How to build a 40TB file server

The one most valuable asset at Oyster.com is our photo collection. Take away the intellectual property and what’s left is, essentially, markup (with a bit of backend to snazz it up.) So we need a solid backup solution for the original high-res photos. The old servers were about to run out of capacity and their slightly outdated specs did not make transferring huge datasets any easier or faster. Thinking a few months ahead, we were looking at a 40TB data set. In strict accordance with KISS methodology, we opted against LTO and S3, and decided to build a big BOX. (For starters, 40TB on S3 costs around $60,000 annually. The components to build the Box — about 1/10th of that.)

Coincidentally, a great new product was just about to hit the market, reinforcing our decision with its timely relevance — the dual-core Areca ARC-1882ix RAID Host Bus Adapter, which comes with an on-board DDR3 SDRAM socket with up to 4GB chip support. Since we already opted for RAID Level 6 (striped, distributed parity–error checking, tolerates two disk failures) and dual-core RAID-On-Chip means it processes two streams of parity calculations simultaneously — it seemed ideal.

The first challenge in putting together the big box was getting internal SAS connectors properly seated into the backplane adaptor sockets, the bottom few being especially cumbersome to reach. Thankfully, our hardware technicians’ exceptional manual dexterity rendered having to disassemble the internal fan panel frame unnecessary.

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