Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 21:19:11 -0400 From: "Andrew C. Hornback" <achornback@worldnet.att.net> To: "FreeBSD-Hardware" <freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org> Subject: Server Design Issues (was: Re: 3ware stuff not ready for heavy duty useage-Ah ha) Message-ID: <00ac01c12e96$47365640$0e00000a@tomcat>
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Ya know, After reading this thread (it had been stored since I couldn't get to it last week, vacation with the fiancee and all...), I've got some comments about the whole situation. Let's see here... you're investing loads of cash in drives, a 3Ware controller and the supporting hardware to build a server. That's good... good hardware is always a good base for a good server. Problem is, you're only using a case/enclosure with a single power supply? *shakes his head* You invest in the RAID controller to add redundancy to the machine. You invest in a bunch of drives to utilize that redundancy. Then you gamble on it all by using a case with a single power supply? What is wrong with this picture? A good, quality case with redundant power supplies (such as the offerings from InWin, not affiliated with them just a very satisfied customer and user) only runs about $200 for a 2 x 300W powered box. Seems to me that you're putting the cart before the horse here. What is the single most fundamental requirement of any computer system? Electrical power. Without enough of it, you get strange/wierd results. That "server" with 13 drives and a 300 Watt power supply... might work for some, but I'd only be interested in purchasing it if it came with a fire extinguisher and an insurance policy. I realize this is an apples to oranges comment, but I'm going to make it anyway. My new workstation, a HP NetServer LC2000 has a warning in the documentation that states that if you're going to use the hot-swap backplane for more than 3 HDDs, that you need to get the redundant power supply. By comparison, my old ALR 6X6 has 3 x 350 Watt power supplies in it right now, with room for a fourth to bring it to 1400 Watts. True, it is an older technological implementation (being from 1998 and all). But, there's something that you need to look at here. If it was possible to build a machine cheaply and reliably to host multiple large sized HDDs, wouldn't someone like Dell, Compaq, HP or Gateway/ALR be doing it already? They're not in business to see how many power supplies they can cram into a machine, they're in business to make money by shipping a reliable system (yeah, I said reliable and I know all of you out there have horror stories about some component or another from these folks). I realize that we all have different skill levels here as far as system and server building, but, I would think that HP or another one of the big companies would have more resources to do more research and come up with a viable plan of attack for prodiving a solution than we, individually, could. Now, I'm not saying that everyone should go get an "off the shelf" machine for everything that they need to do, but, at least take a look at how the big companies do things hardware wise. Not looking for a flame war here... --- Andy To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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