Project: Galaxy 3.0

I have this worklog updated on http://michigangamers.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=36148

So as you all know my infamous galaxy needed an upgrad. My problem was that it became expensive to maintain, a lot of money was invested in it, and upgrading it would be painfull financially (going from 250-320 gig drives to 500 yields almost no space for an assload of money). Also the problem came into play that it was getting old (SATA1, USB1, ATA66, Old K7 MP board, and I had to use cards to make everything happen).


Well, I introduce to you, galaxy 3.0... very similar in looks, but next generation components. I managed to find the parts at killer prices that udercuts the old galaxy almost in half in terms of pricing. SATA2, gigabit, USB2, etc etc etc. The processors are also upgraded from dual 1800's to dual opterons. The board features later technologies and the case is also a new generation. Unlike the old galaxy, this one will only have one power supply... a big power supply that is.



Here is the history, specs, and pics:

Galaxy 1.0:

Codegen Silver Galaxy Case
350W Enermax
Soyo Dragon 2 Ultra
250GB IDE drives and a combination of smaller drives, some SATA
Gigabit Nic
Reached a 2tb capacity before needing to upgrade the system

*It is the Black system on the far left*



Galaxy 2.0

- Coolermaster CM Stacker Silver
- Dual AMD MP 1800+ CPU’s with large silent heatsinks
- 1.5GB’s of Crucial memory (2 x512 and 2x256) PC2100 ECC REG
- Tyan S2462 Server motherboard (this board features dual NIC’s, and a full suite of 64bit PCIX slots, the only option it does not have is a SCSI controller)
- 40GB WD IDE 7200RPM 8MB System Drive (mounted on the inside of the case)
- Highpoint RocketRAID 1820A 8 Port SATA Controller
- Highpoint RocketRAID 1640 4 Port SATA Controller
- 64Bit SMC 10/100/1000 Gigabit server NIC
- 4 x 5 Drive SATA PC&P Bay units – Black
- 2 x Antec TRUEPower 500w Power supplies
- Varieity of 250gb drives (IDE and SATA)

Reached 3tbish before a better solution was needed















Galaxy 2.5

- Coolermaster CM Stacker Silver
- Dual AMD MP 1800+ CPU’s with large silent heatsinks
- 1.5GB’s of Crucial memory (2 x512 and 2x256) PC2100 ECC REG
- Tyan S2462 Server motherboard (this board features dual NIC’s, and a full suite of 64bit PCIX slots, the only option it does not have is a SCSI controller)
- 40GB WD IDE 7200RPM 8MB System Drive (mounted on the inside of the case)
- 3 x 64Bit Supermicro DAC-MV8 8 Port SATA Controllers (non bootable & non raid controllers)
- 64Bit SMC 10/100/1000 Gigabit server NIC
- 4 x 5 Drive SATA Hot swap Supermicro Bay units – Black
- 2 x Ultra X-Connect 500w Power supplies
- 11 x 250GB SATA 7200RPM Hard drives (4 Maxtor, 7 Hitachi [3 are 16MB Cache, rest are 8MB])
- 4 x 500GB SATA2 7200RPM Hard drives (4 Hitachi 16MB Cache SATA2)
- 1 x 400GB SATA 7200RPM Hard drive (Western digital 8MB Cache)


Smoked the 5tb barrier, acchieving 5.19tb's of storage in one box










Projected Galaxy 3.0

- Coolermaster CM Stacker 801 Silver - Revised case
- Dual Ooteron 240's (I will put my 246's in, but for now the 240's is just temp.)
- 4GB’s of Crucial memory (4x1gb) PC2100 ECC REG
- Gigabyte Dual Opteron Motherboard with gigabit and sata2
- 36.4GB Raptor 10K RPM Hard Drive for the System
- 2 x 64Bit Supermicro DAC-MV8 8 Port SATA2 Controllers (these are the same as the above but the revised ones with SATA2 technology)
- 1 x 32Bit SATA2 2 Port Controller (Giving me a 21 drive SATA capacity, well 22 drives... but you get the idea)
- Gigabit NIC onboard
- 4 x 5 Drive SATA Hot swap Supermicro Bay units – Black
- 1 x PC&P 1Kw PSU
- 20 x 500 GB SATA2 Seagate Drives 7200RPM, 16MB Cache

Total targeted capacity 10tb

Yay! She came. Stacker 810..



Back shot:



Ahh yes, meh leet modding skills. With a vision of 21 drives, one of them has to me mounted somewhere!!



A side shot of the modding work showing the clean work:



Showing the main system drives new home (Raptor 10k):

Anyways, tomorrow the galaxy goodies arrives! YAY!

- 2 Supermicro 8-Port SATA2 Cards
- GigaByte GA-7A8DW Motherboard Dual AMD Opteron, Socket 949, AMD-8111, EATX, 8GB DDR, 800MHz FSB
- 4 HD CAGE SATA | CSE-M35T-1B SUPERMICRO
- 2 Opteron Original Equipment Copper Heat Pipe CPU Cooler Heatsink with Fan
- 2 Opteron 240's

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New update:

The board, and the cpu's are the only thing that came.

