[CentOS] Re: Opteron Mobo Suggestions

[Kirk Bocek]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Brian.


Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org> wrote:

> I assume you read 2004 November Sys Admin on the Opteron, including
> avoiding cheap mainboard designs?
>   http://www.samag.com/documents/sam0411b/  

Yea, but who *is* this guy? :)

> I assume you want 2-way.  The S2891 is a nice, 2-way board for 1/2U.
> The S2892 is nice if you want more of a traditional SSI EEB mainboard.
> They are true NUMA and don't cut corners on the CPU and memory.

Don't really need physical 4-way. I'm planning on 2-way dual core. 1/2U 
doesn't matter, it'll be a tower case. I mostly want the 'server' 
features like dual NICs and on-board video.

> ???  Why "dumb" SATA channels  ???
> 
> Why not a 3Ware Escalade 8506-4+ or a LSI Logic MegaRAID 300-8X?

I mostly just want to see how two or three striped SATA drives will 
perform. If the on-board ports don't perform, I can always add a 
separate controller later. My understanding is that NCQ support isn't 
here yet for Linux but that it should provide a boost.


>>serial console support in the BIOS,
> Any PhoenixBIOS will typically give you that.

I did not know that. I've seen too many 'workstation' mobos without 
serial console support to make that assumption.


>>USB 2.0 and IEEE-1394 ports,
> 
> On a server?  The last thing you want is any storage over those two.
> I've been ripping out a lot of external storage solutions that use
> USB 2.0 or IEEE-1394 because they put server stability at risk.

Not for primary storage. Mostly just future proofing here. I've been 
meaning to setup a backup system using external hard drives instead of 
tape. That wouldn't fly over USB 1.1.

*******************

So, Brian, having given me all that good information (thanks again), 
what specific models do you suggest? What are *you* running on?

Kirk Bocek