Subject: Re: Rackmount Servers
From: Peter Q. Olsson (olsson@koyukuk.at.uaa.alaska.edu)
Date: Sun Mar 24 2002 - 16:55:58 AKST
Mike-
I put together a beowulf system with 13 dual processor nodes last winter and
spring. I had the 2u boxes custom built through Government Computer Sales Inc
in Fairbanks. THe boxes were actually built by Equus (in Seattle I think). They
work best in the mode where you specify as much as possible what components you
want. Very flexible in that regard.
My need was different from yours in that I needed computing horsepower with a
minimum of IO. Still the whole experience was a pretty good one, and they were
quick to replace a bad motherboard that arrived DOA. The cluster has been
running for about a year now with no problems.
The University has a contract going with GCSI so procurement is quite simple and
the price beat any canned solution I could find
PQO
>Delivered-To: aklug@aklug.org
>Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:32:21 -0900 (AKST)
>From: Mike Tibor <tibor@lib.uaa.alaska.edu>
>To: <aklug@aklug.org>
>Subject: Rackmount Servers
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>
>Have any of you purchased rackmount servers in the past year or so? Those
>who have, did you go big name (Dell, Compaq, etc.) or did you buy from a
>smaller vendor? Or did you build your own?
>
>We started consolidating all of our servers into cabinets and racks a
>couple of years ago, and the relatively high cost of big name hardware
>resulted in me building the servers we have now using this 4u chassis:
>
> http://www.bonavio.com/chassis/bv-4u17.htm
> (the picture shows a beige chassis; we ordered black)
>
>and good quality motherboards with Athlon cpus. I've been much happier
>with these than with our two big name boxes (an HP Netserver and Dell
>PowerEdge 4300; both big 8u boxes). The Dell has a cheesy plastic door on
>the front that broke the first day we had it. It blew one of the power
>supplies and two of the six hard disks have failed. The HP also suffers
>from cheesy plastic, but also has all-around performance problems. In my
>opinion a $10,000 server should run like a scalded monkey, period.
>
>Despite being happy with our in house built servers, it does seem rather
>tedious to build a server from the ground up when so many small vendors
>are producing what by all accounts seems to be first-rate hardware.
>
>One example that I recently stumbled onto is:
>
> http://bsdmall.eracks.com
>
>You can have your choice of Intel or AMD cpus, IDE or SCSI. While I'm
>looking for servers to run either Linux or FreeBSD, they will install
>whatever OS you choose.
>
>Last summer I was pricing out servers for a project and found that with
>big name hardware I couldn't get below $5,000. Other vendors couldn't
>seem to break the $3,000 mark. All offered only Intel cpus and SCSI disk
>subsystems (not knocking SCSI of course, but I like options). I figured I
>could build what we need for about $2,500, but then that doesn't count the
>cost of my time. eRacks has single Athlon systems at around $1,000, dual
>Athlon systems for under $2k, and dual Athlon SCSI systems for about
>$2,200.
>
>Very tempting considering the alternatives. What kind of experiences have
>you guys had in this area?
>
>
>Mike (bored at work on a Saturday)
>--
>Mike Tibor Univ. of Alaska Anchorage (907) 786-1001 voice
>Network Technician Consortium Library (907) 786-6050 fax
>tibor@lib.uaa.alaska.edu http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/~tibor/
>http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/~tibor/pgpkey for PGP public key
>
>
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
| |
| Dr. Peter Q. Olsson, |
| Chief Scientist, Alaska Experimental Forecast Facility |
| University of Alaska Anchorage |
| 2811 Merrill Field Drive |
| Anchorage, AK 99501 |
| voice: (907) 264-7449 |
| fax : (907) 264-7444 |
| olsson@aeff.at.uaa.alaska.edu |
|__________________________________________________________________|
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