[CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

hw wrote:
> m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>>> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
>>>> (especially
>>>> if using CentOS 6.x)
>>>
<snip>
>> And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
>> support is nothing like good.
>
> Indeed, I wouldn´t buy HP new.  They don´t even give you a price for
> a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
> and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
> managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can´t find
> anything anymore.

But wait, it's worse: the replacement *parts* have a different part number
than the original. I had to replace a PSU on a blade enclosure, and had to
get HP, or maybe a reseller, I forget, to tell me what the correct part
number for the replacement part was, and, IIRC, there were both 6-digit
number, or maybe 12....
<snip>
>> Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't
>> great,
>> I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
>> (the company divided a year or two ago).
>
> I´ve never heared of ThinkMate.

No biggie. As I said, they're another reseller of Supermicro h/w. Good
prices, so-so support.
>
>> If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
>> rebranded LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good
>> and reliable, not super expensive.
>
> Those don´t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of them
> worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
> them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for
> making incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.
>
> Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.

Oh, ok, I was assuming you did. No, if you're not buying Dell hardware,
with their own PERC cards, get an LSI/AVAGO/whoever. They *do* work on
anything, and MegaRAID software is not hard to find. Note: if you go that
route, I have a script I found only that makes basic monitoring *much*
easier than the hostile MegaRAID interface....

       mark