Topic: Recommeded Hardware for SME7

[k_graham]

Yes this is mentioned in the manual but I think it is an evolving  item, changing over time.
For instance people are probably mostly using SATA drives these days - yet the there is little word on what controllers - which should probably be stated as which controller chips.

I think I have found out the hard way - Don't use SIL3114  Sata controller chip - the card by Vantec seemed to have some good references to it for Linux but when I received the box by mail I see know mention of Linux on the box and though it seems to install it seems have wrote to 1 of  2 and leave the other rebuilding, I could be mistaken but I thought my last install left both drives the same immediately after the install.

A good question might be which motherboard would provide SATA support that works with SME and whats the best we can expect in throughput. A board with embedded video controller saves worrying about video - is their a unit with 2 built in Gigabit network cards?

Regards drives for IDE I always had the best success with Maxtor - of course they were bought off the market by SeaGate.

For SATA drives I have been buying 5 year warranted Western Digital Black, however I recently found that ones rated as Enterprise drives are supposed to be specifically for servers and supposedly will handle constant reads, writes and still have 5 year warranty - but of course cost more, though if they don't break the price is cheap.

What do people use and recommend for motherboards so they get the SATA connection on them; 2 LAN ports; built in video etc. Like I say maybe a continuing recommended Hardware column along with where they bought these items.

Ken

[axessit]

Personally I have not had any issue with buying a ready built server, say an HP ML110 - or an IBM entry level unit - these all have SATA drives and work well, I normally disable the on board RAID and use the SME RAID, then you get the daily health status emails. The servers work out cheap in the long run - backed by a 3 year warranty on hardware, for a serious installation in a commercial environment, you can't really beat it. The server without the OS is quite common these days and is easy sub $1k for one with two SATA drives.

Failing that, you can pick up a pre-loved one, blow out the dust, and go for it.

I like to fit a second LAN card (I use a cheap realtek based one) PCI or PCI-e. That way you can normally differentiate the on board LAN from the add-on, and then have no worries when setting up the system as you can tell by the chipname when selecting the driver. Using a realtek based one normally does the trick without needing any special drivers. Cheap cards seem to have worked fine for me, providing the server is on a UPS (I make sure all mine are). And they are easy to fix and replace if not. Replacing a motherboard one is harder, normally end up disabling them, but if they're both the same, you end up having trouble working out which one. I've had SME play the odd trick by swapping LAN cards during reboots if they're both the same, but I think that was a few earlier versions.

I would avoid DELL as I've had mixed experience with SME 7.5 vs SME 8b6, but that was just a second hand box I had lying around I was using to experiment with VoIP.

[k_graham]

Personally I have not had any issue with buying a ready built server, say an HP ML110 - or an IBM entry level unit - these all have SATA drives and work well, I normally disable the on board RAID and use the SME RAID, then you get the daily health status emails. The servers work out cheap in the long run - backed by a 3 year warranty on hardware, for a serious installation in a commercial environment, you can't really beat it. The server without the OS is quite common these days and is easy sub $1k for one with two SATA drives.

Failing that, you can pick up a pre-loved one, blow out the dust, and go for it.

I like to fit a second LAN card (I use a cheap realtek based one) PCI or PCI-e. That way you can normally differentiate the on board LAN from the add-on, and then have no worries when setting up the system as you can tell by the chipname when selecting the driver. Using a realtek based one normally does the trick without needing any special drivers. Cheap cards seem to have worked fine for me, providing the server is on a UPS (I make sure all mine are). And they are easy to fix and replace if not. Replacing a motherboard one is harder, normally end up disabling them, but if they're both the same, you end up having trouble working out which one. I've had SME play the odd trick by swapping LAN cards during reboots if they're both the same, but I think that was a few earlier versions.

I would avoid DELL as I've had mixed experience with SME 7.5 vs SME 8b6, but that was just a second hand box I had lying around I was using to experiment with VoIP.

So you have not had issues with a HP ML110 you have one working?

It might be a nice option if one knows for sure it will work out of the box.
I am trying a pretest of my converted workstation with UnRaid as they have a utility to check the hard drives called preclear and the operating system runs from a memory stick.

 http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817.0

Sample screen
=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sda
=               cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 64
= Disk Pre-Read in progress: 7% complete
= ( 72,382,464,000  bytes of  1,000,204,886,016  read ) 36.6 MB/s

=
=
Disk Temperature: 33C, Elapsed Time:  0:33:23


It was running the test at about 75 MB/s but I started it to run a test on the 2nd drive as well and it dropped to 36.6 mb/s which I assume means this is what I will probably get with 2 mirrored disks, I'm not sure if one could use 2 controllers to double performance , I assume an issue of using  the SATA II 150 card with Sil3114 controller.  It would be nice to know throughput on a genuine server or other SATA cards /controller chips.

