First Business Server

jamgood96 · 2012-02-22 07:12:00

I'm contemplating to put together a server for our business. We have around 25 employees, but only around 10 are in the office and using computers a lot. Pretty much everyone runs Apple, so I was thinking about setting up a server that would all people to backup over the network via Time Machine. I'm not sure yet how much disk space would be needed, as it depends on how long of backup is desired.

My question is how would I setup the HDD's to allow for a large overall storage space but made up from many HDD? If I allow each user to have 300GB of storage, that's around 3TB needed, so multiple HDD. Would I set them up as RAID0 to spread this out over multiple HDDs? What if I wanted to incorporate some redundancy (mirroring), such as RAID1? How would I accomplish this?

Thanks in advance!

James

Gcool · 2012-02-22 07:23:47

RAID1 in combination with LVM sounds what you're looking for.

Check here for some more practical info.

fukawi2 · 2012-02-22 22:36:12

Gcool wrote:

RAID1 in combination with LVM sounds what you're looking for.
Check here for some more practical info.

+1

If this is for backup, of business data, don't risk RAID-0, use a RAID level with redundancy. RAID-1 or RAID-10 preferably, or RAID-5 if you must squeeze storage efficiency out of the raw disk space.

jamgood96 · 2012-02-22 23:19:54

I'm probably going to use RAID-0.

I'm a total rookie when it comes to stepping up to a larger server. My first post mentioned having people backup their computers via time machine. I've been playing with a virtual server and have it working fine, but how do I deal with having enough space to store these backups while also having a RAID-1 setup to keep copies of these backups?

Say I use four 1TB drives for backup and a smaller drive for the OS. The server motherboard I'm looking at using has 6 SATA ports. So this seems fine, and I could use LVM to "combine" the four drives into one (still need to read into this to see how much I understand). This means I would need at least four 1TB drives, but how do these get hooked up to the system? I'm thinking of using software RAID instead of a controller if this matters.

Earnestly · 2012-02-22 23:44:02

RAID10 vs RAID1

jamgood96 · 2012-02-23 00:24:05

Awesome, thanks!

Is there a limit to how many HDD I can add? Obviously the m/b only supports up to 6, but could I just use an expansion card and add more that way?

Thoughts on software vs. hardware RAID?

Gcool · 2012-02-23 06:43:34

As far as I know there's no limit on the amount of disks you can add (someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

As for the hardware vs. software RAID argument; I would go for a software raid setup. With a hardware raid setup; you're always somewhat dependend on your hardware raid controller vendor (closed source firmware,...), while with software raid setup you're dealing with opensource obviously and there's the linux community to fall back on in case of issues.

Just my 2 cents.

Last edited by Gcool (2012-02-23 06:56:50)

jamgood96 · 2012-02-23 06:47:34

I'm on board with that logic.

This is slightly off what my original topic was, but since I'm looking at doing Time Machine backups over the network, is it completely unrealistic to expect people to do this over WiFi?

libgradev · 2012-02-23 21:57:35

If you are only likely to need 3TB and it's a new server I would just get 2x3TB drives and use RAID 1.

I would add LVM into the mix (as Gcool said) to give you some extra flexibility (so LVM on RAID), I would also personally use software RAID.

As to the issue of wireless it depends how big the diff's will be... I prefer wired whenever possible but try a typical TM backup to an external disc and check the size.

Also, if you are looking for a production OS Centos is good - and free.

Gra

fukawi2 · 2012-02-23 22:22:37

jamgood96 wrote:

So this seems fine, and I could use LVM to "combine" the four drives into one (still need to read into this to see how much I understand).

Just to clarify, you want to use RAID to combine the drives, either using RAID-0, RAID-10 or RAID-5. I still advise against RAID-0. You would then use LVM over the RAID array (rather than the individual disks) so that in the future you can add more hard drives, create a second RAID array and then combine those using LVM.

With 4 x 1tb drives, you would have the following usable space depending on the RAID level you choose:
RAID-0 = 4tb
RAID-1 = 1tb
RAID-10 = 2tb
RAID-5 = 3tb

Personally, my preference would be (in preference order):
1. Create 2 x RAID-1 arrays, and combine them with LVM.
2. Use RAID-10
3. Use RAID-5

I really would not touch RAID-0... You're actually doubling your risk of loosing data* and with 25 people doing backups (non-interactive tasks), you're not going to notice the performance increase.

* Good explanation here: http://www.overclock.net/t/86944/info-w … figuration

zenlord · 2012-02-27 17:16:01

jamgood96 wrote:

is it completely unrealistic to expect people to do this over WiFi?

300GB over 802.11n (max theoretical speed = 300Mbit/s = 37.5MB/s, but if you get 15MB/s per device, you should count your blessings):

300 * 1024 / 15 / 3600 = 5.69 hours to do 1 full backup OTA. This means only 1 WiFi-connection is used during the 5.69 hours...

So I don't think this is realistic, unless you either:
* Do only 1 full backup and after that, you only make differential/incremental backups (but this would make it harder to restore a backup), or:
* rather sync the data on the clients to the server (but then you don't have a real backup)

Do the same over a wired connection, and then you're not limited anymore to backing up one client at a time (provided you have good switches and a decent network card in your server).

