From: Kirk Bocek t004@kbocek.com
I've been planning to build a dual Opteron server for awhile. I'd like to get people's suggestions on a suitable motherboard.
I assume you read 2004 November Sys Admin on the Opteron, including avoiding cheap mainboard designs? http://www.samag.com/documents/sam0411b/
Specifically figure 6 for a 2-way mainboard: http://www.samag.com/documents/s=9408/sam0411b/0411b_f6.htm
I've looked at the Tyan K8SE (S2892) and K8SRE (S2891) but would like to find more Linux-specific experiences with these boards.
On 2-way, you want one with an AMD8131 (or AMD8132) HyperTransport PCI-X 1.0 (2.0) tunnel.
On 4-way, you want one with at least 2 such tunnels.
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.
_But_, unfortunately _both_ mainboards put _all_ I/O on CPU #1. That's not ideal.
As such, you might be better of going with the S2895 which puts the nForce Pro 2050 and 1 GbE NIC on CPU #2, at least if you have a PCIe storage or NIC cards. It looks more like a workstation board, but the fact that 1 embedded GbE NIC _and_ 1 PCIe slot is on CPU #2 helps improve processor affinity for I/O (especially under Solaris, but even Linux to an extent as well).
Tyan continues to disappoint me by putting _all_ I/O on 1 CPU. The only option where they don't is the nForce Pro 2200+2050 combination on the S2895 where the 2050 goes on CPU #2. Tyan should put the AMD8131 on CPU #2 on the 2891/2892 so it doesn't contend with the nForce 2200 on CPU #1 and its slots/peripherals (and there is no 2050).
Some features I expect are at least 4 SATA (SATA-300?) ports,
??? Why "dumb" SATA channels ???
Why not a 3Ware Escalade 8506-4+ or a LSI Logic MegaRAID 300-8X?
serial console support in the BIOS,
Any PhoenixBIOS will typically give you that.
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.
low-end on-board video.
Most low-footprint mainboards have video on-mainboard these days. Typically just glued to a PCI bus.
Anyone care to share their experiences?
Just curious why you want "dumb" SATA channels, let alone external storage over USB or FireWire on a _server_.
-- Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org