Hello everyone,

I'm not very familiar with the AMD processor lines, but I have read quite a bit about the Opteron processor and am looking into using it in our servers. Would someone be able to recommend a motherboard and RAM that works well with this the Opteron? Also, what is a good amount of RAM for 1 Opteron processor (I believe 2GB is optimal for an Intel processor)?

Thanks,
Max

I have used the tyan thunder k8 pro with Zram Zero channel raid card and three 15k RPM SCSI drives in raid5 and 2gb of ram. I had to use a 4u case and do some small modifcations to it because the motherboard is oversized. Put in a nice 100$ sparkle power supply to finish it off :)

Look at tyan's website for information on what ram is reccomended for the motherboard. Make sure you get 400mhz+ ram or else you will have problems.

That being said, the machine is incredibly fast. It handles over 10million sql queries a day without any problems at all. When compiling software and the like, the machine really blazes faster then anything ive experienced. The 48mb cache on the zram socked raid controller really helps a great deal :)

If you have any other questions or want to talk about it further, let me know. I did have some difficulties with ram for that machine, but if you use factory reccomended ram at 400mhz + you won't have problems. Overall, the machine cost about 2.5k to build.

Thank you for your response, Neosurge. I was looking at Tyan for the motherboards, and overall, it seems they make good hardware. The only issue for me with your setup is that I need a 1U server at this point.

Thanks,
Max

where is the Zram Zero channel raid card ? 48Mb is big.
How much is it?

I paid around 250$ for it at the time, but I beleive they can be obtained for 200$ now.

Adaptec makes a couple models. the 2010S and 2015. Difference being one is pcix and the other is the ZRAM. There is a performance increase for using the zram model.

You will need to look very closely to find a 1u case that will work for this configuration. I would strongly reccomend at least using a 2u case for vastly improved ventilation.

Are you using 2U on dual opteron?

I am using 4u with drive coolers on the SCSI drives in the 3 bays. If choosing the TYAN boad, pay close attention to the size of the motherboard. It can fit into most ATX cases, but it is alot larger then your typical ATX board.

To get a 2u case to work with that board (at least the two 2u cases I had available to work with), you would need to do some heavy modification to the case support bracing. Other opteron boards might not have this issue.

Can you recommend any Tyan boards for a 1U setup?

You might be best calling their sales team, to see what 1u cases their boards support. I called them and got some incorrect information about the adaptec PCIx based zero-raid card, but perhaps they can help ya out with this problem. You can also look at the physical dimensions of the board and correlate that with the sizes of your particular 1u case supports.

Either way, good luck with the machine! Opteron servers with SCSI are a beautiful thing :)

Thanks a lot for your help :)

Max

Sure thing, I had a couple rough weeks getting the proper hardware together for that box in january so I don't mind helping prevent that madness from happening to others :)

Does anyone have any recommendations for good 1U cases?

supermicro makes good 1u cases, best bet is to look around. With this type of system you do not want to get the cheapest 1u case around. Also, make sure you get at least a 400w power supply from a high end manufacturer ( I have had excellent results with sparkle and enermax).

http://servercase.com/miva/miva?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=SC&Category_Code=MS

and:

http://www.mpcparts.com/

I have ordered 1u cases from.

Does the scsi drives generate lots heat? You have 3 for Raid-5? and 15k scsi.

Typically higher RPM drives produce more heat. I nullified this by using 5.25" 3 fan drive bay coolers on this machine so each of the drives has airflow over it at all times, provided with a very high ventilation case the machine has been ROCK solid for the past 4 months now.

What cpu is it? YOu purchased it 4 months ago for 2.5k is good price with those setup.

I am thinking to put into 2U, but looks like a bit hard with those fans for sCSI.

Opteron 244 which is the 1.8ghz for dual CPU config.

The total price could have been closer to 3000$, I cannot remember exact details. (sorry for the understatement on that)

I am loving this setup. The only question I have at this point is: can that case take an IDE or a SATA drive? I've read on Tyan's website that their drive bays only take SCSI drives.

