Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 29
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Posts
    339

    * How to build server with SSD for file hosting?

    Hello guys,
    I'd like to build a 1U or 2U server for file hosting. The server should have +1TB disk capacity anduse only SSDs to server files, with a SATA to back up the data. I will use SSDs in RAID 1.

    Just wondering what would be the most cost-effective arrangement of SSD disks for this purpose? How do you build such server?

    My budget to make the server is about 3.5K USD.

    I appreciate your suggestions.

  2. #2
    FYI,
    http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard...ssd%20hdd-_-e#

    480GB raid 5 may do your job.

    Dell, Supermicro or DIY server should let you build what you want within budget.

    What is your concerns indeed?
    Alex - info[@]serverhk.org
    Server Hong Kong Company - The optimized choice
    No limitation at service scope but promise you always the best price for whatever service level required.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Posts
    339
    Quote Originally Posted by Serverhk View Post
    FYI,
    http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard...ssd%20hdd-_-e#

    480GB raid 5 may do your job.

    Dell, Supermicro or DIY server should let you build what you want within budget.

    Thanks for your suggestion. Have not heard of Seagate SSDs before. How do you compare it with Intel SSD 520 series?

    Code:
    What is your concerns indeed?
    I will build custom Supermicro. But have no precise idea what barebone and SSD arrangmen to use. The problem basically is that SSD disks are expensive so one need to reach to an optimal arrangement, e.g., to have over 1TB capacity would it be better to use a 2U server with 4x256GB disks, or 1U with 2x 512GB disks, etc.
    Also decision need to be taken about the SSD brand. Up until now I have not thrusted anything but Intel 520 for server grade (I had bad experience with other brands at my Desktop). But perhapse there are some other viable options for server?
    I also appreciate if you could suggest proper supermicro chassis for this purpose.

  4. #4
    I've seen a number of our customers use Crucial M500 drives - they're pretty cost effective, although not really an 'enterprise' drive and performance not as hot as some of the competitors. Low cost per GB though.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Posts
    339
    Quote Originally Posted by justcolo View Post
    I've seen a number of our customers use Crucial M500 drives - they're pretty cost effective, although not really an 'enterprise' drive and performance not as hot as some of the competitors. Low cost per GB though.
    I don't have experience with Crucial M500 but Crucial M4 died on my Desktop soon and I avoided Crucial since then.

  6. #6
    no raid for ssd could be dangerous.
    where will you locate the server?
    Alex - info[@]serverhk.org
    Server Hong Kong Company - The optimized choice
    No limitation at service scope but promise you always the best price for whatever service level required.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Posts
    55

    How to build server with SSD for file hosting?

    File hosting with SSDs isn't financially viable in my opinion.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    430
    Why not? Wouldn't people pay extra for increased speeds?

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Posts
    55

    How to build server with SSD for file hosting?

    Under all that stress it'll perform fairly similar to good SATAs. I recommend you spend more money on a quality network as apposed to SSDs which will have endless crashes.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    814
    I run a medium sized filehost for years now, and 1TB of space gets used up in hours sometimes if not faster, you would need more drives alot more.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Posts
    339
    Quote Originally Posted by JordanF View Post
    File hosting with SSDs isn't financially viable in my opinion.
    So what alternative would you suggest?
    After some pleasant experience with Intel 520 SSD for web servers, it's hard to come back to SATA and its miserable performance at random reads.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    1,225
    Quote Originally Posted by mihd View Post
    I run a medium sized filehost for years now, and 1TB of space gets used up in hours sometimes if not faster, you would need more drives alot more.
    It would still depend on OP's target audience not to mention marketing/current users.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Minnesota
    Posts
    973
    Samsung 840 EVO's are decent temp solution. Very Fast with 90-100k I/Ops they will only last about 2-3 years on a moderately active server since they are TLC but use SLC for active cache. By then Larger MLC and SLC SSD's will be much cheaper so just remember to replace them before they die.

    more info on TLC, MLC and SLC:
    http://blog.shawnhyde.com/post/2013/...liability.aspx
    AfterNorth Innovative solutions for tomorrow, today.
    0spam.org AntiSpam for Service Providers
    DotNetInvoice Online Billing Solutions
    Professional Services Since 1996

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    How much bandwidth are you planning on pushing?
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    India, USA and Amsterdam
    Posts
    2,581
    Instead of building a raid array with SSD, consider building a Raid array with SATA and have a 2 x SSD in raid-0 cache setup. With some modifications in the code of your file hosting script, I am sure this can be achieved. I have had clients who did this and able to push more than 3-6gbit per server very easily.

    Building plain SSD based raid array won't be a financially viable plan in the long run and you won't need that much I/O per server.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    1,225
    Quote Originally Posted by chennaihomie View Post
    Instead of building a raid array with SSD, consider building a Raid array with SATA and have a 2 x SSD in raid-0 cache setup. With some modifications in the code of your file hosting script, I am sure this can be achieved. I have had clients who did this and able to push more than 3-6gbit per server very easily.

