File server hardware setup

[BELCORP_SAC]

Hi, i would like to make a little render farm with 3 render nodes (q6600) 1 work station(q6600 also) and 1 File server(?). I need some help or advice for setting up the file server. I will use it for allocating all the maps, 3d blocks, hdri files, etc (It will be the out put footege), an for alocating files (input) like 3dmax files(projects), animations (Avi,quicktime,etc), fotograms(exrs, hdris,tiff,pngs,jpgs)etc. what type of hard discs y need for this, a single procesor will be fine? , how much for ram i will need, Do i need to setup raid for more speed and raid for buckup?.

Please aby advice will help.

Pd: Remember that this is for a small render farm i need somethig good,nice,and cheap.

thx a lot

Onz

[dbibb]

I wouldn't worry about raid for speed. Your network will probably be your bottleneck. Raid for backup is definitely important. I would spend the money on that. Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of RAM shouldn't set you back too much either. We've had good success running a Windows Server 2003 machine as a file server, backburner manager, and v-ray license server.

[BELCORP_SAC]

I wouldn't worry about raid for speed. Your network will probably be your bottleneck. Raid for backup is definitely important. I would spend the money on that. Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of RAM shouldn't set you back too much either. We've had good success running a Windows Server 2003 machine as a file server, backburner manager, and v-ray license server.

Hi Derik, What do you think about this configuration:

Intel core 2 due E6600(2.4ghz)
4 sata2, 500gb each(what speed?)
10/100/1000 network
intel motherboard
2 gb of ram 667

What type of config of raid do you think y should go? and why?

Thank you very much

Onz

[dbibb]

Looks good.

I'd go for 7200 RPM hard drives.

For Raid, I'm only familiar with RAID 0 (speed) RAID 1 (Mirroring) and RAID 5 (Both). Raid 0 and 1 take 2 drives each. Raid 5 takes 4 drives.
Raid 1 in conjunction with daily backups to either an external or tape drive is a good way to go for your critical project files.

Have you considered using Server 2003 as the OS on it?

[jujubee]

Have any of you guys tried Windows Server 2008 yet or has it been released?

[ene.xis]

Raid 5 requires 3 hard drives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID


our office IT guy told me 2008 is great!great improvement from 2003!

[muzzy]

Install one of those on file server, any old computer with a good network card and fast hdds does the job.

http://www.serverelements.com/

or http://www.freenas.org/

both simple and very easy to use

[jujubee]

Well, what are the real benefits of running a dedicated server OS versus running something like XP Professional?

With Windows Server you can legally break the 10 computer limit.
You can assign workgroups.
Mail server.
IIS for serving web pages.

Umm. Anything else that I am missing here? Is it somehow any faster or more reliable? Does the overall network somehow behave better???

[pixelstudio]

We have a NAS (sorta harddisk with a network connection). runs very stable.
It does what we need....

maybe this website can help you a bit: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/compo...as/Itemid,190/

[jujubee]

Yeah - I think that may be the way to go - in particular the D-Link DNS-323 looks pretty good from what I've read from a cost-to-performance ratio.

I hate setting up these things on the network however...

[instinct]

Well, what are the real benefits of running a dedicated server OS versus running something like XP Professional?

With Windows Server you can legally break the 10 computer limit.
You can assign workgroups.
Mail server.
IIS for serving web pages.

Umm. Anything else that I am missing here? Is it somehow any faster or more reliable? Does the overall network somehow behave better???

That's not really true. you can in theory up the limit but the server editions simply work differently. I cant really go into great detail (it does different memory handling for example. And the connection limit is not the only network problem with xp). But i can assure you that a switch from a xp manager to a 2k3 manager solved a whole lot of weird problems at once. Not even thinking about running an XP fileserver (shudder).

Regards,
Thorsten

[DrJan]

We're using a Western Digital MyBook World Edition II with 2TB set as RAID 1 as a fileserver.
Unless you want to use your fileserver as job manager for Backburner for example, I'd certainly get a NAS solution. It's cheap and easy to setup.

[ene.xis]

it all goes down to what do u need!
if u need storage or a network server server...

[dbibb]

Raid 5 requires 3 hard drives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Good call ene.
I've only ever seen this setup with 4 drives.

[jujubee]

I just installed a NAS - seems like I still hit the 10 connection limit with a few standalone devices and my GF's laptop.

This sucks. MS sucks lol.