# Hardware Porn (aka our new backups node)



## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

Hello everyone,

I just noticed that I didn't post this over here so, enjoy!

For the past week I've been in Vegas upgrading our storage nodes, getting the last few OVZ nodes swapped to pure

SSD's, as well as building out this beast of a chassis for the free backups & snapshots we announced.

Pretty annoying to build (namely the single SATA plug each instead of an expander connector).

- Single L5520 CPU

- 72GB RAM

- 3 x 500GB SSD's (all for caching of some sorts)

- 24 x 4TB WD RED's

- Supermicro 4U 24 bay chassis

Alas, since this is an older revision of the chassis it doesn't have proper slots for 2.5" drives (the SSD's). Fear not, double

sided foam tape works perfectly for this!

This isn't the 'complete' pictures and after this cleaned up the cables a bit more with some more straps. The power supply is quite large so there's no easy way to tuck the cables away, though.

We expect to have backups/snapshots in limited beta sometime this/next weekend. It really comes down to how many days I sleep in a row once I get home 

Note: My internet is really terrible in this hotel so if there's an actual "hardware porn" thread, I apologize. Please merge it!











Francisco


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## HalfEatenPie (Jan 8, 2014)

This looks fantastic! Definitely a full node there (in terms of the hardware). I don't see any spare/open slots anywhere!


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## blergh (Jan 8, 2014)

Very nice! Store more warez and less backups!


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## texteditor (Jan 8, 2014)

L5520 + 72GB RAM....is it transplant from one of those off-lease ex-'cloud' systems on ebay?

edit:



blergh said:


> Very nice! Store more warez and less backups!


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

texteditor said:


> L5520 + 72GB RAM....is it transplant from one of those off-lease ex-'cloud' systems on ebay?
> 
> edit:


Nah, they use 4GB sticks to get to 72GB.

The L5520 was pulled from our rigs a year or so ago when we moved everything to L5638+ processors.

The Ebay boxes are all dells, where as this is all supermicro. The board is an X8DTN+-F, which has 18 RAM slots.

I need RAM for our platform more than anything else.

It is a dual board, though, so down the road I can add a 2nd half if need be for minimal cost (pretty much just the admin cost for FH to install it).

We'll be doing a RAID7 for it so we'll have ~80TB usable.

Francisco


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## tragic (Jan 8, 2014)

Talk about a node, looks good


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## clarity (Jan 8, 2014)

Show me the drives!


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

DifferentOpinionsNotWanted said:


> Show me the drives!


Will do! I'll stack 'em and get a picture together when I get to the DC.

Francisco


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## clarity (Jan 8, 2014)

Francisco said:


> Will do! I'll stack 'em and get a picture together when I get to the DC.
> 
> 
> Francisco


Weirdly excited about seeing them!


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## drmike (Jan 8, 2014)

Where is the drive porn?


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 8, 2014)

He's stuck waiting on a cab.  Drive porn to commence in a bit


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## SrsX (Jan 8, 2014)

Aldryic C said:


> He's stuck waiting on a cab.  Drive porn to commence in a bit


Stupid cabs.


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## rds100 (Jan 8, 2014)

I guess it's time for Francisco to grow up and get a driving license ;-)


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## MannDude (Jan 8, 2014)

Sweet upgrades. I'd rather see more providers upgrade their stuff and offer actual good services than just increase RAM allocation for the same price.

"Business is slow? What do we do?"

-- "Fuck it... lets sell *4GB *of RAM for our new offer, for $7... no, wait... $6.95/mo. Yeah, mmmm..."

Fran's approach:

"Hmm, need to stay competitive. I know, I'll dump $50,000+ in SSD drives, give free upgrades, and then get new backup storage up. Yeah, that'll do."

I still don't understand why you're not charging something more reasonable for backups. Certainly a service worth paying for. But customers won't complain at it being free (or almost-free, forget what you chose)


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 8, 2014)

Insight to our madness:



> 12:08:10 <&Francisco> i swear to god someone is whistling the mocking jay song from hunger games >_>
> 12:08:38 <&Aldryic> ahahahaha
> 12:08:41 <&Aldryic> you're losing it, boss
> 12:11:03 < bzImage> You're lucky you dont have a cell that works in the US
> ...


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

Let me get the prep work done for the storage & addons nodes and then I'll snag them. I'm quickly putting together everything.

The biggest issue is that I have to sit around cleaning off the old thermal pads.

Thankfully I should have all of these boards done in the next little bit.

Francisco


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

MannDude said:


> Fran's approach:
> 
> "Hmm, need to stay competitive. I know, I'll dump $50,000+ in SSD drives, give free upgrades, and then get new backup storage up. Yeah, that'll do."
> 
> I still don't understand why you're not charging something more reasonable for backups. Certainly a service worth paying for. But customers won't complain at it being free (or almost-free, forget what you chose)


The original idea behind backups was to charge for them. Coincidentally, during the time that we were discussion costs and such, we had a handful of customers rage at us because they managed to rm their own files and never had their own backups.

