought i would sugest..i wasnt sure if it would fit what you needed tho. It looks like you spent a fair bit of time researching an OS, i too like CentOS alot but for me ZFS is crucial. Very good point bout performance, didnt think bout that. Luckily the interface improved a bit in the .7 releases (as you said it was a total mess, specially b4 .69).

Truly awesome setup by the way, i signed up so i could follow it. Very cool servers.
 
Thank you, I put a lot of time and thought into them. I'm glad to see that someone more than me can benefit from my research.
 
What home/business licenses were you talking about?
I'm not sure what you are asking. Windows or? Your question is a bit out of context, so I'm not sure which post you are talking about.
 
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I would guess astaro
Ooohhhh, yeah. The free "business" license is a really stripped down version of Astaro. There really are no features enabled, you can't even do the automatic updates.

The "home" license is everything but the very high-end enterprise features (Clustering, fail-over servers, etc). Definitely get the home version.
 
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