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File Server Upgrade


Swynol

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Guest asrequested

Nice! I screwed my fans directly to the fan wall. It's fun having a rack, isn't it? Lol

 

What did you do about the air intake?

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Swynol

More toys to play with. First up is the Ubiquiti Unifi USG. this will replace my current ISP supplied router. I currently have Fibre to the property which then terminates into a ISP fibre modem so the plan is to use the WAN port on the USG to plug into the Fibre modem then the LAN port on the USG to the new switch.

 

 

58aff6d4914e7_File_000.jpg

 

The other new item is a Ubiquiti unifi switch. 48 ports with 2 SFP and 2 SFP+ ports. My current Netgear 24 port switch is now full and will be replaced with this one. I wanted a POE version however i couldnt justify the extra cost so settled for this one. 

 

I already have a few Unifi APs so i know my way around the controller software. It will be nice to have everything in one controller plus you can do some awesome things with the Unifi equipment.

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Swynol

This is the dashboard of my unifi controller. nice to see some stats and deep packet inspection is good to see where all my bandwidth goes.

 

58aff816156db_File_000.jpg

 

 

This shot shows my switch and port statistics. 

 

58aff97db6089_File_.jpg

 

Edited by Swynol
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mastrmind11

Will the Unifi AP's work w/ PowerLine equipment?  My house is too old to run cables cost effectively.

 

edit: nevermind, found the answer on the googleweb.

Edited by mastrmind11
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Swynol

so all my new kit is installed and working. finally getting to the point where i am happy with the setup. a few things on the todo list

 

Improve cooling

offsite backup of important stuff

move my cctv PC into a rack mount case and install it under the server (after i have improved the cooling in the room)

maybe look at SSD optimiser for Drivepool

look at buying a fibre card for my server and a DAC so i can run 10Gb 

 

Also last night i started seeing wierd stuff happening on my drives. they start dissapearing from windows. 2 drives vanished so i restarted and the 2 drives came back but another 2 drives were now missing. After diagnosing it, it looks like my PSU isnt capable anymore mainly for the spinning up of all the drives at start up. its a 500w PSU with 38A on the 12v rail. looks like adding the 2 extra drives recently have caused the issue. So temporarily until i can get a new PSU i am running 2 PSUs on the system. my current 500w is doing all the components and 4 drives. and another 460w PSU is doing 9 drives. 

 

So looking for recommendations on a PSU now that can potentially run 20-24 drives for future proofing.

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PenkethBoy

i have 34 drives running off one psu 1200w, 27 HDD and 7 SSD's

 

A Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 1200W Power Supply - its a few years old but has only been lightly used till now

 

One thing to look for is multiple rails for the HDD to run off rather than one big rail 

 

This psu has 6 rails so i can split the HDD across them and not cause power issues

 

I have two banks of 12 disks on a rail each and the rest spread over the other rails

 

Its probably overkill in Watt terms but that means its not stressed or running hot

 

Any Gold+ quality PSU from, Akasa, Cooler Master, Corsair etc etc should be fine

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Swynol

thanks. was looking at something around the 800-1000w range. will check out some PSU's with multiple rails. i think one of my issues is that i'm running power hungry SAS drives. 

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PenkethBoy

aah yes sas do pull more power

 

some controllers have a delayed spin up option or a staggered spin up option to reduce PSU load

 

the rails on my PSU are either 25A or 35A - i use the latter for spinning up 12 drives

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Swynol

Ye I think I've just overloaded it. It worked fine for about a week then I got some weird error events in Windows then shortly after my drives started to go missing. My controller has been flashed to IT mode and just passes data through cant configure it from what I can see. I'll leave it running in 2 PSUs for now until I find a better PSU. Once again it looks a mess in my cupboard, uffff.

 

Think I will also look at replacing some of my oldest drives with new. Do 1 or 2 at a time maybe get rid of the SAS and get sata or at least have some spares on the shelf. Only reason I used the SAS drives was because they were free.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Happy2Play

Hello, could you expand on "a few sound cards for Zone control" what do you mean?

 

For multi zone speakers?  

 

Lets say three rooms "3 zones" and hearing something different in each room.

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Swynol

Hello, could you expand on "a few sound cards for Zone control" what do you mean?

 

For multi zone speakers?

Yes I have 2 sound cards in my server plus the onboard one. 2 of the cards go to one amp which has 2 zones (living room and kitchen) the other sound card runs a cable upstairs to a small amp which runs my bathroom speakers. As most my house is apple I use iTunes with shairport4w installed 3 times on the server, each instance points to a sound card. Then on any I device I can either airplay to the shairport or I can get iTunes to direct play to them. I can have them play in sync or separate music in each room.

 

I also have shairport installed on my main pc in the study, one on my htpc in the cinema room and then a few small airport receivers in other rooms. So I can have audio to most rooms in the house all in sync

 

I also had some chrome cast audio devices which I tried out but I preferred my iTunes setup.

 

I'll get a screenshot later

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited by Swynol
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Swynol

I was planning to go the chromecast route, Im everything android here.

 

Too bad squeezebox are pretty much dead.

 

ye i used to have squeezebox everywhere. same sort of setup had some software running on a PC which outputted to 3 sounds cards. 

