Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 20:15:12 -0500 From: Chris Csanady <ccsanady@friley231.res.iastate.edu> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: URGENT: NIC/MB advice needed for cluster... Message-ID: <199705220115.UAA02426@friley231.res.iastate.edu>
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We are about to purchase 64 dual ppro200's for a large cluster that we are creating, and I needed some advice/information. Depending on how things work out, I may end up managing about 90 linux boxes. :( The reason that we are leaning toward linux currently is essentially due to its somewhat better support of the de21140 cards. Essentially, if we can get better functionality/benchmarks out of FreeBSD, we will likely go with that. We must get this money spent by July 20 or so, so we dont really have much more time to order/test MB/NIC combinations. So, what I was wondering... 1. How well does the Etherexpress PRO/100 work currently? Does this card work well in full duplex mode, and would I be able to have 4 of them per box without any trouble? 2. We are thinking of buying ASUS P65UP5, or Intel PR440FX boards. I know ASUS makes great boards, but we could save a lot of money with the Intel. Does anyone know if the onboard ethernet works? We would save on Enet cards, and memory (ECC DIMM's seem much cheaper..), but is it wise? Another thing we are concerned with is the DMA. Apparently the DMA on the SuperMicro board we got seems to be doing page forwarding on the PCI bus or something. (I don't really know someone else speculated it.. We really need the best of performance though--so would we be well off with the with either of the above boards? 3. When will the new de driver come to FreeBSD? This would help with our currently installed base. I appologize for the length, but I really really dont like linux much. I would appreciate any info anyone could give me.. Thanks, Chris -- Chris Csanady System Administrator Scalable Computing Laboratory ccsanady@scl.ameslab.gov 304 Wilhelm Hall VOICE: 515-294-7336 Ames Laboratory / Iowa State University FAX: 515-294-4491
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