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    Dell 27" 5K Monitor (5120x2880)

    Sorry to resurrect this thread. Does anyone have experience running this screen with a Pascal-based GPU and custom resolutions - e.g. letterboxed 21:9 - 5120x2160, 2560x1080 or similar?
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    Dell P2715Q / P2415Q (3840x2160p, IPS, sRGB)

    I'm very interested in the P2415Q. I've got another Dell 1920x1080 monitor - U2312HM - so nearly the same size. I'd ideally like to run the P2415Q at 200% scaling and the other at 100% - which you can't do in Windows 8.1 - only set a % for all monitors, or use the auto scaling thing which in...
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    Just ordered my Dell UHD 24 Monitor UP2414Q

    I'm interested in a 4K monitor for the PPI, and wouldn't want to go above 24" - ideally I'd want around 20" but that isn't very likely to happen. So at the moment the Dell is the only option. However, still need option to switch to 1920x1080 at times, which seems to be impossible if using...
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    BridgeSTOR Dedupe card

    I've used Starwind dedupe. If you give it RAM and CPU, it performs very well. I'm not sure if the StarWind free edition has been upgraded from 5.7 to 5.8 like the paid for version, but in 5.8 dedupe performance is better than 5.7 and also it's not classed as experimental any more. The only...
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    Prevent RMA-ing a dead SSD with sensitive data

    I'm inclined to agree, but then I'm also inclined to think that the same penny-pinching drive manufacturers, who will view the whole warranty/RMA thing as just a cost that they would like to get as low as possible, will also consider the saving on electricity etc they can make by not bothering...
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    Ever deploy a ZFS set up for a production environment?

    Can you give a bit more detail about your current storage. OK, it's Win 2003, software iSCSI (is that the MS target, i.e. an old version of WSS?). What RAID controller? How many drives, RAID level. 8TB - is that used capacity, useable capacity, native capacity? I run a similar number of VMs...
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    Intel SAS Expander

    I've been using a couple of these in production for > 6 months now, and I've had no problems. The expander chip is an LSI and all the Intel RAID controllers that are listed as compatible are actually LSI rebadges. I use them with LSI 9265 series controllers with no issues. There's a thread...
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    SAS vs MLC SSD for mission critical data.

    If you've got 18GB of RAM, and a 600GB database, and many queries have to operate on more than 18GB of data, then no wonder your storage is being hammered... You don't say what the RDBMS is (SAP can run on Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server, IIRC). If it is SQL Server, there are performance counters...
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    SAS vs MLC SSD for mission critical data.

    How much RAM have you got? As you are so read heavy, I would say that the best bang for buck would be to get as much of the database into RAM as possible, so that the load on storage is lower, If you could boost your budget, a 1TB RAM box (about $65K list from Dell for a R910) will perform much...
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    LSI Owner's Thread (SAS/SATA HBA and RAID cards)

    ^ Thanks, Computurd - great find. So, the long anticipated 2208 is nigh... More details on the LSI site: LSI 2nd Gen SAS-2 RAID controllers 250,000 IOPS 450,000 IOPS with FastPath (still optional) No improvements yet to CacheCade (i.e. still up to 512GB of SSD read cache) New BBU...
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    Multiple servers booting from SAS

    Simple answer: yes, it's possible. You've got lots of options ranging from ghetto to Tier 1 enterprise. The main limitation, assuming your basic needs, is going to be cable lengths - you can have up to 10m runs between your HBAs/RAID cards and your array. If you want a supported solution...
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    Intel RAID Expander Card RES2SV240

    acesea, no mounts other than the pci bracket are supplied. However the board is drilled with 3 holes that could be used to mount to standoffs, but you will probably have to modify your case to do so. Also, I have not tried the expander off the external port of the 92804i4e, but I don't see...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    It's the RES2SV240. Here's the: Intel RES2SV240 product page
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    The Intel SAS expander (which is LSI based) works fine with the LSI 92804i4e - you may want to give it a try. It's not as good value for money as the HP card though...
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    Need iSCSI suggestion

    No, unless you are using system RAM as cache, 4GB is more than enough for a software iSCSI target. In fact, I've been running Starwind 4.2 for over a year inside a 1GB virtual machine, on a 6GB hyper-v box, which has at times been running other vm's, including Starwind 5.5 with 2GB while I...
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    Need iSCSI suggestion

    I would recommend Starwind, but the free version seems to have been discontinued, although it may be coming back again. I would expect it to be capacity-limited though. You can get a 30 day trial of Starwind 5.5, and if you like it and are MS or vmware certified, you may be able to get a NFR...
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    MS has abandoned Drive Extender for Vail

    WHS for enthusiasts was/is a great way to recycle drives conveniently without having to think much. But most of the mass market OEM stuff is limited to four to six drives. They can probably use motherboard RAID-1, and insist on drives being bought as pairs with locked firmware... they will love...
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    Geo Clustering & Risk Assesment - aka the Billion Dollar Question

    Thanks GeorgeHR, I was joking about the bombs and aliens... And obviously a targeted attack as opposed to a rare random event is much harder to protect against. Luckily, I don't think anyone outside of fiction has ever used an EMP... I think you're right - I'm after probability of...
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    Geo Clustering & Risk Assesment - aka the Billion Dollar Question