I went ahead and gutted the entire stacker, tossing out most of the extras (covers, bays, etc.). I also busted out my saudering skills and made myself a power switch to mount into the back of the case so I can have a place to fire her up. I will post pictures.


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New update:

Board has been mounted and its ready for the components to arrive today:

- 2 Supermicro 8-Port SATA2 Cards
- 4 HD CAGE SATA | CSE-M35T-1B SUPERMICRO
- 2 Opteron Original Equipment Copper Heat Pipe CPU Cooler Heatsink with Fan


I suspect my heatsinks wont come in today..sigh.




Just to address the question head on, this system has no RAID protection... any kind of raid will hurt the overall capacity of the machine and I can't afford to lose any space. The previous galaxies were topped up fill and I had data overflowing.

To address the question about backups, I do have a machine called "Neptune", she's a rackmount machine carrying approximatley 3TB's of space in her. All my important files and documents are offloaded into here occasionally so that way I have a mirror backup solution of anything important.


Here is a picture of neptune:

wow you are a storage whore! looks to be a sweet upgrade. what do you use the server for? hosting lans i assume?

Originally Posted by mrbigshot

wow you are a storage whore! looks to be a sweet upgrade. what do you use the server for? hosting lans i assume?

Well I store pictures, videos, backup data, and a varieity of other things such as storing ghosting images of customer machines if they request it so it's easier for them to bring thier machines in and I recover it for them.

I also do take it to lans occasionally, i have every driver, demo, beta, alpha, patch known to mankind so it makes lans run more smoothly instead of everyone running around for say a new bf2 patch.


And yes, I love storage...

Originally Posted by Ockie

I also do take it to lans occasionally, i have every driver, demo, beta, alpha, patch known to mankind so it makes lans run more smoothly instead of everyone running around for say a new bf2 patch.

hmm....

Originally Posted by 54YW4T

hmm....

I'm curious about those 5HDD bays. Where can you find those?

Originally Posted by trust_no1

I'm curious about those 5HDD bays. Where can you find those?

You can get these on newegg, they are fairly cheap. Search for "supermicro hot" and you will find quite a few diffrent types.

update:

stacker guts!


controllers finally came... about time


sata drive untis also came... yay! dont mind the coffee stain on the top box... i get a little excited when hardware arrives


board and controllers has been mounted


sitting there all ready for the new parts to go in




sata boxes...boxes within boxes


a little shot of some trays


drive untis are in!! yay! trust me, this is not as easy as it seems.... you litterally have to take screws out, wedge it in, turn the case on the front, and sit on it so all the drives can fit... it's a very very tight fit but it works great.


another shot... what makes me so exited is that this board is smaller than the old galaxy board so it gives me a bit more room to work with the cabling.


test fitting the cables... seeing hows it going to work out... i will need to do some work to get them to look nice, but its possible.. remember, this is 25 drives and the sata cables mounts vertically on the drive units so thats a factor you have to work with... also , another gay thing is that the controllers upper ports are upside down, so some cables has to be flipped-twisted... so thats another factor to work with.

That is very nice. There are few things more beautiful than that much storage

Wow.

So be honest. How much porn..... I mean art do you have accross all of these systems?

I don't know a whole lot about this sort of thing, so forgive the probably stupid question.

Those drive trays, do they make the drives hot-swappable, that is, can you take out the drive without turning off the machine?

Originally Posted by Hinokagutsuchi

I don't know a whole lot about this sort of thing, so forgive the probably stupid question.

Those drive trays, do they make the drives hot-swappable, that is, can you take out the drive without turning off the machine?

Correctomondo. It also allows you to upgrade the drives, replace, and move them without having to take the system apart. Many people uses internal units or they would make their own drive unit so that all the drives are stacked... this is all great and all, but if a drive fails, its a nightmare trying to figue out which one it is

You must weigh that thing when your completed!

I have a similar set-up but with 6 hard drives and a bunch of other stuff that weighs like 80lbs.

Originally Posted by Dumass_Freakboy

You must weigh that thing when your completed!

I have a similar set-up but with 6 hard drives and a bunch of other stuff that weighs like 80lbs.

Galaxy 2.5 weighed about 82lbs...it sure feels a hell of a lot heavier than that

Originally Posted by Ockie

Galaxy 2.5 weighed about 82lbs...it sure feels a hell of a lot heavier than that

Jeez... will there be a Galaxy 3.0 Forklift that matches the case? Heheh, I know about heavy machines though, my Armour series is an absolute pain to move around and work on.

Looks sweet so far, I love the Raptor mount

holy shit, i bet the power company loves you.

If you are going to have 21 SATA cables, I would make an effort to keep them tidy: zip ties and such, I also like those "anchors" that you stick to the case and then pass the zip tie through.

Heh, I remember when I thought 20Gigs was more than enough space... I have that much just in games installed now. (No, i dont have time to play them all, it is a real shame)

Taht is looking very beautiful. How much were the hott swap trays?