[Newserver] welcome

[Jay West]

Here's the current server, and a lot of random notes of information in no 
particular order:

CPU: Intel Celeron 2.0ghz
Memory: 1gb
Built in VGA (intel 82845G)
Network: built in Intel 82801 Pro/100 VE ethernet
3ware/Escalade 7006-2 (2 port PATA raid controller with raid 0/1)
Two Seagate 160gb PATA hard drives
1U chassis with two exposed 3.5 bays (HD only), 3.5 floppy drive, and 
slimline CDROM drive

dewey# df
Filesystem    1K-blocks      Used    Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/twed0s1a    253678     52402   180982    22%    /
devfs                 1         1        0   100%    /dev
/dev/twed0s1e    495726       194   455874     0%    /tmp
/dev/twed0s1g 137939292 100047636 26856514    79%    /u1
/dev/twed0s1f  10154158   8664168   677658    93%    /usr
/dev/twed0s1d    495726     62894   393174    14%    /var
devfs                 1         1        0   100%    /var/named/dev

/u1 is where all websites, databases, & ftp sites are stored.

There are a few existing sites wanting to use a fair amount more disk space, 
and a few new classic websites not coming on yet due to lack of space.

/usr is mostly OS stuff, except most of the mailman software and (large) 
database files are there

There's two 160gb drives set up as a mirrored set. All filesystems are on 
that mirrored pair. One of the drives apparently just failed.

The thing could use faster cpu and faster disks, for the list archive 
rebuilds.

I need to reformat and reinstall - the OS and all the software is far out of 
date.

Main software is apache, mysql, proftp, php, analog, reportmagic, dovecot, 
htdig, mailman, mod_watch, rsync

My biggest gripe is disk space - the more the better, and classic sites are 
waiting to put content up. But since it's a 1U case, we can't fit more 
drives in it.

I prefer systems built using off the shelf parts rather than 
semi-proprietary boxes (like HP, compaq, dell, etc.). I also like using 
parts I normally keep in stock
so that in the event of a failure I can probably just use existing stock.

The existing mainboard & cpu is around 4 or 5 years old at least (I think). 
I'm leary of boards & drives that old.... I know it's an ASUS board, I think 
a TUSI-M

In an ideal world, I'd use two drives to mirror the boot/OS/swap filesystems 
as the concern is speed and reliability. Then for data since the concern is 
low cost, high capacity, data protection, and NOT speed, I'd put in 3 or 4 
huge drives in a raid5 set. But here is where I'm really looking for 
options/opinions. Should I ditch the 4+ year old raid contoller that's pata 
anyways? Just use built-in pata for OS and add a different card for the 
raid5 set?

My gut feeling is the best solution for the disk issue is to just get a new 
mainboard that supports like six onboard sata ports, with onboard raid. 
Mainly for cost reasons, as raid controllers aren't cheap. But onboard raid 
is really software raid.... ick...

As far as a chassis... there is a system in our datacenter in a nice 2U 
chassis that could be put into a 1U. The reason I like the 2U it's in, is 
that it has four 5.25 bays exposed (2x2). In these I would suggest putting 
two icydock enclosures. An icydock enclosure fits into two 5.25 bays and 
gives you 3 hotswap drive spots. So if we put one icydock in each dual 5.25 
bay we can put in up to six hotswap drives. I'd suggest putting in 2 small 
(say 150gb or so), and 4 large (say, 500gb) drives. That would hold us for a 
good while. We could buy a 1U and trade chassis with that other box that has 
the nice 2U, so we could use the icydocks.

Since the OS is and needs to continue to be FreeBSD, we can't go too crazy 
with bleeding edge model controllers (freebsd lags in support of latest 
devices).

I don't mind donating the rackspace, power, and bandwidth... but I'd like to 
conserve where I can. In otherwords, no 4U chassis ;)

Thoughts?

Jay