[CentOS] dell 2950 servers and centos 4 or 5

[Peter Kjellstrom]

On Thursday 14 June 2007, Robert - eLists wrote:
> Greetings
>
> Part of this may be OT

There is a Dell server linux ml. at:
 http://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-poweredge

> Anyone running CentOS 4 or 5 with the newer Dell 2950 servers?

Yes, we have sucessfully installed both 4.4, 4.5 and 5.0 (all x86_64) on 1950 
and 2950.

> Mainly thinking in terms of basic Internet facing applications
>
> Anything special to report good or challenging?
>
> Any hardware or drivers issues?

Not really, all works well. One thing to remember is that 4.4 (and older) gets 
the NICS reordered. This is fixed in 4.5 (surprised a few people I can 
assure) and worked from the beginning in 5.0.

Also, the (physically) first NIC has IPMI (remote management) on it and you 
may want to disable that if you connect it to anything but a local management 
net.

> Anything not to order as an option or not do?
>
> Should one stick to dual core or go to quad core? Does it really matter?

One dual-core core is faster than one quad-core core so some things are 
quicker on dual-core. If you have enought threads though, the sum of the 
performance on the quad-cores is typically (vaires with application) greater 
than that of the dual-cores.

> What is the best way to order raid1 and raid5 storage on these units with
> and without hot plug

I'm quite sure that it's impossible to get a 1950 or 2950 without hotplug.

> Will either way keep the deployment of CentOS easy and happy.
>
> I am used to ordering and deploying hp proliant intel rackmount servers
> using 3.5 hotplug scsi
>
> Im not that familiar with the terms on the dell website for SAS (cant tell
> if hotplug) although I know what SATA is and I am not familiar with
> Serial-Attach SCSI hotplug.

SAS is Serial-Attached SCSI, it's typically hotplug. On many modern servers 
you can mix SAS and SATA. SAS is usually available in faster versions (spins 
faster).

/Peter

> Thank in advance for your advise or experiences.
>
>  - rh
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