Linux & SMP

[aresaid]

From what everyone has told me, Linux deals a lot better with SMP than windows (generally). I want to set up a linux box and have a bit of a stuff around, maybe make a bit of a server do distribute files and run games on the college network. I wanna get something that will do the job for a good long while, but I don't have TOO much cash to throw around. I can't work out if I should run SCSI or ATA-133/100 HDD's in striping raid array (want fast file transfers). Generally, SCSI drives are very expensive, so what sort of IDE HDD's should I use, is there any really good controllers to look out for and any bad eggs to be avoided? (Primose is not top shit I hear). What is a reasonably good low end board with onboard (decent) raid controllers? I was looking at a Tyan Tiger with some other bits on the name I think, or it may have been a cut down version of a tiger or something. Around $550. Anyone got any good suggestions? And what size are most of these MOBO's? Won't fit an a 'normal' ATX case will they?

[saba]

Linux's SMP is pretty good, although it still needs a bit more work to bring it up to the BSD/Solaris level.

Just about any IDE drive should be fine for RAIDing, except the Barracuda IV's (lol I have four ).

Promise tends to lean towards stability rather than speed. Try highpoint. Perhaps adaptec have some IDE RAID controllers?

What do you want to SMP? Pentiums or Athlons? Currently dual Athlon boards cost a heap, $500+, which pentium boards are creeping down too, around $250->$300 for a good one.

Not many SMP boards come with onboard RIAD. Its easier just to go with a dedicated card anyway.

Most SMP boards are a touch larger than your standard motherboard, but they still conform to the ATX standard, so almost all should fit into a standard case. The only exception to this is the huge IWill DBD100 board, which is a BX-based dual P3 Slot1 board. Massive, and most of the space is pretty empty and dry.

Going dual AMD will set you back at least $1500. $500 for the board, $500 for each of the processors (assuming you get MP's). Then you need memory, and your other add-ins. Going dual P3 will start at least $1000 ($300 for the board, $350 per processor), and then you need the add-ins.

Edit: Oh, SCSI RAID will definately cost a lot more to get going, but they are generally more reliable and faster. They also have a lot of cool features which I wont go into now. A 20gb SCSI drive last time I checked was around $400.

IDE RAID on the other hand is much cheaper, and it can get pretty close to the transfer rates of SCSI solutions. But there are small problems such as only one device on the IDE chain being able to read/write at a time (whereas on a SCSI all drives can read/write at once, and do other funky things ). A 40gb IDE drive last time I checked was around $200.

[aresaid]

I think that I want to run dual XP's at the moment, although I have been told they get nowhere near the performance of dedicated SMP processors (MP, etc). I was also thinking about dual Duron 1.1 or 1.2's, as this would help to keep cost down. Anyone have a dual duron (morgan core) system, and wanna comment on it's performance. I am an AMD fan and at this stage in the game, wanna remain one.

Why don't barracuda IV's raid? I have a 40GB version. What do you think of yours? Mine seems OK, although I would have preferred an IBM but for the price and failure rates at my time of purchase

Yes, I would like some decent raid action. At this point in time, SCSI is definitely out of my price range, so a decent dedicated PCI RAID controller seems to be the go, although you have a point there about access over IDE. If I had two connectors, with two hard drives on each in two seperate raid arrays, like master-master and slave-slave, what sort of performance would I be looking at?

Any new chipsets on the horizon that might lower the cost of AMD SMPing? At the moment only the AMD760-61 can do it, correct?

Thanks for answering those questions by the way saba.

Also, what is the deal with dual LAN, and what are the onboard LAN offered on the Tyan boards like. Good I assume.

Can I also have a quick rundown on 64bit PCI slots?

Thanks in advance.

[saba]

Lots of questions there, best get started

Originally posted by aresaid
I think that I want to run dual XP's at the moment, although I have been told they get nowhere near the performance of dedicated SMP processors (MP, etc). I was also thinking about dual Duron 1.1 or 1.2's, as this would help to keep cost down. Anyone have a dual duron (morgan core) system, and wanna comment on it's performance. I am an AMD fan and at this stage in the game, wanna remain one.

If I remember correctly, the MP athlon processorshad a bunch of additions which allowed them to perform better when placed into an SMP board. These additions included cache lookahead... and thats all that comes to mind . Whats important is that there are benefits when running with the MP over the standard XP which justify the extra cost.

Originally posted by aresaid
Why don't barracuda IV's raid? I have a 40GB version. What do you think of yours? Mine seems OK, although I would have preferred an IBM but for the price and failure rates at my time of purchase

For reasons still mainly unknown, the Barracuda IV's when placed into a RAID configuration perform poorly than compared to when running by themselves. I haven't tested the performance of the drive when running by itself, but when I had two 'Cudas in a RAID-0 it was zippy. When four was placed into the array (like now), performance fell slightly. Although i'm not terribly fussed, its annoying that the drives aren't performing to their full potential.

