[SAC] New Server Feedback or Vote

[Eli Adam]

On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Alex Mandel <tech_dev at wildintellect.com> wrote:
> For comparison here's the 480GB SSD idea.
> http://www.siliconmechanics.com/i57328/8-drive-xeon-1u.php?cp=pGV4AmV2ZF4kAmDkAwHlZQZ5YwDmBQD2ZD%3D%3D&config_id=1733315

I like the 480.  No one ever says, "I wish we had less storage or
fewer available bays."

I would suggest even filling more of the bays with 480s.  How many
years do we plan to run these?  How much storage do we plan to have by
the end?  How difficult is it to get extra drives ordered and time
zones coordinated and have OSL put the drive in?  Rebuild times have
not been trivial (I know these are SSDs but still it is easier to do
it in advance).

SAC has deferred new machines for a long time so I don't think that
the additional cost is a big deal.

Best regards, Eli

>
> (Does not include our 3% non-profit discount)
>
> Thanks,
> Alex
>
> On 04/07/2015 12:56 PM, Alex Mandel wrote:
>> You are correct, often times the difference is the Firmware not the
>> hardware.
>>
>> The Raid 50 was about safety without compromising performance and faster
>> rebuilds. Price wise the 6x240 is still cheaper than 3x480 (in general,
>> though in this case only by ~$250). http://amzn.com/B006VCP9PM  is
>> likely what I would buy if we bought 3rd party or something similar and
>> the price spikes above 300GB still (not linear). Though from Silicon
>> Mechanics the price jumps do appear linear.
>>
>> More background reading "Consumer-grade SSDs actually last a hell of a
>> long time" http://ars.to/T4dLhF
>>
>> 3rd party does make things more annoying for warranty service. Under
>> this plan we just call Silicon Mechanics and they handle replacing it.
>>
>> Convenience is important since we don't have physical access ourselves
>> and want to make hosting this as little work as possible for OSUOSL.
>>
>> Your plan does make sense if we think about replacing both osgeo3 and
>> osgeo4 with only 1 machine. Adding the extra 3 drives next year. Under
>> that idea I would also suggest bumping to 8 core for 16 total instead of 12.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Alex
>>
>> On 04/07/2015 12:38 PM, Harrison Grundy wrote:
>>> Using SSDs, you may not need the performance improvement 50 gives over
>>> 5. Aside from this, we've found the larger SSDs tend to outperform their
>>> smaller counterparts.
>>>
>>> We have not seen a notable difference between the "Datacenter" series
>>> MLC SSDs and their consumer counterparts in production deployments.
>>> Depending on how the machine is going to be set up, it may make more
>>> sense to get the drives from a third party.
>>>
>>> Given the price per GB, you may be able to go with 3x480 for roughly the
>>> same price point, and leave yourself 3 extra bays if you end up needing
>>> additional space later.
>>>
>>> That being said, it looks good to me. The stuff outlined above is all
>>> pretty minor or more preference-driven than functional.
>>>
>>> --- Harrison
>>>
>>> On 04/07/15 12:25, Alex Mandel wrote:
>>>> Here's what I'm thinking we should order to replace osgeo4.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.siliconmechanics.com/quotes/287252?confirmation=1751481707
>>>> I expect the price to be about $5626.97 before shipping costs.
>>>>
>>>> Plan:
>>>> Latest Debian
>>>> Software RAID 1 Mirror 80GB SSD OS Drives
>>>> Software RAID 50 2x3 240GB SSD (usable space n-2 with performance of
>>>> RAID 5) ~ 860 GB usable after formatting
>>>> 1 Hot spare 240GB drive in the optical drive slot.
>>>>
>>>> Please provide feedback. I'd like to try and order by the end of this week.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Alex
>>>>
>>>> PS: We also plan to ship Astrodog's FreeBSD machine to OSUOSL. This
>>>> machine will provide additional capacity. Not sure where we are in that
>>>> plan timeline it depended on the JIRA migration.
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