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Will SSF ever replace 1U/2U servers?

K

Karandras

[H]ard|Gawd
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These things are small enough that you could fit almost 3 side by side in the place of about a 3u server. Well, guess I kinda answered my own question, cause you could fit 3 1U servers in the same space. Would these be cheaper to work with in the long run, last longer? Quieter? I haven't seen any discussions on this so I wouldn't mind seeing what people think about this.

//edit
Just thought of another point toward the 1u/2u servers, I haven't seen a SFF with a dually CPU setup yet. is that possible with such a small enclosure?
 
Umm no :D

1)No SFF enclosure has hot swap SCSI bays
2)Even if they did you couldn't have multiple SCSI drives
3)Weak PSU's
4)Heat can NOT be an issue when dealing with enterprise servers

Can't think of any more at the moment but gotta get back to work :(
 
Yeah, totally forgot about hotswaping stuffs :-/ Plus the ease of working with the 1 u servers for changing hardware. Pull it out, lift the lid and you have access to everything ;-) Plus the redundent PSs as well, can't fit anything like that in a SFF case.
 
It would be possible to throw in a hot swap scsi bay or two. If you make the SFF deeper to match a normal rackmount, up to 24inches deep, you could throw in quite a bit. Not sure if this violates anytype of SFF spec, but it would be possible. Just by extending hte SFF a bit would give you some room for multiple scsi bays up front (3?) and possibly a redundant psu in the back. You would probably have to rackmount this to some type of slide out shelf for maintenance and cover held in by a thumbscrew.
Heat should be about similar to a 1u/2u rackmount, if not better. The heatpipe over the cpu with an 80mm fan in the back should be an improvement over most 1u HSF on the cpu.
This sounds like a good topic of a feasibility study. SFF vs 1u/2u/3u rackmount and what SFF needs to take its place.
Hrm...

CrystalPC makes something along the lines of a SFF for rackmounts. They're 5U halfspace things, but it's the general idea. http://www.crystalpc.com/index_communications.asp
 
Well, the only reason I thought of it is cause I've seen many server farms that have been done with mid tower cases instead of 1u servers. So I thought they might be replacing them? There are only negative points toward it but I just wanted to see what everyone else thought about it.
 
It would be possible to throw in a hot swap scsi bay or two. If you make the SFF deeper to match a normal rackmount, up to 24inches deep, you could throw in quite a bit. Not sure if this violates anytype of SFF spec, but it would be possible. Just by extending hte SFF a bit would give you some room for multiple scsi bays up front (3?) and possibly a redundant psu in the back. You would probably have to rackmount this to some type of slide out shelf for maintenance and cover held in by a thumbscrew.
Heat should be about similar to a 1u/2u rackmount, if not better. The heatpipe over the cpu with an 80mm fan in the back should be an improvement over most 1u HSF on the cpu.
This sounds like a good topic of a feasibility study. SFF vs 1u/2u/3u rackmount and what SFF needs to take its place.
Hrm...
Click to expand...

At the point that you take a SFF case and extend it to whole length of a rack all you've done is remove the space advantage from it (3 SFF's take up the same space as 3 1U servers) but you've required me to buy a new rack infrastructure...

Please explain how that's a good thing?
 
Everything has a place and a reason, SFF's don't have a place as high end servers and their is no reason for them to become so. I would NOT sleep at night knowing that my servers were being powered by a dwinky 240w PSU.
 
I agree with [H]Rabbit... Once you stretch the SFF to accomidate a rack, you don't get any space advantages out of it at all... Even if you stretched the case and put two PC's in the case (6 in 3U), why bother? Just go with a blade server at that point as it would be a lot easier to service...

OTOH, if you're building a server farm that doesn't include rack mountable equipment, much like the server farms built from Mac G5's, then a SFF might be an option... In those situations you would be able to fit more systems into the same space... Another up side to this is that when you're ready to replace the farm in a few years, you've got standard PC's that can more easily be re-sold to recoup some of the costs... Undoubtedly the market for used desktops is larger than the market for 1U rackmount equipment...
 
The issue then becomes servicing/powering the "server" farm. The virginia Tech g5 server farm can be seen at this link:http://www.chaosmint.com/mac/techclusterphotos/ (and is super nifty). As you can see the g5's are still rack mounted...

Admittedly you could theoretically put more SFF's into the same space as a G5 - but then the issue of servicing them coems into play. Note that the footprint of the racks is about equal to the space between them. If you move to a SFF chasis - the ratio of usable space to service area decreases. Another consideration is that SFF systems (at least shuttles - which are the most advanced on the market in my mind) don't strictly adhere to a front to back cooling architecture. Which means the placing SFF's next to each other leads to a problem. Again - a sufficient density becomes harder to acheive.

It's not that these things are impossible to solve - but at that point you have begun to custom engineer for an off the self solution, which seems counter productive at best.


:cool:
 
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