On 11/24/2012 5:17 AM, Edmund White wrote:
Heh, I wouldn't be using G5's for ZFS purposes now. G6 and better
ProLiants are a better deal for RAM capacity and CPU core countŠ
Either way, I also use HP systems as the basis for my ZFS/Nexenta storage
systems. Typically DL380's, since I have expansion room for either 16
drive bays, or for using them as a head unit to a D2700 or D2600 JBOD.
The right replacement for the old DL320s storage server is the DL180 G6.
This model was available in a number of configurations, but the best
solutions for storage were the 2U 12-bay 3.5" model and the 2U 25-bay 2.5"
model. Both models have a SAS expander on the backplane, but with a nice
controller (LSI 9211-4i), make good ZFS storage servers.
Really? I mean, sure, the G6 is beefier, but I can still get 8 cores of
decently-fast CPU and 64GB of RAM in a G5, which, unless I'm doing Dedup
and need a *stupid* amount of RAM, is more than sufficient for anything
I've ever seen as a ZFS appliance. I'd agree that the 64GB of RAM
limit can be annoying if you really want to run a Super App Server + ZFS
server on them, but they're so much more powerful than the X4500/X4540
that I'd think they make an excellent drop-in replacement when paired
with an MSA70, particularly on cost. The G6 is over double the cost of
the G5.
One thing that I do know about the G6 is that they have Nehalem CPUS
(X5500-series), which support VT-D, the virtualization I/O acceleration
technology from Intel, while the G5's X5400-series Harpertown's don't.
If you're running zones on the system, it won't matter, but VirtualBox
will care.
---
Thanks for the DL180 link. Once again, I think I'd go for the G5 rather
than the G6 - it's roughly half the cost (or less, as the 2.5"-enabled
G6s seem to be expensive), and these boxes make nice log servers, not
app servers. The DL180 G5 seems to be pretty much a DL380 G5 with a
different hard drive layout (12x2.5" rather than 8x2.5")
---
One word here for everyone getting HP equipment: you want to get the
Px1x or Px2x (e.g. P812) series of SmartArray controllers, if you plan
on running SATA drives attached to them. The older Px0x series only
supports SATA I (1.5GB/s) and SAS 3GB/s, which is a serious handicap if
you want to do SSDs on that channel. The newer series do SATA II (3GB/s)
and SAS 6Gb/s.
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/arraycontrollers/index.html
-Erik
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