In the end, we're eating the cost of it on all 256MB+ plans save people from themselves 

Francisco


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## willie (Jan 8, 2014)

Wow, I want one of those-- just put LVM across all 24 drives, sell it as a KVM storage plan, and I'm all over it 

Those 500GB caching SSD's, are those EVO drives like the ones user files are on?  :O

By RAID7 do you mean this? http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/singleLevel7-c.html

Does that mean a hw raid controller from that specific brand? 

Given the cost of user storage on SSD's, having HDD backup seems like a great idea.  Relatively low incremental cost and gives people moar peace of mind.

Nice jorb!


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

willie said:


> Wow, I want one of those-- just put LVM across all 24 drives, sell it as a KVM storage plan, and I'm all over it
> 
> Those 500GB caching SSD's, are those EVO drives like the ones user files are on?
> 
> ...


I'm keeping the RAID setup to myself for now 

We use 1TB EVO's in all the OpenVZ nodes. Each OpenVZ node has 8 1TB EVO's in RAID10 using an adaptec 7805 for the raid card.

These drives are just 500GB ADATA ones.

They're just for read caches and such so it's not a big deal if it died.

We do have RAID1 setup for some of the caching, though.

Francisco


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## drmike (Jan 8, 2014)

So, 3 SSDs + 1 spinning disk Rambo mounted style then 24 drives in the real bays?

Real clean and tight installation.

*"namely the single SATA plug each instead of an expander connector"*

Why did you opt for a controller that required the per channel cable instead of the expander connector?


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

drmike said:


> So, 3 SSDs + 1 spinning disk Rambo mounted style then 24 drives in the real bays?
> 
> Real clean and tight installation.
> 
> ...


There was a $700 price difference 

3.5" mounted on its side is just the OS drive. The OS drive will be hit so rarely that it didn't really matter.

Francisco


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## DomainBop (Jan 8, 2014)

Francisco goes to Vegas and spends his time taking pictures of  his new conquest...a backup server.  Tragic looks lustfully at the pix and says _"Talk about a node, looks good"_.  DifferentOpinionsNotWanted, barely able to contain his excitement, says _"Show me the drives!"_

Hmmm, just a suggestion but you guys need to take a few days off, venture outside the data center, and meet some girls. 



> "Business is slow? What do we do?"
> 
> -- "Fuck it... lets sell *4GB *of RAM for our new offer, for $7... no, wait... $6.95/mo. Yeah, mmmm..."



Sorry, but the new standard is 4GB for $5.


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> Francisco goes to Vegas and spends his time taking pictures of  his new conquest...a backup server.  Tragic looks lustfully at the pix and says _"Talk about a node, looks good"_.  DifferentOpinionsNotWanted, barely able to contain his excitement, says _"Show me the drives!"_
> 
> Hmmm, just a suggestion but you guys need to take a few days off, venture outside the data center, and meet some girls.
> 
> Sorry, but the new standard is 4GB for $5.





DomainBop said:


> Francisco goes to Vegas and spends his time taking pictures of  his new conquest...a backup server.  Tragic looks lustfully at the pix and says _"Talk about a node, looks good"_.  DifferentOpinionsNotWanted, barely able to contain his excitement, says _"Show me the drives!"_
> 
> Hmmm, just a suggestion but you guys need to take a few days off, venture outside the data center, and meet some girls.
> 
> Sorry, but the new standard is 4GB for $5.


I've been a tourist a few times already  I leave tomorrow morning so I got a long day & night ahead of me.

I'm not bothering going back to the hotel tonight. I brought my bags here and if I end up with excess time I'll catch up on TV shows I've missed.

Francisco


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## nunim (Jan 8, 2014)

Francisco said:


> I've been a tourist a few times already  I leave tomorrow morning so I got a long day & night ahead of me.
> 
> 
> I'm not bothering going back to the hotel tonight. I brought my bags here and if I end up with excess time I'll catch up on TV shows I've missed.
> ...


Looking good, what kind of tape is it exactly, like that double sided poster squares?  I'm trying to creatively mount an SSD in a MicroATX that's out of drive bays.  

Sherlock!!


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## Eased (Jan 8, 2014)

Nice looking build I must say. Always love server porn. 



HalfEatenPie said:


> This looks fantastic! Definitely a full node there (in terms of the hardware). I don't see any spare/open slots anywhere!


You mean besides a full bay of RAM slots and a CPU socket?


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

nunim said:


> Looking good, what kind of tape is it exactly, like that double sided poster squares?  I'm trying to creatively mount an SSD in a MicroATX that's out of drive bays.
> 
> Sherlock!!


FFFF I completely forgot that Sherlock started again!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16848035626

You have to be careful. The stuff is super strong so if you place it wrong you better be quick to pull it off.

It has no problem sticking to a chassis case. I installed one of the ssd's wrong in that node (was too high) and I ended up having to scrape the stuff off with a screw driver >_> I was able to slowly get it off the SSD but the chassis itself was annoying.

Francisco


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## tragic (Jan 8, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> Francisco goes to Vegas and spends his time taking pictures of  his new conquest...a backup server.  Tragic looks lustfully at the pix and says _"Talk about a node, looks good"_.  DifferentOpinionsNotWanted, barely able to contain his excitement, says _"Show me the drives!"_
> 
> Hmmm, just a suggestion but you guys need to take a few days off, venture outside the data center, and meet some girls.
> 
> Sorry, but the new standard is 4GB for $5.