Note to self: I wonder how the drives will perform under software RAID...

If you are going to form a RAID array, it would be best to lean away from IBM due to their high drive failure.

Originally posted by aresaid
Yes, I would like some decent raid action. At this point in time, SCSI is definitely out of my price range, so a decent dedicated PCI RAID controller seems to be the go, although you have a point there about access over IDE. If I had two connectors, with two hard drives on each in two seperate raid arrays, like master-master and slave-slave, what sort of performance would I be looking at?

Performance really doesn't drop, and its nothing to worry about because your standard hard drive isn't able to saturate the ATA bus. However, when two drives are placed into a chain, they are unable to talk at the same time, rather, they quickly switch. For example, the master talks, then the slave, the master, and so forth. Performance loss is again negligable, but the benefits of running RAID quickly overrule this.

Originally posted by aresaid
Any new chipsets on the horizon that might lower the cost of AMD SMPing? At the moment only the AMD760-61 can do it, correct?

No news yet on anything major brewing. AMD SMPing will be expensive for quite some time yet, however any system you build will undoubtably provide you with enough power to outlast all single processor systems out there. Once you go dual, you cannot go back

Originally posted by aresaid
Also, what is the deal with dual LAN, and what are the onboard LAN offered on the Tyan boards like. Good I assume.

Dual NIC's are generally reserved for higher-end server solutions. The two NIC's found on the Tyan boards are 3Com, which are very good, on par with Intel and Compaq cards. You should have zero problems with the cards software.

Linking them up is a different matter. By default, they will run as two individual NIC's with separate configurations (IP, gateways, DNS's, etc). Although I have no experience with 3Com, binding the two cards together should be fairly easy. If you would like to take advantage of the higher-end features of NIC "linking", you will need a very expensive Cisco/HP/etc switch to take advantage of them. But yes, linking of them is easily possible, although not quite the same as having them plugged into a high end switching equipment. I do this myself! However, the extra bandwidth/performance in doing so are really negligable until you are building a super-server. There is a bit of discussion about this in the Hardware discussion forum.

If you are building a file server, the drives will quickly become a bottleneck before the NIC's do.

Originally posted by aresaid
Can I also have a quick rundown on 64bit PCI slots?

I've heard of a few compatibility issues with some standard 33mhz/32bit PCI cards when placed into the 66mhz/64bit PCI slots. Theoretically the 64bit slots are there to provide bandwidth for any high-end card placed there. These include gigabit NIC's, and some expensive SCSI RAID cards, which will alone probably cost the entire server over! As a result, there really isn't much use for them at the moment.

A few compatibility problems are discussed at the www.2cpu.com forums, so take a stroll down there.

Originally posted by aresaid
Thanks for answering those questions by the way saba...Thanks in advance.

Not a problem!

[Switched]

If you are considering IDE RAID, don't buy an IDE RAID controller. These are essentially only software RAID anyway and the RAID features aren't supported in Linux. Fortunately, Linux has built in software RAID support (called Multiple Devices, and must be compiled into the kernel) and can do RAID 0,1,0+1,4,5. Save your money and just get a regular IDE add in card for the extra channels. Another point - Linux can't boot from a software RAID array. You'll need a dedicated boot drive. btw - the Linux MD support also works for SCSI so no need for a RAID controller there either if you do want to go that way.

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO.html

[saba]

Originally posted by Switched
If you are considering IDE RAID, don't buy an IDE RAID controller. These are essentially only software RAID anyway and the RAID features aren't supported in Linux. Fortunately, Linux has built in software RAID support (called Multiple Devices, and must be compiled into the kernel) and can do RAID 0,1,0+1,4,5. Save your money and just get a regular IDE add in card for the extra channels. Another point - Linux can't boot from a software RAID array. You'll need a dedicated boot drive. btw - the Linux MD support also works for SCSI so no need for a RAID controller there either if you do want to go that way.

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO.html

Hmm. My linux server picks up my RAID controller and the array off it quite happily. Similarly, it boots off the array with zero hassles. I dont need a boot drive.

What you are talking about is software RAID, and its an alternative to the harware RAID. You could also do this to the drives hanging off your IDE controllers on the motherboard itself. If you are throwing a dual AMD SMP system at it, i'd say you wouldn't notice any performace hit

[SpecGen]

No-one has proven yet that the AthlonXPs has SmartMP disabled. Therefor, I believe it isn't disabled, as does alot of other people.

