[CentOS] [Hardware] Good Server I/O on-the-cheap: ASL Monarch 811x with CentOS 4.2 ...

[Ed Morrison]

Bryan J. Smith wrote:

>Since good server designs have come up in the past, I wanted to point
>out a "low-cost" server option that has good I/O, and the vendor offers
>_your_choice_ of not only Fedora Core or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but
>_also_ CentOS _shipped_ with it!
>
>
>IN-A-NUTSHELL ...
>
>Starting at just over $750, you can get a single Socket-939 Opteron 1xx
>(dual-core is an option) system with up to 4GiB of ECC (but non-
>registered) DDR SDRAM, up to 4 hot-swap SATA bays (8114 model), one PCI-
>X slot (perfect for a 3Ware card, which they _do_ support ;-) and dual
>on-board GbE Broadcom NICs -- all in a 1U rackmount form-factor.  The
>resulting I/O performance is excellent at the price-point for those that
>want a good server I/O well beyond typical "desktop/workstation" but for
>around the same price.
>
>The 4 hot-swap drive configuration, with a decent amount of RAM, 3Ware
>card with the 4 drives in RAID-10 or 5, and, most importantly, with
>CentOS 4.2 shipped runs just a little over $2K.  Not really much more
>than an equivalent "self-assembled desktop" you might be able to put
>together, while being a heck of a lot better in interconnect
>configuration and resulting server performance.
>
>ASL Monarch 8110/8114/8115 (Left Column):  
>  http://www.aslab.com/products/storage/monarch.html  
>
>  
>
Thanks Bryan, this is a timely post for me.  By the way, I tend to like 
your verbosity.  My 0.02 cents worth.

Ed