• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Project: Rackmount Overkill

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
They will be going on eBay, but I would sell them through the forums here if someone was interested. Obviously, we can't discuss that in the public forums. ;)

Simply curious how you're selling them ;) I've probably had my hands on around 10+ dell servers, now I don't have a single one. Only thing I kept that was big and bulky was my prized IBM dog house sized quad Pentium Pro box.
 
Just purchased four SLANU processors (771 socket, 2.66 GHz) for the IBM x3650's.
 
The new processors are going to be here today, just waiting for the mailman.
 
Processors arrived and pictures, as always. I think it took me around 30 minutes to do both servers and fire them back up.
quad_upgrade_1.JPG


Server torn apart, ready to get started.
quad_upgrade_2.JPG


Heatsinks removed. This is the quickest processor change I've ever done. You just unhook those metal retaining clips and the heatsink comes off. They are a bit better than the stock Intel ones, for sure!
quad_upgrade_3.JPG


New processors installed.
quad_upgrade_4.JPG


TIM applied and heatsinks installed. Let's fire this up!
quad_upgrade_5.JPG


8 cores per server. :cool:
16_total_cores.png
 
Running LinX on the processors. None are breaking 70c. :cool:

16_cores_loaded.png
 
After looking into the differences between Magny-Cours and Interlagos, it looks like it isn't worth the upgrade. In Anand's comparison, the 16 core Interlagos did nearly the same as the 12 core Magny-Cours. So, me going to a 12-core Interlagos will be nearly the same as keeping the ones I'll already have.

If anyone has input on this, I would appreciate it.
 
After looking into the differences between Magny-Cours and Interlagos, it looks like it isn't worth the upgrade. In Anand's comparison, the 16 core Interlagos did nearly the same as the 12 core Magny-Cours. So, me going to a 12-core Interlagos will be nearly the same as keeping the ones I'll already have.

If anyone has input on this, I would appreciate it.

check the f@h section, tons of MG vs. IL info in there, thinking you're better off staying with MG
 
so does that top part of those heatsinks mate with the chassis or something for extra heat dissipation?
 
I purchased two Intel PT gigabit PCIe network cards last week and they arrived a few days ago. I'm going to be doing a write-up on several different NAS operating systems and wanted to be able to isolate it to a single NIC. This also gives me room for expansion on the file server. Right now, I can have up to 4 gigabit NICs.

Server parts should be here next week. I will have to make a special cable for the power supply to allow the new board to work with it. The power supply has a single 8pin CPU ATX connector, but I need two. I don't want to split the cable or use the 4pin. What I'm going to do is use one of the PCIe power cables, but I'll modify it to have the proper pinout. Since a 6pin PCIe cable is three 12v and three ground, I can simply split two of those lines to give me 8 lines. I'll have pictures, of course.
 
I may have located some instability on Fortran. I've been running a very processor/memory intensive program for around 8 hours and suddenly my virtual machine's file system is corrupt (everything is run in RAM). I'm currently running Prime95 blend to see if it has any issues. I was confused when I went to check CPU usage and programs kept closing. Went to use basic commands (tail, fsck) and they were failing with I/O errors. I've moved that VM over to Cobol and started the process over. :-/
 
You do realize that this is 100000x overkill for a FILE server right?

VM host? Depends on the VMs and # but to serve files, this is straight over ludicrous and into PLAID!

In terms of CPU, yes. In terms of memory, if running a ZFS-based file system for NAS, the more memory the better!
 
Server is here! I may not be able to test and have pictures today, as I have stuff I need to get done tonight. I'll try, at very least, to get pictures of the board.

You do realize that this is 100000x overkill for a FILE server right?

VM host? Depends on the VMs and # but to serve files, this is straight over ludicrous and into PLAID!
I think you need to check the title of the thread again! :D

I occasionally do very processor intensive runs, so it will come in handy -- massive video/audio rendering along with others. Not to mention I got an amazing deal on the set (well under half price of the parts new), which will allow me to push off upgrades in the future. I can also finally get rid of the crappy PCI video card that I'm currently using and add PCIe devices.

It will be the main VM server, though. Interesting fact: This server will have double the RAM (64gb) than operating system hard drive space (30gb).

In terms of CPU, yes. In terms of memory, if running a ZFS-based file system for NAS, the more memory the better!
I'm unsure if I want to run ZFS. I love the idea, the feature set is really good and not having to upgrade RAID cards in the future is nice, but the 2gb of RAM per TB of disk has me a bit scared. Yes, I have 64gb of RAM in this server alone, but I want to use the RAM for something other than file storage.
 
Overkill is the title. And Thiddy is making that stand true :)

I too am looking into going back to freenas and ZFS. Since my RAID HBA is so slow :(

I am ditching my P4 server for a low-power Semprom 145 and hopefully I should get better results than I did running freenas on my old server.

I just need to learn how to make a local backup within the freenas server. I love the GUI and the features. But why make a simple task so complex! :(
 
I just need to learn how to make a local backup within the freenas server. I love the GUI and the features. But why make a simple task so complex! :(
Does it have the rsync program by default? If so, you could just write a BASH script and throw it in cron. If you aren't comfortable with this, I could help write a really basic one for you. Shoot me a message if you are interested or want details.
 
Server is here! I may not be able to test and have pictures today, as I have stuff I need to get done tonight. I'll try, at very least, to get pictures of the board.

I think you need to check the title of the thread again! :D

I occasionally do very processor intensive runs, so it will come in handy -- massive video/audio rendering along with others. Not to mention I got an amazing deal on the set (well under half price of the parts new), which will allow me to push off upgrades in the future. I can also finally get rid of the crappy PCI video card that I'm currently using and add PCIe devices.

It will be the main VM server, though. Interesting fact: This server will have double the RAM (64gb) than operating system hard drive space (30gb).

I'm unsure if I want to run ZFS. I love the idea, the feature set is really good and not having to upgrade RAID cards in the future is nice, but the 2gb of RAM per TB of disk has me a bit scared. Yes, I have 64gb of RAM in this server alone, but I want to use the RAM for something other than file storage.

Understanding how ZFS works I have difficulty even suggesting another FS. It uses alot of RAM, sure; but is there anything better out there?

Crap, I owe you a PM too.

Overkill is the title. And Thiddy is making that stand true :)

I too am looking into going back to freenas and ZFS. Since my RAID HBA is so slow :(

I am ditching my P4 server for a low-power Semprom 145 and hopefully I should get better results than I did running freenas on my old server.

I just need to learn how to make a local backup within the freenas server. I love the GUI and the features. But why make a simple task so complex! :(

FreeNAS is good for ZFS and mediocre performance. It's simple and hands-off, but there are better ZFS options out there.
 
Cheers thiddy. Freenas does have Rsync, and I know its possible to create a BASH script to do it. I just don't know enough about Linux to do it.

My CPU is on the way, but I will be getting the RAM and mobo next month (I've had to pay for a trip away with the other half since its anniversary time)

I will be starting with 8GB RAM, so that should be enough for a 3TB RAID-Z?

Atleast with the support of this forum I know I'm in good hands. But you would have thought backup to a local disk would have been simple in freenas! I storage distro that doesn't offer a simple backup method! Seems silly to me...
 
Back