"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" except Hardware Porn


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

Alright I had a minute to snag all the drives out of the cage for a glamour shot.





Since I *know* someone will ask (probably Aldryic >_>), the roll of toilet paper is being used to wipe down heatsinks after I used some thermal paste removal.

Yes, there's a trash bin *full* of what looks to be robotic jizz because of it >_>

Francisco


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## drmike (Jan 8, 2014)

nunim said:


> Looking good, what kind of tape is it exactly, like that double sided poster squares?  I'm trying to creatively mount an SSD in a MicroATX that's out of drive bays.
> 
> Sherlock!!


I use velcro.  Sticky on one side 'cro on the other... matching piece goes on whatever...  It's able to be separated with a little oomph... Better than tape to tape in my opinion....


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## johnlth93 (Jan 8, 2014)

Francisco said:


> Alright I had a minute to snag all the drives out of the cage for a glamour shot.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Just wondering, are they 3.5"?


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## Francisco (Jan 8, 2014)

Of course 

Do they even make anything > 1TB in a 2.5" form?

I thought I saw a 2TB but I don't think so...

Francisco


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## willie (Jan 8, 2014)

2tb 2.5"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236551

It's 15mm tall so it won't fit in most laptops, but this form factor has gotten common in servers.

In 9.5mm height there is a 2TB SSD if you've got $4k to blow:

http://www.storagenewsletter.com/rubriques/solid-state-ssd-flash-key/smart-storage-optimus-eco/


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## Shados (Jan 8, 2014)

Francisco said:


> Alright I had a minute to snag all the drives out of the cage for a glamour shot.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You have no idea how often the trash bin in my room appears to have suffered the same fate.


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## Hxxx (Jan 8, 2014)

That's some good porn you have there!


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## Ruchirablog (Jan 9, 2014)

So the ultimate question is that 80TB enough for 70+ openvz nodes that you have in LV?


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## Francisco (Jan 9, 2014)

Ruchirablog said:


> So the ultimate question is that 80TB enough for 70+ openvz nodes that you have in LV?


There's ways of making it go the distance 

I don't expect everyone to want them enabled anyways. Some users will insist on doing their own backups and some will disable them due to privacy concerns.

Francisco


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## k0nsl (Jan 9, 2014)

I'm salivating  :wub:


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## Francisco (Jan 9, 2014)

k0nsl said:


> I'm salivating  :wub:


As am I  I've honestly not been this excited to roll a feature in a long time.

Francisco


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## blergh (Jan 9, 2014)

filesystem? looks nice apart from the messy table :lol:


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## Francisco (Jan 9, 2014)

blergh said:


> filesystem? looks nice apart from the messy table :lol:


Not sure yet.

That table was a warzone. At one point I was assembling NJ storage, KVM nodes 13 & 14, new nodes for OVZ SSD upgrades, & the beast we call the desolate one.

Francisco


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## willie (Jan 9, 2014)

Francisco said:


> I don't expect everyone to want them enabled anyways. Some users will insist on doing their own backups and some will disable them due to privacy concerns.


Might be a nice Stallion feature to be able to encrypt the backups using a GPG key that the user supplies.  Of course that means you can't transparently restore.  The user instead gets an encrypted tarball that they have to decrypt themselves.


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## Ruchirablog (Jan 9, 2014)

willie said:


> Might be a nice Stallion feature to be able to encrypt the backups using a GPG key that the user supplies.  Of course that means you can't transparently restore.  The user instead gets an encrypted tarball that they have to decrypt themselves.


why? It may come handy for KVM but not for OpenVZ. Why encrypt backups when all files are available in clear form in the node


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## willie (Jan 10, 2014)

Ruchirablog said:


> why? It may come handy for KVM but not for OpenVZ. Why encrypt backups when all files are available in clear form in the node


So that when the user deletes files and the corresponding decryption key, the data is gone and inaccessible, except to fancy data recovery techniques that wouldn't be used in normal situations (i.e. routine deletion of no-longer-needed sensitive data, not a case where the user was up to no good or some crazed attacker rooted the server to attempt data recovery on the raw disk volumes).  Realistically though, maybe you're right and this scenario isn't that important.


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## Francisco (Jan 10, 2014)

Finally back home 

I'll start configuring the node tomorrow/this weekend and start hammering the last of the code ASAP.

Francisco


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## peterw (Jan 10, 2014)

Ruchirablog said:


> why? It may come handy for KVM but not for OpenVZ. Why encrypt backups when all files are available in clear form in the node


Single place to catch all?


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## Ruchirablog (Jan 10, 2014)

Francisco said:


> Finally back home
> 
> 
> I'll start configuring the node tomorrow/this weekend and start hammering the last of the code ASAP.
> ...


NJ storage! when?


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## Francisco (Jan 10, 2014)

Ruchirablog said:


> NJ storage! when?


I'll have FH ship it probably Monday morning.

I didn't have time to ship the server but it's all completed and pending 

Francisco


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