/EDIT: I found also this: http://superuser.com/a/308232

Last edited by zenlord (2012-02-27 17:18:39)

.:B:. · 2012-02-27 18:49:33

zenlord wrote:

jamgood96 wrote:
is it completely unrealistic to expect people to do this over WiFi?
300GB over 802.11n (max theoretical speed = 300Mbit/s = 37.5MB/s, but if you get 15MB/s per device, you should count your blessings):
300 * 1024 / 15 / 3600 = 5.69 hours to do 1 full backup OTA. This means only 1 WiFi-connection is used during the 5.69 hours...
So I don't think this is realistic, unless you either:
* Do only 1 full backup and after that, you only make differential/incremental backups (but this would make it harder to restore a backup), or:
* rather sync the data on the clients to the server (but then you don't have a real backup)
Do the same over a wired connection, and then you're not limited anymore to backing up one client at a time (provided you have good switches and a decent network card in your server).

300 Mbps is the maximal link layer bitrate. Never actual data bitrate.

More info here.

Last edited by .:B:. (2012-02-27 18:50:19)

zenlord · 2012-02-27 21:13:45

.:B:. wrote:

300 Mbps is the maximal link layer bitrate. Never actual data bitrate.

That's why I count 15MB/s instead of the theoretical max speed of 37.5MB/s (as per your link: actual speeds are 50% or less than theoretical max speeds)

.:B:. · 2012-02-28 03:41:21

Yes, because wireless is half duplex as well.

jamgood96 wrote:

I'm on board with that logic.
This is slightly off what my original topic was, but since I'm looking at doing Time Machine backups over the network, is it completely unrealistic to expect people to do this over WiFi?

Totally.

Not only do you need a lot of bandwidth for it, you also need reliability, and security. Just like with Ethernet, the more people hop on a WLAN, the more bandwidth gets squeezed as it gets distributed. Except that a WLAN has way less headroom than Ethernet to cope with that.

Last edited by .:B:. (2012-02-28 03:48:13)

jamgood96 · 2012-02-28 04:13:16

.:B:. wrote:

Yes, because wireless is half duplex as well.
jamgood96 wrote:
I'm on board with that logic.
This is slightly off what my original topic was, but since I'm looking at doing Time Machine backups over the network, is it completely unrealistic to expect people to do this over WiFi?
Totally.
Not only do you need a lot of bandwidth for it, you also need reliability, and security. Just like with Ethernet, the more people hop on a WLAN, the more bandwidth gets squeezed as it gets distributed. Except that a WLAN has way less headroom than Ethernet to cope with that.

So it sounds like I need to have people hard-wired to the network to do backups, or figure out a solution to backup only what is vital. As mentioned before, our company runs mostly Macs, with the occasional PC in the mix. What solutions are out there for creating backups to a main server that would work with both platforms?

On a separate note, getting back to the RAID/HDD portion of the discussion, would it behoove me to run the OS on a smaller, faster drive, and then have two larger drives setup in RAID 1 for storing data and backups?

fukawi2 · 2012-02-28 08:11:29

jamgood96 wrote:

On a separate note, getting back to the RAID/HDD portion of the discussion, would it behoove me to run the OS on a smaller, faster drive, and then have two larger drives setup in RAID 1 for storing data and backups?

IMHO that's the way to do it. FreeNAS or similar can run from a flash drive for example.

nomorewindows · 2012-03-04 00:26:41

jamgood96 wrote:

.:B:. wrote:
Yes, because wireless is half duplex as well.
jamgood96 wrote:
I'm on board with that logic.
This is slightly off what my original topic was, but since I'm looking at doing Time Machine backups over the network, is it completely unrealistic to expect people to do this over WiFi?
Totally.
Not only do you need a lot of bandwidth for it, you also need reliability, and security. Just like with Ethernet, the more people hop on a WLAN, the more bandwidth gets squeezed as it gets distributed. Except that a WLAN has way less headroom than Ethernet to cope with that.
So it sounds like I need to have people hard-wired to the network to do backups, or figure out a solution to backup only what is vital. As mentioned before, our company runs mostly Macs, with the occasional PC in the mix. What solutions are out there for creating backups to a main server that would work with both platforms?
On a separate note, getting back to the RAID/HDD portion of the discussion, would it behoove me to run the OS on a smaller, faster drive, and then have two larger drives setup in RAID 1 for storing data and backups?

Ironically, if all the files were being accessed from the server itself, it would never have to backup each of the clients. For high throughput, wired is always better than wireless. If you are using full duplex 100Mbps ethernet it would be 200Mbps at 25Mb/s, compared to 37.5Mb/s of the wireless before overhead which would almost be real close. If you combined them with a little QoS, you could probably get a decent combination with both. I don't know exactly how you are setup, but with the PC it could be a thin client with the ease to which Arch makes this, it would be a consideration. What are your Macs (are they actually Intel Macs)? You could use the same image. Because there is also a PPC version of Arch. There's probably reservations on using one system for everything, but this might ease the backup administration process.

Last edited by nomorewindows (2012-03-04 00:35:33)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-02-22 07:12:00

First Business Server

#2 2012-02-22 07:23:47

Re: First Business Server

#3 2012-02-22 22:36:12

Re: First Business Server

#4 2012-02-22 23:19:54

Re: First Business Server

#5 2012-02-22 23:44:02

Re: First Business Server

#6 2012-02-23 00:24:05

Re: First Business Server

#7 2012-02-23 06:43:34

Re: First Business Server

#8 2012-02-23 06:47:34

Re: First Business Server

#9 2012-02-23 21:57:35

Re: First Business Server

#10 2012-02-23 22:22:37

Re: First Business Server

#11 2012-02-27 17:16:01

Re: First Business Server

#12 2012-02-27 18:49:33

Re: First Business Server

#13 2012-02-27 21:13:45

Re: First Business Server

#14 2012-02-28 03:41:21

Re: First Business Server

#15 2012-02-28 04:13:16

Re: First Business Server

#16 2012-02-28 08:11:29

Re: First Business Server

#17 2012-03-04 00:26:41

Re: First Business Server

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