Ken

[axessit]

I'm not sure whether you are setting up a box for home use, or intending to use in a commercial installation. I use mine in a commercial setup, and have just done a quick test using hdparm

Code: [Select]

hdparm -t /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  380 MB in  3.01 seconds = 126.27 MB/secThe above was done on a working SME system on an ML110 G5 using software (SME) RAID1. It installed straight out of the box. I've got about 6 sites running ML110's, a couple running IBM x3200 M2.

I would say your testing is possibly flawed because you are running from a memory stick, you are constrained by the USB read/write as well.

[k_graham]

You could be right but I think the USB is read into RAM

I used the same hdparm command you did but while in UnRaid and

/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  148 MB in  3.04 seconds =  48.76 MB/sec

I will see what I get in SME server (after running through the drive tests in UnRaid - could take 3 or 4 days) but suspect it will be about the same, if so either I will want a different SATA card or onboard RAID. So far your numbers make a good  case for buying a Server, can you tell us the included RAM and Disk Capacity and do you know if its running 7000 or 10000 RPM drives?

Anyone else wants to weigh in with their SATA cards/ Hard Disks performance and ideally controller Chip  model & Slot type?

Thanks,

Ken

[k_graham]

Here is one I have in use with SME server using a SATA PCI card that I recall did have Linux stamped on the box,d cache ram from sending to fast a burst of data. it was labelled a 1.5 GB card and I have a jumper on the drives to limit them to that.

/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  218 MB in  3.00 seconds =  72.65 MB/sec
[root@s2 ~]#

Your results are considerably better at 126 MB/sec.

To clarify you are using a regular processor - may I assume the Xeon precessor is not recognized with SME.

Ken
 

[axessit]

the Xeon is supported by SME 7 or greater, you can search Xeon in the search pages to see evidence that it works.

From my server (ML110 G4) (4 years old now)
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual  CPU  E2160  @ 1.80GHz
stepping        : 13
cpu MHz         : 1800.000
cache size      : 1024 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
........
bogomips        : 3593.93
........
processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual  CPU  E2160  @ 1.80GHz
stepping        : 13
cpu MHz         : 1800.000
cache size      : 1024 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 1
cpu cores       : 2
.......
bogomips        : 3590.50

1GB RAM - the same as the day it first came out.
Drives are BARRACUDA 7200RPM 1000GB SATA 6GBS 32MB
I replaced the original ones to increase disk space. Did all that on the fly too.

the 40+ user server I mentioned before is a quad core with 4G RAM
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 30
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X3450  @ 2.67GHz
stepping        : 5
cpu MHz         : 2660.000
cache size      : 8192 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 8
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 4

I believe Charlie Brady has SME running nicely on the new HP Micro G7 N40L home server. Thats a half price server ($500) that's real bang for buck.

BTW, these are NZ$ prices.

[engdev]

I have an HP ML110 G6 X3430 QC, purchased in May 2011, running SME 7 with 4 x WD HD RE4/500GB 7200RPM 64MB in SME Raid 5. Runs SME straight out of the box. You can check HP/SME compatibility here:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/linux/hplinuxcert.html

[EScottH]

I am using a custom-built system with the following:

Thermaltake V3 Black Edition Mid Tower Case
Intel Desktop Board DG43GT
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8400
Intel Pro Desktop 10/100/1000 Gigabit PCI Network Adapter (eth1)
2 sets of Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory
Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2 Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 Power Supply - 750 Watts
Seagate ST3250312AS Barracuda 7200.12 250GB Hard Drive (Operating System)
Western Digital WD10EARS SATA 1TB (Shared Storage)

Runs like a champ and I have absolutely no issues with stability.

[k_graham]

I am using a custom-built system with the following:

Thermaltake V3 Black Edition Mid Tower Case
Intel Desktop Board DG43GT
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8400
Intel Pro Desktop 10/100/1000 Gigabit PCI Network Adapter (eth1)
2 sets of Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory
Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2 Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 Power Supply - 750 Watts
Seagate ST3250312AS Barracuda 7200.12 250GB Hard Drive (Operating System)
Western Digital WD10EARS SATA 1TB (Shared Storage)

Runs like a champ and I have absolutely no issues with stability.

Hi EScott - would you care to tell us your disk  score so we could see a comparison. The one to match or beat from above is

hdparm -t /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  380 MB in  3.01 seconds = 126.27 MB/sec

Thanks,

Ken

[engdev]

this is the output from my Xeon SME 7 box:
/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  394 MB in  3.01 seconds = 130.79 MB/sec

This is a stock £400 GBP HP ML 110 G6 server fitted with 4 x WD disks & 4 Gb ram.

Output from my HP ML 110 G6 Core 3 SME 8 box, stock £200 server with 4 x WD & 2 Gb ram:
/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads:  412 MB in  3.01 seconds = 137.01 MB/sec

Output from £100 HP Microserver (used to backup the other boxes), 1 Gb ram, 4 x HDD, SME 8:
/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  314 MB in  3.01 seconds = 104.44 MB/sec

[EScottH]

Ken:

Sorry it took so long to get this back:

/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  186MB in  3.03 seconds =  61.42 MB/sec

Scott