Server Class Machines

[dan]

Anyone running with a server class machine? I'm thinking about going to rack mounted 1Us. You can grab some refurbished dual core xeons for about $200. I'd love to get a boxhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16859105800 with 4 X 8 core xeons but $30,000 is a bit much :-)

Dan

[Mumps]

Anyone running with a server class machine? I'm thinking about going to rack mounted 1Us. You can grab some refurbished dual core xeons for about $200. I'd love to get a boxhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16859105800 with 4 X 8 core xeons but $30,000 is a bit much :-)

Dan

I'm running with a bunch of HP's. Primarily BL465 G7's, but also a large number of DL360 G4p's. (Dual Xeon P4's @ 3.4 Ghz) Biggest thing to think about is the HP's don't have a wiring harness to let you install GPUs. No 6 or 8 pin connectors like the GPU's need. And you need to get to the DL360 G5's before they even have PCIe slots in any case. So you'll pretty much be CPU only crunching with them. Their fans are also very noisy. Not something you'll want in a room you'll be living or working in.

[dan]

I'm running with a bunch of HP's. Primarily BL465 G7's, but also a large number of DL360 G4p's. (Dual Xeon P4's @ 3.4 Ghz) Biggest thing to think about is the HP's don't have a wiring harness to let you install GPUs. No 6 or 8 pin connectors like the GPU's need. And you need to get to the DL360 G5's before they even have PCIe slots in any case. So you'll pretty much be CPU only crunching with them. Their fans are also very noisy. Not something you'll want in a room you'll be living or working in.

I've seen the G4's going for $200. Did you get the G5's to run any graphics cards? What about power? Any special mods there?

We have a lot of 1Us sitting around the office so I'm well aware of the noise. I even am beginning to think they are affecting my hearing :-(

Thanks,

Dan

[Mumps]

I've seen the G4's going for $200. Did you get the G5's to run any graphics cards? What about power? Any special mods there?

We have a lot of 1Us sitting around the office so I'm well aware of the noise. I even am beginning to think they are affecting my hearing :-(

Thanks,

Dan

You could actually run any of the older GPU's that don't require the additional power. But that's not going to get you much in return. (Although, at that level, the points are good considering the minimal extra power draw.) The only add-on part I've seen for those Proliants for power was for the DL585 G6/G7 models. HP didn't have a set of cables, much less connections, in their older model servers to allow for adding power cables like that.

The models I have available don't normally have PCIe slots, and I don't have any GPU's that I can test with that don't require the additional power. I've been hoping to fall into something like that eventually, but I'm still stuck waiting.

[dan]

You could actually run any of the older GPU's that don't require the additional power. But that's not going to get you much in return. (Although, at that level, the points are good considering the minimal extra power draw.) The only add-on part I've seen for those Proliants for power was for the DL585 G6/G7 models. HP didn't have a set of cables, much less connections, in their older model servers to allow for adding power cables like that.

The models I have available don't normally have PCIe slots, and I don't have any GPU's that I can test with that don't require the additional power. I've been hoping to fall into something like that eventually, but I'm still stuck waiting.

I'm finding 2 X dual core xeon boxes with no HD costing $89. I was thinking I could PXE boot the servers. Any idea how many I could run in rack with a 20 AMP circuit?

Thanks!

[Steve Bohlen]

Anyone running with a server class machine? I'm thinking about going to rack mounted 1Us. You can grab some refurbished dual core xeons for about $200. I'd love to get a boxhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16859105800 with 4 X 8 core xeons but $30,000 is a bit much :-)

Dan

I picked up a dual core xeon rack sever about 2 weeks ago. Been running great. Sounds like a similar deal as what you are looking at. Some details here:

http://www.setiusa.us/showthread.php...runcher-Online

[dan]

I picked up a dual core xeon rack sever about 2 weeks ago. Been running great. Sounds like a similar deal as what you are looking at. Some details here:

http://www.setiusa.us/showthread.php...runcher-Online

Nice. Are you building a rack of them or just the one?

[Steve Bohlen]

Nice. Are you building a rack of them or just the one?

Just one for now. I picked it up really just due to price. I couldn't find a desktop in the same price range with the same power.

You got me thinking about more than one a bit more seriously now...hmmm

[Slicker]

One thing to conside in the 1U cases are that the 40mm fans are loud. Very loud. I think the HPs have either 6 or 8 of them between the hard drives and the rest of the system to draw air in thru the front and expel it out the back. The CPU coolers and fans are also pretty small although designed for decent air flow. The 1U cases often require proprietary DVD drives as well which make them more expensive. As far as 1U Xeons, I've got both Dell and HP and I like HP better. Also, quad core opteron processors can be had for $110 and have larger L2 and L3 caches than the $200 Intel server chips. Finding a multi-cpu MB may be a challenge though.

[dan]

One thing to conside in the 1U cases are that the 40mm fans are loud. Very loud. I think the HPs have either 6 or 8 of them between the hard drives and the rest of the system to draw air in thru the front and expel it out the back. The CPU coolers and fans are also pretty small although designed for decent air flow. The 1U cases often require proprietary DVD drives as well which make them more expensive. As far as 1U Xeons, I've got both Dell and HP and I like HP better. Also, quad core opteron processors can be had for $110 and have larger L2 and L3 caches than the $200 Intel server chips. Finding a multi-cpu MB may be a challenge though.

We have a boat load of 1Us sitting around the office and they are loud. For the challenges this team does it seems CPU power is more important. For now I don't care about HDs or CD ROMs. I think I can PXE boot and use my linux box for NFS for and Disk space needed. So I just need the case, motherboard, memory and CPUs. Sounds like a fun project to set up.

Dan