Incredible Value or what?

Aod

Aod

Aod

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i've been looking at rackmount hardware with a friend of mine - we're looking into setting up a server to run Google-Wave on when it eventually shuts down. (among other things)

browsing the 'Bay, i came across a 1U rackmount server for £130 shipped.

it is equipped with this hardware:
2x AMD Opteron 270 Dual-core CPUs
4GB of DDR
LiteON PSU (unknown maximum output)
4x HDD Caddies
iSCSI Backplane
4x SATA 150Gb/s ports on motherboard

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Twin-Dual-Cor...K_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item19c18347a3

considering that a single Opteron 270 is slightly greater in CPU-grunt then an Intel Core2Duo E8500, and this unit has two of them, is this not a shockingly good value machine for a light-duty, low cost server, considering that all it needs to be fully functional are HDD's and it can take affordable consumer-units?
 
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Excellent find if you ask me! I'm trying to find myself a low cost rampage motherboard, still no luck so far!
Lets hope it all works when it arrives (if you decide to buy it)... Which I think you should!
 
Only thing that put me off proper server hardware was power usage I looked at some HP and DELL ones and they would have cost a fortune to run :eek:
 
A quick search on eBay turned them up - very good value for money. The only issue for me would be lack of iLO/DRAC, but if that wasn't such a limitation I'd buy all the remaining ones!
 
Thejay said:
Only thing that put me off proper server hardware was power usage I looked at some HP and DELL ones and they would have cost a fortune to run :eek:
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that's certainly true, but the TDP of these opterons is 95W max (depending on model of the opteron - it could be lower) so i can't imagine the total power draw on this server when it's at 100% load exceeding about 225-250W, although i'd be happy to be informed if i'm disillusioned.

Syx said:
A quick search on eBay turned them up - very good value for money. The only issue for me would be lack of iLO/DRAC, but if that wasn't such a limitation I'd buy all the remaining ones!
Click to expand...

aye, but that's the cost of not going brand-name i suppose.
 
Aod said:
that's certainly true, but the TDP of these opterons is 95W max (depending on model of the opteron - it could be lower) so i can't imagine the total power draw on this server when it's at 100% load exceeding about 225-250W, although i'd be happy to be informed if i'm disillusioned.



aye, but that's the cost of not going brand-name i suppose.
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MAke sure the BIOS is config'd for powernow, or Powernow support is actually enabled. Las one I setup I had to hack the BIOS to support it, otherwise it was running full throttle 100% of the time and was probably worse than an Intel based one. If it's the ones I've just seen, saw no mention of SATA, and if it's SCSI based they usually don't bother with SATA anyway! SCSI RAID can actually be slower than SATA raid these days, but I'm sure you're aware of that. Otherwise, get yourself 4 decent SCSI drives and away you go....
 
Sounds pretty good.
Are they sata or scsi internal,drives though? Scsi seem expensive to purchase seperately.

Cannot see thwm listed now - are they still on
 
That server will probably use about 1.5A, so it's not efficient to keep it in a datacentre when a modern server (e.g. Dell R210) will use 0.5A. :)

Still it's a good deal if you're not paying datacentre rates for power usage (which are in the region of £80/month per Amp, depending on location).
 
Problem with older server hardware is it's from back in the days when servers were made to run full whack and power usage wasn't taken into consideration, I nearly brought a xeon based HP server then found out it constantly used 400watts even when not doing anything. :(
 
Would be interesting to get one of these on a monitored PDU / power monitor (£10) and be able to see what the draw is idle / loaded
 
3dcandy said:
MAke sure the BIOS is config'd for powernow, or Powernow support is actually enabled. Las one I setup I had to hack the BIOS to support it, otherwise it was running full throttle 100% of the time and was probably worse than an Intel based one.
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Good advice!

3dcandy said:
If it's the ones I've just seen, saw no mention of SATA, and if it's SCSI based they usually don't bother with SATA anyway! SCSI RAID can actually be slower than SATA raid these days, but I'm sure you're aware of that. Otherwise, get yourself 4 decent SCSI drives and away you go....
Click to expand...

ajf said:
Sounds pretty good.
Are they sata or scsi internal,drives though? Scsi seem expensive to purchase seperately.

Cannot see thwm listed now - are they still on
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the backplane and caddies are SCSI, but the motherboard has four SATA ports. if i could find a SATA backplane then i could use sata drives in hotswap but without i'd just need to cable each drive in manually.

i'm unsure of the rules on this matter? - would it be okay to post a link to the listing? they do count as desktop systems i suppose :confused:
 
Aod said:
Good advice!

i'm unsure of the rules on this matter? - would it be okay to post a link to the listing? they do count as desktop systems i suppose :confused:
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Ebay is ok as long as your not linking to anything that OcUK sell :)
Just to compare i've got a few duel processor xeon servers they use about £1.5 of power per day :eek:
 
I think I found it, try searching for servers that cost exactly £124.

They look okay, although judging by the number of small fans I'd expect them to be very noisy.
 
I found it - thanks for that :)
Had been searching for AMD or Opteron.

Actually had seen that seller already as they have some Poweredge 2850s. Older single core Xeon 3.6Ghz x2 but they also have 6Gb and scsi disks. Not sure how those CPUs compare to the Opterons?
Couple SATA drives would do though if as mentioned they could be fitted.
 
ajf said:
I found it - thanks for that :)
Had been searching for AMD or Opteron.

Actually had seen that seller already as they have some Poweredge 2850s. Older single core Xeon 3.6Ghz x2 but they also have 6Gb and scsi disks. Not sure how those CPUs compare to the Opterons?
Couple SATA drives would do though if as mentioned they could be fitted.
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you don't want those Xeons - they're Nocona-core which is the Xeon version of Presscott - lots and lots of electricity, CPU-Cycles and heat, not much actual performance at all.

my rule of thumb when it comes to buying old intel hardware is not to bother unless it's from the "Core" architecture or newer (so that's Conroe or better)

<edit>
this is the Server in question = LINK
Mods - if this is inappropriate, please feel free to edit it out of the post, but pleast don't delete the rest.

LizardKing said:
Just to compare i've got a few duel processor xeon servers they use about £1.5 of power per day :eek:
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are they netburst Xeons? either way, that's madness! :eek:
 
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Just looked, and to be honest I'd stick with the SCSI methinks for RAID unless you got some decent SATA drives around. I've seen plenty of 73 gig SCSI hotplug drives going for around £20 on t'ebay, 4 of them and I'm sure that would be enough space for starters...
 
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