My new setup: pics

[unhappy_mage]

Thumbnails (if you can call them that... hand-nails, maybe?) link to cropped 5MP originals. Let me know if you want more.

Hardware specs:
Supermicro 370DER with 2*866 mHz p3s, 2GB ram
1*Fujitsu MHT2080BH, boot disk
2*120GB IDE disks, bleh
1*200GB sata disk
5*320GB Seagate ST3320620AS (borrowed from Rogue_Jedi for testing under Solaris)
Supermicro Marvell 88sx6081 controller, at 64-bit/66 mHz.
Yeong-Yang YY-0221 case
Supermicro CSE-M35T-1 5-in-3 enclosure
Enermax EG651P-VE power supply
Running Solaris Nevada, build 65 (just upgraded from b63)

I'd been using most of this hardware for a while now, but I bought a new case which let me use all of it at once I have room for 18 disks in this case once I buy another 5-in-3. Not that it really matters - if you notice, only four of the disks in it are actually mine - selling hardware FTL But I plan to remedy that ASAP.

The other new thing, I guess, is Solaris. I talked a while ago about putting it on my machine, and then went through with it with little fanfare. However, due to recent problems with Linux drivers for my brother's box, we're going to try to use Solaris, iScsi, and Linux (plus a bunch of gigE network cards) to copy his array (8 320GB disks) to backup, then format and install Solaris+ZFS, then restore. It should make an interesting project for the next weekend The driver for this card is much better in Solaris than in Linux - it does 75MB/s sequential transfers as opposed to 50, and handles a far higher number of IOPS at a small block size. Even with just 8k reads, I can sustain about 200 MB/s from 6 disks.

So, there it is. Any questions about hardware, Solaris, Yeong Yang, Marvell, Enermax, anything?

 

[Vertigo Acid]

Those supermicro dual 370 boards are troopers. Had a half-dozen of them, still run 4 of them in 2u servers

 

[drizzt81]

lovely setup.

 

[Farva]

I have a question, where's mine?

I kid...or do I? heh. Anyway, nice pictures.

 

[jkeener71]

LOL!

You can keep your beers cool in that thing!

 

[unhappy_mage]

LOL!

You can keep your beers cool in that thing!

It's a crazy idea... but it just might work!

I'm gonna try to get what benchmarks I can this evening, I'll keep you posted. Since I borrowed the disks and they've got stuff on them, I can't format them and play with ZFS yet It's in the works, though - my brother's machine (where these disks came from) is misbehaving under Linux so we're going to move it to Solaris. Fun times.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Some benchmarks have been run. It seems I get 400 MB/s sequential reads from disk, but beyond that the PCI bus loses its vigor. Not that I'm complaining... much

 

[TeedOff]

Nice. Looks like that case is working out for you.

You gonna put the wheels back on or leave them off?

 

[unhappy_mage]

They are on, actually. You just can't see them in any of the pictures