    This isn't really the right forum for this question, but I know that a lot of the people hanging around here have knowledge and experience that can help me. I find a higher concentration of sensible IT answers here than anywhere else. I'm sorry if I'm reminding too many people about the less...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    Ah, but in the old days of SCSI clustering, you could - for two node clustering. It was a bit messy, but it worked. IIRC you were limited to 13 or 14 drives on one SCSI bus. If you could do the same trick with SAS RAID controllers and a SAS expander, with cascading you might be able to get to...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    ah, nitrobass24, that be HPC clustering, I be thinking about failover clustering. Specifically, hyper-v with live migration & CSV. What I do now: Supermicro twins, hyper-v cluster, storage on VHDs in CSVs on iSCSI targets, accessed via 10GbE. My iSCSI target is Starwind - two boxes, with...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    well, it's the "windows cluster" which tripped my alarm bell... Multipath I/O needs providers for MS MPIO (whether iSCSI, FC or SAS) so I wouldn't expect to be able to mix different manufacturer's RAID cards and have it work. But proper failover clustering, two servers connected to the same...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    Sorry to go a bit off topic, but is such a config really possible? Since the requirement for SAS was introduced for Windows failover clustering, the only configs I have seen have been for simple SAS HBAs in the servers with the actual RAID controllers as part of the array. You are saying it is...
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    Dell PowerVault NX3000

    IIRC, the iSCSI target is now included with WSS rather than being a paid for option. Really annoying that WSS is still OEM-only though... and it's the only way to get the MS iSCSI target. I assume you are going with Dell because you need on site support etc. You might be able to get better...
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    LSI Owner's Thread (SAS/SATA HBA and RAID cards)

    Just saw this: http://www.demartek.com/Reports_Free/Demartek_LSI_CacheCade_Performance_Evaluation_2010-11.pdf They used a web server workload to test CacheCade performance - not directly applicable to my needs but still interesting. They used 2 x 32GB X25-E for caching a 6 x 500GB RAID-10 -...
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    problem with ST32000444SS drives

    Well, I'm having a relatively good experience with ST32000444SS drives. I'm using them on a LSI 9280 4i4e via Intel RES2SV240 SAS expander. The drives are on firmware 0006 and were delivered to me like that. RAID 0, two drives: 266MB/sec Write, 278MB/sec read RAID 0, 4 drives: 523MB/sec...
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    LSI Owner's Thread (SAS/SATA HBA and RAID cards)

    I've posted my experiences in a RES2SV240thread, but yes, going through the expander seems to reverse the slot numbers (within the group of four slots per SFF8087)
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    Intel RAID Expander Card RES2SV240

    The RES2SV240 finally arrived today. Bad news first: it didn't work with my Areca 1680ix-24. The firmware would not initialise if the RES2SV240 was connected. However, this could be because ix's have SAS expanders and there could be an incompatibility; it could also be this particular card...
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    LSI Owner's Thread (SAS/SATA HBA and RAID cards)

    My server is back finally after switching my Areca 1680ix-24 for LSI 9280 4i4e (the Areca card stopped working with my Supermicro X8DTH-6Fmobo, but still works fine on other servers). I've actually got two of the LSI cards; if the Intel expander that I've ordered works OK, I will be moving one...
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    Intel RAID Expander Card RES2SV240

    I can't find a UK stockist of this (the disties want a minimum order of five). So... I've ordered one of these from "LimitedGoods.com" (never heard of them before, but Provantage wouldn't ship to UK from the US, I think because the Intel warranty only covers US & Canada). I will be testing...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    Well, that was incredibly generous of you, not just for Areca, but everyone here... But it kind of worries me that Areca aren't taking a more pro-active approach with compatibility testing. I know that they have that they have their own stuff to push, but given that they target the enthusiast...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    ^ Thanks for the info - I guess that rules out the HP expander for now! Maybe they'll never bother to test/fix with the HP expander - they can hide behind HP only supporting it for use with HP cards in HP servers.
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    Well, the latest MSM and drivers was released on 3 September, with firmware a bit later on 27 September. I've done a quick search through the MSM release notes and got the following: LSIP200071024 (DFCT) Device tree:MSM showing incorrect port order when non expander backplane and...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    Hi, Has anyone tested the LSI 9260 / 9280 series cards recently? I know that the LSI 9280-8e was found to be incompatible with the HP expander a while back, but I was wondering if more recent firmware (from LSI and/or HP) had fixed the issue - as Areca LSI2108 cards are working well, and...
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    RAID Expansion - Multiple PCIe Raid controllers on one Mobo?

    Supporting multiple RAID cards should be fine, although you may run out of option rom (but as you are not booting from RAID, you can turn off option rom for each card if your bios supports this). As for using PCI instead of PCIe for video, I think it would depend on your mobo's bios. You might...
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    LSI Owner's Thread (SAS/SATA HBA and RAID cards)

    From the Intel Raid Product Matrix (PDF) A couple of new ones that I haven't seen announced by LSI (most of the cards look identical to LSI cards, they even have CacheCade / FastPath options) Page 4 - RS2VB080 - due in December - looks like the RS2BL080 / LSI 9260 8i, except... - flash...
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    LSI Owner's Thread (SAS/SATA HBA and RAID cards)

    Yes,especially when just about the only place I've seen CacheCade mentioned (apart from LSI and news sites regurgitating LSI press releases) is this site and other forums where Computurd posts! I really would like to see some real world notes from the field. For me, apart from the choice of...
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    HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

    alleyezonme, There are loads of UK stockists, albeit with the usual UK markup (and you will still have to pay VAT when you import from US). Try a google product search for HP SAS Expander
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    HSM for Windows

    I'm pretty sure that there was something like that in Windows Server NT4 or 2000, but it got removed, and was for disk -> to tape so no good for you. You'd need something that sits on top of NTFS and replaces files that get moved with hard links, and keeps a database of all files and their...
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    Are 2TB hard drives reliable?

    Good to know that 4K improves resliency. Vail: in addition to mirroring (now blocks, not files) it uses up extra space (12% I think) to provide better error correction. Lots of people complaining about this, but basically MS claim they put it in because they had lots of silent data corruption...
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