On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Chris Mauritz wrote:
> > From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Jan 7 11:39:44 1999
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I've been following the list for a couple of months trying to get a feel for
> > what people are using for hardware and the problems they've encountered, etc.
> >
> > I'd like to ask for advice/direction on what hardware to purchase for the
> > following senario:
> >
> > Here at Fermilab we also are heavily involved providing computing power for
> > the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) which produces massive amounts of large (>
> > 250Mb) data sets; the data rate is something like 5Mb/second. They're already
> > taken care of getting the data off the telescope, onto tapes, and into the
> > reduction machine (some big iron DEC 16 or 32 processor monster). However,
> > we're considering using a Quad Xeon Linux box to do some final analysis of the
> > data. This is what we're thinking of purchasing:
> >
> > MB - SC450NX
> > CPU - 4-400MHz Xeons
> > RAM - 1Gb ECC
> > HD - 0.5 Tb (11-47Gb Seagate drives in an external rack)
> > Ether - EEPro 10/100 (onboard, right?)
> > SCSI - Onboard SYM53C896
> > Kernel - 2.1/2.2
> >
> > I should mention that we're not worried about backup or RAID.
> >
> > The things we're concerned about are >500 Gb disk, and the Symbios
> > controllers. Also, is there an advantage to using the AD450NX over the SC450NX?
> >
> > This is primarily a CPU intensive machine: once a ~250Mb data set is loaded it
> > won't unload for a while (.5 or more hours) so I don't think I need to worry
> > terribly about IO (otherwise we'd consider big iron again: Sun, SGI, or
> > something).
> >
> > Does this sound feasible, or should I run straight to my Sun rep?
> >
> > Thanks, in advance.
>
> I think this is one of those cases where a dedicated RAID array like
> a Network Appliance Filer would be more appropriate. Hanging a bunch
> of large disks off a symbios controller definitely isn't going to work
> worth a darn.
>
> Chris
>
this depends. The SC450NX (I have one sitting by my desk as I write
this) has three on-board SCSI controllers, two of 'em can do lvds
fast-40 transfers, the other is a narrow controller for old devices.
They are _very_ fast. I'm running 10K IBM lvds disks and get really
scorching I/O thruput. The Symbios controllers seem to work perfectly
under a heavy SMP load (I am running Gerard's latest driver source
for the 53c896 SCSI controllers). I was concerned since I had had
problems with my old adaptec a year ago, and the buslogic had been
working perfectly... but I'm now convinced the symbios chips are every
bit as good. And seem to actually be able to sustain the 80mb/sec
thruput promised...
The main difference between the AD and SC is the physical size, I
think. The SC has a 6-slow hot swap disk cage, while I think the AD
is double that. Nice machine however. Does kernel builds like a
madman...
> --
> Christopher Mauritz
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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