    Building plain SSD based raid array won't be a financially viable plan in the long run and you won't need that much I/O per server.
    Agree with this. I had a client who utilized a 240GB SSD per server for his filehosting script, and was able to push 2GB/s (His max) when popular things were uploaded.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    We are pushing 2gbit (1.7TB sata set) with the ability to push much more on 4 x sata drives... and this is with software raid 10 with a large chunk size and readahead.. IO wait is under 2%
    Last edited by Steven; 09-28-2013 at 11:17 AM.
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by chennaihomie View Post
    Instead of building a raid array with SSD, consider building a Raid array with SATA and have a 2 x SSD in raid-0 cache setup. With some modifications in the code of your file hosting script, I am sure this can be achieved. I have had clients who did this and able to push more than 3-6gbit per server very easily.

    Building plain SSD based raid array won't be a financially viable plan in the long run and you won't need that much I/O per server.
    I dont believe there will be a lot of concurrent read & write and so SSD performance will not have benefit in this case.

    But OP likes SSD, why not?
    Alex - info[@]serverhk.org
    Server Hong Kong Company - The optimized choice
    No limitation at service scope but promise you always the best price for whatever service level required.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Atlanta
    Posts
    201
    I would recommend 4x 3tb (or bigger) drives in a raid10 array and use a OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 (PCI-E SSD) for ssd caching.

    Then setup flashcache in Writethrough mode and you should be set.
    Jon Fatino

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    814
    Quote Originally Posted by JonFatino View Post
    and use a OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 (PCI-E SSD) for ssd caching.
    Does RevoDrive actually work on linux? last I heard there were driver issues

    or for that matter would it work in an LSI Cachecade ?

  21. #21
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Atlanta
    Posts
    201
    Some of the older revodrives had issues with linux, however the new ones are very nice (OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2)

    I am not sure they will work with LSI Cachecade as i have not tested this.
    I know they work very well with flashcache.
    Jon Fatino

  22. #22
    lot of filehosts using SSD drives (say 1 to 2tb) as cache server.

    that is, user upload file to SSD, then after upload finish file will be moved automatically to file servers, this enhances the upload speed drastically.

    eg:
    kingfiles.com using 1tb raid 0 as upload cache server, once upload finished it move to normal file server.

    http://FileOM.com using more than 2tb SSD for cache upload, (they have nearly Petabyte of data ~~ 0.75 petabyte)
    Simple and awesome
    Google

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Posts
    37
    Make sure the drives support TRIM and also that the OS you're using not only claims to support TRIM, but that it also works. Without TRIM, the drives become much slower once you've cycled through the drive.

    If many of the same things are being read, more memory may be more useful than a faster drive. DB managers store recent queries, and modern MBs can take a lot of ram.

  24. #24
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Kauai, Hawaii
    Posts
    3,799
    Quote Originally Posted by zite View Post
    Hello guys,
    I'd like to build a 1U or 2U server for file hosting. The server should have +1TB disk capacity anduse only SSDs to server files, with a SATA to back up the data. I will use SSDs in RAID 1.

    Just wondering what would be the most cost-effective arrangement of SSD disks for this purpose? How do you build such server?

    My budget to make the server is about 3.5K USD.

    I appreciate your suggestions.
    You probably don't NEED SSDs as Steven and others pointed out. However with $3.5k you can build a machine as follows:


    That gives you:
    • E3-1230v3
    • 32GB DDR-3 ECC RAM
    • 4x 960GB Crucial M500 SSDs (approx 1.8TB when in s/w raid 10)
    • Chassis with 8x hot swap drive bays (board has 6x sata and 8x SAS2 (6Gbps) via LSI 2308), you can also add in a pci-e card to that system with the use of a 1u riser.


    Keep an eye on the SSD health. If you prefer to save costs and stick to the RAID 1 setup you mentioned then maybe just grab 3x of the SSDs, set two up in S/W RAID 1 and drop one of them and cycle in the third after a few months usage. Then you will have a spare in the chassis ready to go any time you need it, and you will prevent both of your SSDs wearing down to failure at the same time.

    I'd also suggest maybe renting instead of purchasing, depending on your bandwidth needs. As most established hosts will comp the hardware or the bandwidth for big configs or decent length contracts.

    Good luck!

  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by chennaihomie View Post
    Instead of building a raid array with SSD, consider building a Raid array with SATA and have a 2 x SSD in raid-0 cache setup. With some modifications in the code of your file hosting script, I am sure this can be achieved. I have had clients who did this and able to push more than 3-6gbit per server very easily.

    Building plain SSD based raid array won't be a financially viable plan in the long run and you won't need that much I/O per server.
    I agree. You could also consider using RAM disks as well.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Similar Threads

  1. Help SSD 1U E5 Server build
    By Earthman in forum Colocation, Data Centers, IP Space and Networks
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 06-20-2012, 05:28 PM
  2. i want to build file hosting site
    By okpa in forum Running a Web Hosting Business
    Replies: 25
    Last Post: 09-15-2010, 08:39 PM
  3. Replies: 11
    Last Post: 02-19-2008, 06:12 PM
  4. MFH Script v1.2[Build your profitable file hosting site]
    By yabsoft in forum Software & Scripts Offers
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 04-12-2007, 01:35 PM
  5. Build your profitable file hosting site now!
    By yabsoft in forum Other Offers & Requests
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 11-26-2006, 01:44 PM

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •