HAF XB Server - Dual Xeon Sandy Bridge-EP LGA 2011

[sonic_agamemnon]

This is a small form factor server designed to support engineering sandbox development and post-production video capture/encoding work. The build features a Sandy Bridge-EP standard ATX mainboard with dual Xeon E5-2600 LGA 2011 sockets. A small Cooler Master HAF XB case will be used in an air-cooled configuration with Noctua fans.

 

Software:

 

Windows 7 Professional will run Adobe Creative Suite CS6 for background video capture, encoding and batch image processing. Four CentOS UNIX virtual machines will host the following server software:

 

1. Web Service VM: Tomcat server running Spring RESTful web services

2. Web Application VM: Tomcat and Apache servers running web applications

3. Cache/Queue VM: MongoDB server with data cache and queue collections

4. Database VM: Oracle database server

 

Hardware:

 

Cooler Master HAF XB ATX Computer Case
Enermax Galaxy EVO 1250W ATX12V 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply
SuperMicro Dual Xeon LGA 2011 DDR3 1600 ATX Server Motherboard MBD-X9DRL-IF-O
2 x Intel Xeon E5-2620 6-Core 2.0GHz Sandy Bridge-EP Processor, 2.5GHz Turbo Boost, 15MB L3 Cache
64GB 8 x Samsung 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz ECC Registered Server Memory M393B1K70DH0-CK0
HIS Radeon HD 6450 2GB 64-bit DDR3 PCIE x1 HDCP Low Profile Passive Video Card
2 x Sedna PCIE 4-Port USB 3.0 Adapter (2 x External, 2 x Internal)
Creative Audigy 2 ZS High Definition 7.1 Surround PCI Sound Adapter
Boot Array: 2 x Samsung 840 Series 250GB Solid State Drive (SSD) in RAID-0 (500GB)
1.5TB VM Array A: 2 x Seagate Momentus XT 750GB SATA 6.0Gbs Solid State Hybrid in RAID-0
1.5TB VM Array B: 2 x Seagate Momentus XT 750GB SATA 6.0Gbs Solid State Hybrid in RAID-0
LG Blu-Ray Burner SATA 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache
AFT PRO-57U All-in-one USB 3.0 5.25" Media Card Reader
2 x Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140x140x25mm Fan, 800/650 RPM, SSO2 Bearing (front fans)
Noctua NF-P12 PWM 120mm SSO2 Bearing (upper-rear fan)
2 x Noctua NF-R8 80mm Case Fan (lower-rear fans)
BitFenix Spectre 200mm Case Fan (top fan)
2 x Artic Freezer i30 CPU Cooler, Four Direct Contact Heat Pipes
2 x Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm 2-Speed Focused Flow Fan, 1500/1200 RPM, SSO2 Bearing (CPU fans)

 

Configuration:

 

Somehow, the SuperMicro X9DRL-IF squeezes two LGA 2011 sockets, eight RDIMM DDR3 memory and six PCIE expansion slots onto a standard ATX form factor motherboard! Initially, the server will provide 24 threads in 12 cores using two Xeon E5-2620 six-core processors with 64GB of ECC DDR3 server memory. Eventually, the processors will be upgraded to a faster eight-core model when pricing eventually drops. The processors will be fitted with two Artic Freezer i30 CPU heat sinks, replacing the stock fans with two Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Focused Flow fans. A passively cooled Radeon HD 6450 in the first PCIE slot provides basic video support at 2560x1600. Two Sedna 4-Port USB 3.0 PCIE adapters (4 x external, 2 x Internal 20-pin) will provide plenty of USB v3 connectivity.

 

 

In front, for a slight increase in CFM along with a notable decrease in noise levels, the two stock 120mm Cooler Master fans will be replaced with two Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm fans. For media input, a fast LG Blu-Ray burner and AFT all-in-one USB 3 reader will be installed in the front 5.25" bays. Both 3.5" hot-swap bays will contain Samsung 840 Series 250GB solid state drives in RAID-0 (500GB). Windows 7 will boot from this Samsung RAID-0 array. VirtualBox, Adobe Creative Suite CS6 and related video processing applications will be installed was well, including large scratch and temporary file areas. Internally, encoding space and all four UNIX virtual machines will reside in two 1.5TB RAID-0 arrays, with the image files periodically backed up to external network storage. Each array set consists of two Seagate Momentus XT 750GB SATA 6.0Gbs Solid State Hybrid drives.

 

In back, one Noctua NF-P12 120mm PWM fan will be installed in the upper position. Two Noctua NF-R8 80mm fans will be placed in the rear location. Network connectivity is provided by SuperMicro via two Intel 82574L Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports. The expansion slots expose HDMI and Dual-link DVI video ports on the HIS Radeon HD 6450, along with four external USB 3.0 ports from two Sedna PCIE adapters. Power is provided by a very quiet Enermax Galaxy EVO 1250W power supply.

 

 

On top, a BitFenix Spectre 200mm Case Fan will be fitted to help exhaust the heat.

 

Edited January 11, 2013 by sonic_agamemnon

[sonic_agamemnon]

Unboxing

 

Most of the parts have been delivered, although four Seagate Momentum 750GB hybrid drives and two PCIE USB 3 adapters are still in the delivery pipeline.  The build can proceed, however, since those missing parts do not prevent the system from bootstrapping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2013 by sonic_agamemnon

[sonic_agamemnon]

Unboxing 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2013 by sonic_agamemnon

[ir_cow]

cool, post pics when its complete

 

edit: I skipped right over what you said the build was for and than I saw "Windows 7 Professional will run Adobe Creative Suite CS6 for background video capture, encoding and batch image processing. Four CentOS UNIX virtual machines will host the following server software:"

 

I would think 16gb of ram wouldnt be enough to run to run 5 systems at once. In any case if you plan on doing a lot of video encoding in H.264 a different video card would come in handy.

Edited January 2, 2013 by hornybluecow

[Locutus]

Why do you need so many SSDs?

 

Why would you choose the one case on the market that only has two HDD bays to build a server?

[ccokeman]

Looking forward to seeing this build completed.

[sonic_agamemnon]

I would think 16gb of ram wouldnt be enough to run to run 5 systems at once. In any case if you plan on doing a lot of video encoding in H.264 a different video card would come in handy.

 

You're absolutely right: 16GB wouldn't be enough for sure, but my original spec was 32GB, 2 sticks of Kingston 16GB server memory.  However, even 32GB is pushing it if I need to have all four UNIX VMs running and the Adobe capture/encoding tasks running as well.  Moreover, after reviewing the Sandy Bridge architecture, I realized the latest Xeon memory controller needs all four channels populated to attain maximum bandwidth, so I returned both Kingston 16GB sticks and decided to fully populate all eight channels with 8GB Samsung server memory sticks for 64GB total available memory.

 

Thread/CPU saturation should be encountered before available memory presents an issue, even when every VM and video task is running simultaneously.

Edited January 6, 2013 by sonic_agamemnon

[sonic_agamemnon]

Why do you need so many SSDs?

 

Why would you choose the one case on the market that only has two HDD bays to build a server?

 

Why?

 

It's simple: space is limited, andI need to maximize thread strength while minimizing floor space.

 

There are only two SSDs configured in a 500GB boot array whichI don't think amounts to having too many SSDs.  The Momentus disks from Seagate are hybrid drives with the bulk of the capacity provided by two traditional disk platters, with 8GB of flash to cache the most frequently accessed files.  I really don't consider these disks to be SSDs and its performance lies somewhere between an SSD and a typical 7K RPM SATA disk drive.

 

Regarding the HAF XB case and storage capacity, there are eight bays in total: two 3.5" bays, two 5.25" bays and four internal 2.5" bays, and that offers plenty of storage capacity in my opinion, at least for my purposes-- 4TB.

[Locutus]

 

Why do you need so many SSDs?

 

Why would you choose the one case on the market that only has two HDD bays to build a server?

 

Why?

 

It's simple: space is limited, andI need to maximize thread strength while minimizing floor space.

 

There are only two SSDs configured in a 500GB boot array whichI don't think amounts to having too many SSDs.  The Momentus disks from Seagate are hybrid drives with the bulk of the capacity provided by two traditional disk platters, with 8GB of flash to cache the most frequently accessed files.  I really don't consider these disks to be SSDs and its performance lies somewhere between an SSD and a typical 7K RPM SATA disk drive.

 

Regarding the HAF XB case and storage capacity, there are eight bays in total: two 3.5" bays, two 5.25" bays and four internal 2.5" bays, and that offers plenty of storage capacity in my opinion, at least for my purposes-- 4TB.

 

Ah, I saw the two pictures of the two Samsungs and thought you had 4.

[Black64]

Looks good, like the dual CPUs.

[sonic_agamemnon]

After a rather extended delivery process, the Seagate hardware has finally arrived. It will be fun stuffing the entire internal HAF XB drive cage with 3TB of relatively quick RAID-0 storage. However, the two USB3 adapters must be on a slow boat from China (literally), since they are both sitting in San Francisco still, obviously mired in a US Postal twilight zone...

A number of factors led to a rather "momentous" decision, and the numbers provided by this StorageReview.com analysis swayed me away from my habit of relying on traditional WD RE4 disks for data RAID sets:

http://www.storagereview.com/seagate...t_750gb_review

1. Cost Effective Storage

Pricing has dropped for the Momentus which is available now for $120 with 750GB of capacity, providing a huge cost-per-gigabyte advantage over SSD hardware.

2. Higher Capacity

The latest Momentus drive offers 50 percent more capacity over its prior version, 750GB, and 50 percent more storage than most SSDs today-- unless your budget allows for $3K to purchase a 1GB SSD.

3. Good Performance

Scaling two Seagate Momentus 750GB XTs in RAID-0 just about doubles its single-drive performance, delivering nearly 240 MB/s of sequential read throughput. This matches the sequential performance I see using WD RE4 in RAID-0, although neither drive is anywhere near the 980 MB/s capability of two Samsung SSDs in RAID-0.

4. Low Power

Power consumption is lower than most SSDs and traditional disk drives, peaking at 3.7 watts during sequential reads, compared to 9+ watts for the WD RE4 2TB drive and 4.3 watts for the Samsung 840 SSD.

5. Small Size

The Momentus is a 2.5" drive, an important factor in smaller cases like the Cooler Master HAF XB, which only ships with an internal 2.5" drive cage, thereby eliminating all larger 3.5" drives. Using four Momentus XT disks maximizes limited internal capacity, providing 3TB of cage storage.

6. Nice Warranty

Seagate is offering a 5-year warranty, something rather rare in the SSD marketplace. Another advantage of the hybrid design is whenever the high-density 8GB flash chip eventually does decide to fail, the Momentus remains operational as a traditional 7K RPM hard drive, unlike SSD hardware that degrades and ultimately fails altogether.

[sonic_agamemnon]

The HAF XB case has been disassembled, including the removal of both stock fans in front; all five Noctua case fans were installed thereafter. The motherboard tray was removed next and the SuperMicro mainboard was mounted. Two of eight motherboard mount points did not align with available, pre-drilled holes on the Cooler Master tray, so a trusty Dremel was deployed to drill out both missing holes. Installing the Xeon processors was a snap thanks to a very clean LGA 2011 socket design.

 

The "Artic Squeeze Play" worked according to plan, with both heat sinks in perfect back-to-back alignment. Clearances are good between the cooler and the top of each server DRAM module. Stock Artic Freezer fans were replaced with Noctua Focused Flow hardware, offering better cooling performance and higher top-end CFM numbers at an equivalent noise level. I am very eager to see how the push-pull configuration performs under load.

 

The Samsung 840 SSDs were installed in the front 3.5" bays, ready to be configured in a RAID-0 boot configuration. The LG BluRay burner and AFT All-in-one media reader were also installed in the front 5.25" bays, completing all front-side setup work.