James Pearson wrote:
> I'm thinking of setting up a Linux (i386) based NFS server with approx
> 1TB XFS file system (on an external FC RAID box).
> What hardware would people recommend for this i.e. make and type of
> mainboard, fibre channel card, gigabit card etc. What are others using
> for this purpose?
For the Fibre Controller, not sure if you've looked at anything, but
look into the Mylex eXtremeRAID 3000. I'm ass-u-me-ing it uses the same
SA110 and driver as the 1100/2000? If not, someone please correct me.
If you're not stuck with Fiber, I'd check out 3Ware's new iSCSI (SCSI
over Ethernet -- not totally finalized yet, so 3Ware also includes a
proprietary driver that works with Linux too) "Palisade" offerings. ATA
storage in external cabinets that use iSCSI, Gigabit Ethernet
recommended. A real cost-savings over Fibre Channel -- although I'd
like to see some be. Pair two of these 640GB boxen with a dedicated
4-port Gigabit switch (although you _could_ share it with the rest of
your LAN), and a dedicated Gigabit card in your server (in addition to
your normal NIC for the rest of your LAN).
For the Gigabit card(s), Intel provides its own drivers for Linux in the
e1000 driver. I've also used the NetGear GA620[T] for over a year now
with much success. _Most_important_part_ for Gigabit Ethernet is to not
only get a NIC that supports 9000 byte "jumbo frames", but a switch that
fully supports it as well (with 802.1q I believe? which allows NICs to
switch between 1500 and 9000 byte frames). I haven't seen any real
difference in paying for a costly board, the iE1000s and GA620s seem to
do nicely for me.
For CPU, the PIII Tulantium 1.20-1.26GHz with a 512KB L2 cache is the
"cost effective" processor for servers from what I've seen. Pair it
with a ServerWorks ServerSet IIIHE-sl chipset mainboard for awesome I/O
-- not only memory, but PCI. Very sweet to put the FC-AL and Gigabit
Ethernet controllers on their own, dedicated 64-bit x 66MHz PCI
channels. Various vendors sell the mainboards, from Intel to SuperMicro
to Tyan.
I guess dual-AthlonXP MP is another option. The 760MPX chipsets are
almost out with a dedicated 64-bit x 66MHz PCI channel. It's an
interesting approach, only single memory channel (whereas ServerWorks
uses 2 or 4, depending on number of CPUs) *BUT* the independent EV6
busses for CPU allows one CPU to handle memory while the other does
I/O. Combined with DDR SDRAM, the dual-Athlon MP seems to "hold its
own" on the server benchmarks I've seen against dual-P3.
If you really need maximum memory bandwidth, then go 4-way Xeon. Again,
stick with the ServerWorks ServerSet IIIHE-sl for maximum I/O throughput
as well as memory. See same vendors for mainboards.
-- TheBS
CC: PC_Support
--
Bryan "TheBS" Smith mailto:b.j.smith@xxxxxxxx chat:thebs413
Engineer AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc. http://www.linux-wlan.org
President SmithConcepts, Inc. http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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* Pentium stop, Pentium SMP go, Athlon MP go ... go very fast! *
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