Thanks,
Max

Originally posted by mno
I am loving this setup. The only question I have at this point is: can that case take an IDE or a SATA drive? I've read on Tyan's website that their drive bays only take SCSI drives.

Thanks,
Max

This doesn't make sense to me. The motherboard I used has 2 SCSI ports, 4 SATA ports and 2 IDE (2 IDE from what I recall offhand).

You can really load this machine to the gills if you get enough power into it. Especially since it has 3 ethernet ports onboard (two of them are 1000mbit!).

The drive bay limitation would be related to the case itself and not the motherboard so I really don't know where you are reading this information from.

Sorry, I meant the case you're using, not the motherboard. I thought that you also used Tyan's cases, and going over them, I noticed that they have only SCSI bays listed. I've also read on a different site that they only take SCSI drives.

Sorry for the confusion.

No problem, if you do decide building this machine let us know what specs you come up with and how the final box shakes out. I am highly interested to see real world performance interpretations from this beast of a configuration :)

Nevermind, reading over the documentation on Tyan's site, I found all I needed. Thanks a lot and sorry for the confusion. Also, forgot that you have non-1U cases (right?)

I use 1u cases for single p4 configurations but for multiple processors I prefer using 2u cases at least due to the fact that power supplies for 1u cases are extremely more expensive (almost 2x as much to get comperable quality) as well as airflow/cooling complexities.

Glad things are working out :)

I guess I cross-posted. For sure, I will let you know. I'm very eager to try this out myself. :D I won't have such a good configuration as you do at this point, in terms of drives at least. But maybe in the future :)

Also: If I buy a dual processor capable board, do I have to put 2 processors in or will it work with 1? (I'm not very familiar with ADM hardware)

Originally posted by mno
Also: If I buy a dual processor capable board, do I have to put 2 processors in or will it work with 1? (I'm not very familiar with ADM hardware)

will work with one :D

M.

what should i shoot for as a price goal for 2U dual opteron 240 setup with 1Gig DDR, and a 40GB WD HDD (IDE).

thanks. sorry if i changed the topic but i feel that they are similar.

Id definately go SATA, since most boards support it. Look at WD's raptor series. I have had great success with performance with those drives, I typically use them on the /var/ partitions and get a huge performance increase.

I order most of my parts from newegg.com whenever possible, but it helps to look at www.pricegrabber.com and pricewatch.com just to make sure you are getting rock bottom pricing :)

I run gameservers so HDDs arent as large a problem. Should i still be looking at SATAs?

SATA drives are great, no matter what you're running. They're relatively close to SCSI performance and cost much, much less. The WD Raptor series are great. I have never had any issues. I would highly recommend them, if you can afford them.

Originally posted by Neosurge
No problem, if you do decide building this machine let us know what specs you come up with and how the final box shakes out. I am highly interested to see real world performance interpretations from this beast of a configuration :)

Hi Neosurge,

I did go ahead with a similar configuration. Specs:


Tyan Transport GX28 (B2882)
1 AMD Opteron 244
1024 MB Kingston Hyper-X PC3200 ECC memory
2 * 80GB Western Digital (WD800JB) Caviar SE harddrives, 8MB cache (ATA)


At present, I am only beginning to install the Linux distro as well as the software. I had an older install on those drives that just booted, but I didn't see any great performance leap because the system was compiled who knows when and is not meant for the amd64 platform, only x86. But it ran excellently, nonetheless, although probably slower than it could have.

A note for those interested in using ATA drives:

The default install (out-of-the-box) includes a SATA chip that is meant to allow for EXCELLENT hot-plug SATA. Unfortunately, this board has to come off in order to install ATA. This is not an issue. An ATA cable is even brovided. However, since the drives are side by side, the distance between the hd1 and hd2 connectors on that strip is, well, short. Too short. I was lucky that I had a lot of spare IDE cables luying around. Otherwise, I would not have been able to connect the drives to the IDE. Power is plentiful.

Also, when I say ATA, IDE, I mean the same, old technology :)

Will post more later.

Note: the server is one hell of a beast. Turning it on was a great surprise, all those fans going at 19K RPM really do make some noise :) Don't do it when your neighbours are asleep if you have neighbours...

Max