Comments on: Building a Backblaze Storage Pod http://www.speakingdigital.com/2009/10/15/building-a-backblaze-storage-pod/ Wed, 14 Dec 2011 04:38:53 +0000 hourly 1 By: Ludie Raspa http://www.speakingdigital.com/2009/10/15/building-a-backblaze-storage-pod/comment-page-1/#comment-1606 Ludie Raspa Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:54:03 +0000 http://www.speakingdigital.com/blog/?p=142#comment-1606 You have a lot of useful pointers on this site. This is a well composed article that I have bookmarked for future reading. Have a fun. You have a lot of useful pointers on this site. This is a well composed article that I have bookmarked for future reading. Have a fun.

]]> By: Pierre http://www.speakingdigital.com/2009/10/15/building-a-backblaze-storage-pod/comment-page-1/#comment-1091 Pierre Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:48:45 +0000 http://www.speakingdigital.com/blog/?p=142#comment-1091 Hello, I came across this blog post and comments and I thought I would share my experience in that regard. I build a home storage server using one of the backplane which I bought on storage4mac: http://www.storage4mac.com/cfpomupba.html I used a mini-ITX board (Intel BOXDG45FC) and one SYBA SD-SA2PEX-2IR from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124027 I have 5 2TB drives connected to the backplane which is itself connected to the Syba card and a 250G laptop drive for the OS. All of this plus a power supply are installed in a 3U rack shelf so it's pretty compact. For the software side I first went with OpenSolaris but I started having simple issues I did not want to deal with under an OS I don't really know so I went back to my true love: FreeBSD. The Syba card is detected after loading the siis kernel module. I also use ahci so my /boot/loader.conf looks like that: siis_load=YES ahci_load=YES The drives will be named adaX so to install the system from scratch I recommend doing it step by step and I strongly advocate for the use of glabel to avoid having drives renamed after a reboot or an addition (FreeBSD handbook is a good resource). So the steps would be: - Install FreeBSD 8.2 on the OS drive - Use glabel to label the partitions and change the /etc/fstab - Install the Syba card(s), the drives and the loader.conf file - Label all the drives and create your ZFS pool with the labels Doing like this makes it easy and safe to move drives around and add some for expansion. I'm using this build to store videos, music, files and as target disk for Time Machines backup. Hope this help. Hello,
I came across this blog post and comments and I thought I would share my experience in that regard.
I build a home storage server using one of the backplane which I bought on storage4mac:
http://www.storage4mac.com/cfpomupba.html
I used a mini-ITX board (Intel BOXDG45FC) and one SYBA SD-SA2PEX-2IR from newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124027
I have 5 2TB drives connected to the backplane which is itself connected to the Syba card and a 250G laptop drive for the OS.
All of this plus a power supply are installed in a 3U rack shelf so it’s pretty compact.
For the software side I first went with OpenSolaris but I started having simple issues I did not want to deal with under an OS I don’t really know so I went back to my true love: FreeBSD.
The Syba card is detected after loading the siis kernel module. I also use ahci so my /boot/loader.conf looks like that:
siis_load=YES
ahci_load=YES
The drives will be named adaX so to install the system from scratch I recommend doing it step by step and I strongly advocate for the use of glabel to avoid having drives renamed after a reboot or an addition (FreeBSD handbook is a good resource).
So the steps would be:
- Install FreeBSD 8.2 on the OS drive
- Use glabel to label the partitions and change the /etc/fstab
- Install the Syba card(s), the drives and the loader.conf file
- Label all the drives and create your ZFS pool with the labels
Doing like this makes it easy and safe to move drives around and add some for expansion.
I’m using this build to store videos, music, files and as target disk for Time Machines backup.
Hope this help.

]]> By: steve http://www.speakingdigital.com/2009/10/15/building-a-backblaze-storage-pod/comment-page-1/#comment-1010 steve Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:51:57 +0000 http://www.speakingdigital.com/blog/?p=142#comment-1010 I don't think they advertised it anywhere, it was just mentioned by my sales rep after I inquired about the case and pricing. Hopefully, you'll have the same results. There was a bit of a delay in getting the backplanes from them as the backplanes came from Taiwan, got held up in customs in Canada, then finally shipped with my case from Canada. Total time was about 3 weeks I think. I don’t think they advertised it anywhere, it was just mentioned by my sales rep after I inquired about the case and pricing. Hopefully, you’ll have the same results. There was a bit of a delay in getting the backplanes from them as the backplanes came from Taiwan, got held up in customs in Canada, then finally shipped with my case from Canada. Total time was about 3 weeks I think.

]]> By: Derek http://www.speakingdigital.com/2009/10/15/building-a-backblaze-storage-pod/comment-page-1/#comment-1009 Derek Sun, 13 Mar 2011 10:43:09 +0000 http://www.speakingdigital.com/blog/?p=142#comment-1009 Thank you. I have sent an inquiry to the case maker... I could not find any information on their site regarding the backplanes. I have not found any equivalent products either. Thank you. I have sent an inquiry to the case maker… I could not find any information on their site regarding the backplanes. I have not found any equivalent products either.

]]> By: steve http://www.speakingdigital.com/2009/10/15/building-a-backblaze-storage-pod/comment-page-1/#comment-1008 steve Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:38:15 +0000 http://www.speakingdigital.com/blog/?p=142#comment-1008 Derek - I picked mine up from the case manufacturer. They upped the price a bit on me, but it was worth the time and effort trying to hunt them down elsewhere. I'm not sure if they're still selling them or not. They also made available the HD anti-vibration sleeves (once again, they may not be selling them any longer.) Cost for the backplanes was $499.95 for the set of 9 and the HD sleeves were $45 for 45 of them. E-mail me directly (steve at speakingdigital dot com) and I'll give you my sales rep's contact info. - Steve Derek -

I picked mine up from the case manufacturer. They upped the price a bit on me, but it was worth the time and effort trying to hunt them down elsewhere. I’m not sure if they’re still selling them or not. They also made available the HD anti-vibration sleeves (once again, they may not be selling them any longer.)

Cost for the backplanes was $499.95 for the set of 9 and the HD sleeves were $45 for 45 of them.

E-mail me directly (steve at speakingdigital dot com) and I’ll give you my sales rep’s contact info.

- Steve

]]>