[Gllug] Hardware comparisons

[Christian Smith]

Alain Williams uttered:

> I'm putting together a box for a customer, cost is not the primary
> concern (I'm replacing a 40K AIX box with a dual core AMD based box),
> stability/reliability are highly desirable ... might as well get it
> fast as well.
>
> There are a few choices, comments please:
>
> * They wanted SCSI, I had specified SATA ... is SCSI still worth
>  the premium ? We will need a SCSI card for the DAT drive anyway.


Perhaps use SAS. SAS drives bays can accept SAS or SATA drives, giving you 
the flexibility to evaluate and change as needed. Perhaps even mix and 
match.

Unless they already have a DAT drive, you can get USB based drives 
nowadays.


>
> * Mirroring. Is this best done by the kernel or through a RAID controller ?
>  I believe that if the kernel sees 2 drives it will do reads in parallel
>  (I believe that computers read more often than they write); it is
>  suggested that using a RAID controller will reduce bus bandwidth (write to
>  controller once which writes to the disks twice) & so make the machine faster.


I'd guess software RAID should be faster. Modern CPUs can blaze through 
bulk memory to memory operations, such as the XOR needed for RAID.


>
> * Memory. Both DDR2 dual channel:
>  One supplier can provide: PC2-4200 (533MHz)
>  The other: PC2-6400 - 800MHz
>  Will the faster memory make a real difference ?
>


So you're building this yourself? Why not go for a pre-built machine with 
everything configured already? Perhaps a SUN server, which has all the 
above:
http://uk.sun.com/teleweb/x64/

Plus, Solaris has the RAID capabilities of ZFS to boot, all in software. 
As ZFS looks the dogs nads, a dual core Opteron with 4x146GB SAS drives 
will set you back <3k plus VAT.

Of course, your client may want a Linux box.

I'd also look at Xeon based machines, the latest Core2 based Xeons having 
the measure of the current crop of Opterons, and having better thermal 
characteristics to boot. Something like:

http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=48Q6&CategorySelectedId=11102&NavigationKey=11102,4294955744,388540000,46260000&InMerch=1

plus 4x146G SAS drives will come out at <3k inc. VAT.

Christian


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