Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 02:00:10 +1000 From: Michael VInce <mv@roq.com> To: Karl Denninger <karl@denninger.net> Cc: Brad Knowles <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org>, stable@freebsd.org, Sten Daniel S?rsdal <lists@wm-access.no>, freebsd-net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Network performance 6.0 with netperf Message-ID: <4357BF0A.9060504@roq.com> In-Reply-To: <20051020145700.GA86725@FS.denninger.net> References: <434FABCC.2060709@roq.com> <20051014205434.C66245@fledge.watson.org> <43564800.3010309@roq.com> <4356BBA1.3000103@wm-access.no> <43579259.8060701@roq.com> <p06200714bf7d5916c6de@[10.0.1.210]> <20051020145700.GA86725@FS.denninger.net>
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> > >On Thu, Oct 20, 2005 at 04:26:31PM +0200, Brad Knowles wrote: > > >>> At 10:49 PM +1000 2005-10-20, Michael VInce wrote: >>> >> >> >>>> > The 4 ethernet ports on the Dell server are all built-in so I am assuming >>>> > they are on the best bus available. >>> >>> >>> >>> In my experience, the terms "Dell" and "best available" very >>> rarely go together. >>> >>> Dell has made a name for themselves by shipping the absolutely >>> cheapest possible hardware they can, with the thinnest possible >>> profit margins, and trying to make up the difference in volume. >>> Issues like support, ease of management, freedom from overheating, >>> etc... get secondary or tertiary consideration, if they get any >>> consideration at all. >>> >>> But maybe that's just me. >>> >>> -- >>> Brad Knowles, <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org> >> >> > I think that's unfair. > I have a couple of Dell machines and my biggest complaint with them > has been > their use of proprietary bolt patterns for their motherboards and similar > tomfoolery, preventing you from migrating their hardware as your needs > grow. > > This also guarantees that your $75 power supply becomes a $200 one > once the > warranty ends - good for them, not good for you. > > Other than that, I've been pretty happy with their stuff. Sure beats a lot > of other "PC" vendors out there in terms of reliability, heat management, > BIOS updates, etc. > > -- > -- > Karl Denninger (karl@denninger.net) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights > Activist I have to agree Karl, Those slots aren't proprietary there PCI Express. When I went to open the machine up to put in a PCI multi serial card all I saw were those little modern mean looking PCI Express slots which have the ability to scare any techie, there are no old PCI slots on it, I had to dump my serial card and change over to usb2serial converters by loading the ucom and uplcom as kernel modules so I could use tip to serial out of usb into the single serial port on the Dell machines when the ethernet is down which ended up working out great, I will never need clunky old (and price) multi port PCI serial cards again. If you look at the chipset Intel E7520 of the Dell 1850/2850 (The 2850 is really just a bigger case machine to hold more drives) http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/embedded/e7520.htm You will see it just only has PCI Express as a minimum which is 64bit/133mhz which does a minimum of 2.5GBs/sec in 1 direction and its a switched based bus technology where there is no sharing of the lanes, there is no old school PCI 32bit/33mhz buses. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1087&page=3 As for service, I actually ordered two much smaller Dell 750's but because there were out of them for a couple of weeks due to some big company ordering 500 of them I had a bit of an argue with the Dell guy on the phone and got 1850s with scsi raid 1 out of him for the same price. Its been Dell that has shown me how good (and maybe a bit evil) big companies can be.
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