I wouldn't get AthlonMPs for now, just get 2 XPs and have exactally the same performance for the same amount of cash, if you are going to get something high end.

[aresaid]

So has anyone used dual XP's yet, or are people just assuming that because it doesn't say you can't, you can? Don't MP's also have some built in thermal shutdown thing?

Where in oz would be the cheapest place to buy new Tyan boards? Are these the only option when it comes to dual AMD setups, and what brand of RAM do people ususally use, because it has to be registered ECC I think? I have heard Corsair is very good.

Basically, I want this as a file server (think DivX ), which can also host games and perhaps FTP server at LAN's and college. I go to a LAN in Adelaide which usually has around 300 people, so things get VERY hectic, and gigaswitches are the backbone of the network. So I would need 64 BIT pci slots, correct? Or only dual LAN? Anyone else here go to the Valhalla lans in Adelaide?

And is overclocking usually an option with SMP mobo's?

Hmmm, this whole RAID thing is getting confusing........

[stalin]

I have a Dual 550 with 2x40GB IBM 7200 RAID 0 on a Highpoint RAID controller (iWill Side RAID 100). Running Redhat 7.2.
Works fine, i dont boot from the RAID I boot from a 13Gb 7200 I have a Dual Port Intel Server NIC (only one port configured and in use atm though). I have previously run 4 Intel NIC's into Cisco switches with trunking and it works great.
Ive also tried it with 3x9.1GB SCSI Atlas drives RAID 0 again it works a treat, it is NOTICEABLY quicker than the 2 IBM IDE drives (deerrr).
The 3 SCSI are even quicker than 4x3.2GB RAID 0 2x40Gb 7200 RAID 0 and 1x13GB 7200 all sharing the load.
If you can afford it get SCSI without a doubt.
You wouldnt need a GBic because its not much faster than 4 100 NIC's in real life anyway. Plus 100MB/s from Gbit NIC and 100MB/s from HDD I/O = Full PCI bus.


I dont go to Valhalla cause the admins are brainless cept toe2toe .

Go find a Abit BP6/VP6 and a couple of Celerons/PIII 4xIntel Pro 100 NIC's and it will make life cheap and easy.

[aresaid]

What lan do you go to?

[Gnuthad]

Originally posted by Switched
If you are considering IDE RAID, don't buy an IDE RAID controller. These are essentially only software RAID anyway and the RAID features aren't supported in Linux.

What about the Promise SuperTrak100 card? That's full hardware RAID, I kow, I've got the card here, just need the drives now. 6 120G hard drives are a little expensive to buy at once.

[stalin]

The Promise SuperTrack is crap
3Ware Escalade 6400 and 6800 are far far far better!! supports either 4 or 8 IDE channels.
the 3ware is full hardware.
ALL cheapo cards like the promise fasttrack (possibly even supertrack) and highpoint chips are not techinically hardware RAID they are all firmware based.

I generally go to Wonderlan and run a server when im not busy. I dont play games though. I lost faith in Valhalla admins after they had 2 rooms joined together with 3 UTP cables with 30+ people in 1 room and 50+ in the other. Yay >10Mb/s for everyone. They have done nothing to re-gain that faith since then.

[TheOtherPhil]

Originally posted by aresaid
So has anyone used dual XP's yet, or are people just assuming that because it doesn't say you can't, you can? Don't MP's also have some built in thermal shutdown thing?

I am running 2 dual XP1800 systems....the XP processor is EXACTLY the same as the MP processor (except with the MP, you pay extra for a guarantee that they work as advertised). If you look at AMD's own docs on the XP, you will see:

Key Architectural Features of the AMD Athlon™ XP Processor Include:

Multiprocessing support: point-to-point topology, with number of processors in SMP systems determined by chipset implementation

XP's do work in SMP and they give exactly the same performance as an MP.

[NeXuS]

Threre are ALOT of people with dual XP systems all working like they should.

And If you are going to use linux, then software raid is far more flexible than hardware raid (use of differnt sized disks in arrays, etc), and even with a p3 800 or so (single) theres still plenty of grunt there just to drive a file server

[Gnuthad]

Originally posted by stalin
The Promise SuperTrack is crap
3Ware Escalade 6400 and 6800 are far far far better!! supports either 4 or 8 IDE channels.
the 3ware is full hardware.
ALL cheapo cards like the promise fasttrack (possibly even supertrack) and highpoint chips are not techinically hardware RAID they are all firmware based.

Compared to 3Ware Promise is crap. Comparing the prices, well I'll stick to the Promise for now.

The SuperTrak is a full hardware card, it's got a CPU onboard unlike the cheaper firmware version. It also costs like a card with a CPU onboard.