 

i tried the chromecast because i like the idea of google home controlling them. also you can upload the music to google music so that its in the cloud. 

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  • 1 month later...
CharleyVarrick

58aff6d4914e7_File_000.jpg

My current Netgear 24 port switch is now full and will be replaced with this one. I wanted a POE version however i couldnt justify the extra cost so settled for this one. 

 

 

You have a full 24 port switch????

Most people I know get them for cool factor/bragging rights but barely use 4 or 5 ports...

You are officially insane, welcome to the club! :D

Edited by jlr19
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Happy2Play

You have a full 24 port switch????

Most people I know get them for cool factor/bragging rights but barely use 4 or 5 ports...

You are officially insane, welcome to the club! :D

 

Depends on if you have a wired house and then the hardware at the switch location.

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CharleyVarrick

That must be it.

Here I have 2 puny 4 port switch, + 2 remaining router ports, giving 10 ports in all, with 8 used.

 

Reminds me when I upgraded my internet service last october from 30/10 to 120/20.

At first, only 2 computers where hitting nominal speed, and 6 were stuck at around 50%.

 

Why, why, why was I asking myself when a little light turned on...The switches !

They were 10 year old 10/100 switches. For a reasonable price I replaced them with 1g switches, after which all computers were getting nominal speed. Transferring big media files from one pc to another went from 10mbps to anywhere between 60-90mbps.

 

First time I did a transfer, I barely caught a glimpse of the progress dialog and thought it didn't worked, but the file was not at the source anymore. Hmm, that's odd, so 2nd time my eyes were glued to the Teracopy popup and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how fast the progress bar went!

 

This story must seem so lame for lots of you with 10g network.

Edited by jlr19
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Swynol

Ye i was lucky enough to build my own house so i went crazy with wiring. used around 1200 meters of cat5/6.

 

I have a 3 bedroom house with a garage and this is roughly where the points are.

 

8x in Each bedroom

12x in my games/cinema room.

8x office has 8 on one wall and 8x on the opposite wall.

4x in upstairs bath room,

8x attic mainly for wireless aps and other cool shit.

6x living room TV, then 2x points in each of the 4 corners and then 4x behind the main sofa and 2x behind my fish tank. 

4x kitchen

8x dinning room which are used for speakers, the TV and a few other things

6x in the garage, used for monitoring my solar system and heatpump

2x under the stairs for my heating system

2x walk in wardrobe 

 

in total - 90ish points not including stuff that directly connects to the switch in the Node 0. i currently only have 3x 24 port patch panels so a few things arent terminated.

 

after the new switch turned up i currently have 28 devices patched in however on a normal day i would say only 18-20 devices are powered up. Also the kids are still only young so soon when they get a TV in their room, plus a computer or laptop or any games consoles that number will shoot up some. I also have 5 IP camera's and a few smart devices which are wired. And then I have a lab/test station which uses 2-4 points. 

 

So far been very happy with the unifi kit. The USG has impressed me alot, much better than the consumer grade routers out there. The switch is great although i have been having overheating issues which Ubiquiti have diagnosed as a faulty sensor and are replacing the switch. I have setup a number of VLANS to segregate users, 1 for main data, 1 for guests, 1 for CCTV and security, 1 for Lab/Test bench and 1 for IoT device.

 

I've not gone for a 10g switch yet, for me i dont think i would see the benefits as my 2 devices which transfer the big files are directly connected at 10g anyway.

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CharleyVarrick

Sorry for my newb questions, what are those "points" you refer to, eg: 2 points in each corner of living room

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Guest asrequested

Ye i was lucky enough to build my own house so i went crazy with wiring. used around 1200 meters of cat5/6.

 

I have a 3 bedroom house with a garage and this is roughly where the points are.

 

8x in Each bedroom

12x in my games/cinema room.

8x office has 8 on one wall and 8x on the opposite wall.

4x in upstairs bath room,

8x attic mainly for wireless aps and other cool shit.

6x living room TV, then 2x points in each of the 4 corners and then 4x behind the main sofa and 2x behind my fish tank.

4x kitchen

8x dinning room which are used for speakers, the TV and a few other things

6x in the garage, used for monitoring my solar system and heatpump

2x under the stairs for my heating system

2x walk in wardrobe

 

in total - 90ish points not including stuff that directly connects to the switch in the Node 0. i currently only have 3x 24 port patch panels so a few things arent terminated.

 

after the new switch turned up i currently have 28 devices patched in however on a normal day i would say only 18-20 devices are powered up. Also the kids are still only young so soon when they get a TV in their room, plus a computer or laptop or any games consoles that number will shoot up some. I also have 5 IP camera's and a few smart devices which are wired. And then I have a lab/test station which uses 2-4 points.

 

So far been very happy with the unifi kit. The USG has impressed me alot, much better than the consumer grade routers out there. The switch is great although i have been having overheating issues which Ubiquiti have diagnosed as a faulty sensor and are replacing the switch. I have setup a number of VLANS to segregate users, 1 for main data, 1 for guests, 1 for CCTV and security, 1 for Lab/Test bench and 1 for IoT device.

 

I've not gone for a 10g switch yet, for me i dont think i would see the benefits as my 2 devices which transfer the big files are directly connected at 10g anyway.

Good lord! That's incredible! Want... To... Do!

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