[Arm-dev] Gigabyte MP30-AR0

Sat Mar 5 12:27:29 UTC 2016
Richard W.M. Jones <rjones at redhat.com>

On Sat, Mar 05, 2016 at 12:14:54PM +0000, Gordan Bobic wrote:
> On 05/03/16 12:00, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> >On Sat, Mar 05, 2016 at 11:57:11AM +0000, Gordan Bobic wrote:
> >>On 05/03/16 11:22, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> >>>I wanted to permanently get rid of u-boot because I want to see if we
> >>>can turn these boards into real (SBSA/SBBR) server hardware that can
> >>>run RHEL.
> >>
> >>Would putting UEFI image for chainloading onto the SD card not
> >>fulfill this requirement without the loss of flexibility incurred by
> >>losing the 1st stage u-boot loader?
> >
> >I'd really just like SBSA hardware without complications.  If we can
> >get that I'll purchase dozens of these boards for OpenStack
> >development.  If not, I'll be recommending Huskyboards :-)
> 
> From what little I can find on the spec, it really doesn't look like
> the Huskyboard is anywhere nowhere even near the same league as the
> Gigabyte board. Not standard *TX form factor, one DIMM slot on the
> underside of the board, IIRC, non-standard power input connector.
> It's as awful a hack-job as most of the ARM dev kits.

"hack-job" is a bit severe.  The Huskyboard is a development board,
not a server board.  It has two SO-DIMM slots, so I guess it should
take 8 or 16 GB of laptop memory, which is fine for our development
needs.  Not something you'd want in a production server of course.

It will also have SBSA out of the box, so it'll just run RHEL (and,
one day, Windows).  It has a nicer processor - the AMD Seattle.

It's also half the price of the Gigabyte.

> OTOH, the MP30-AR0 is standard Micro-ATX in every way, and can take
> up to 128GB of RAM (it's a bit surreal of amazing to suddenly go
> from bashing my head against the limits of tiny memory on ARM bords
> to one that I can just fill up with 128GB of RAM I have lying
> around!).

Believe me, I'm appreciating the 32 GB in this Gigabyte board, and may
upgrade it to 64 GB.  Previously I had only 16 GB in any ARM system
(Mustang) which is usable, but a bit tight when you're doing lots of
virt.

> Softiron Overdrive 3000 comes close in terms of spec, but unlike the
> Gigabyte, I cannot just click it into the shopping cart, hand over
> my payment details and expect it to be in my hands 48 hours later.
> And it is probably more expensive than even MP30-AR0.

Existence is definitely good.  That's why I'm evaluating the Gigabyte.

Rich.

-- 
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