[PLUG] Motherboard recommendations

Michael Ewan mhewan1 at comcast.net
Wed Mar 11 01:56:16 UTC 2009


Rogan Creswick wrote:
> I'm putting together a linux compute/shell server for my office (of
> windows users -- one step at a time :).
>
> We've need a box like this for a while, and the key features are:
>
>    * Lots of ram  (we often load multi-gb data sets--4-8gb is minimum)
>    * 64-bit arch, so a jvm can actually address the ram (32-bit jvms
> are essentially unable to use more than 3gb)
>    * Large & fast disks (I'm looking at 2 2TB WD. 7.2k rpm sata drives.)
>    * more than one core / cpu.
>
> I think I have a pretty good idea of what we want (list is below) but
> I really don't have a clue re: motherboards (and, by extension,
> everything else I've selected may need to change.)
>
> The big questions are:
>
>    * Does the formfactor really matter? Space is not an issue, but it
> may be difficult to find a place for a rack mount (Our "rack" only has
> a front mounting bracket, and no rear supports -- it just holds
> switches and a kvm)
>
>    * Memory: quantity or speed? I know this is very hard to answer
> without knowing exactly how we'll be using the machine, but it's also
> very hard to know exactly how we'll be using the machine...  Roughly
> -- When we can fill 8gb of memory, we'll need more than 16 -- so we
> won't be able to write sloppy code just because we have loads of ram
> (which is really too bad .. that would be a huge time/money savings if
> we could).  The only difference is probably going to be the number of
> distinct disk reads.  When doing massive data processing on this
> machine, very little will be going on, so swapping out isn't going to
> be much of an issue (we can just ensure that the environment we're
> running in fits in memory, and manage the disk access on our own--the
> stuff we do makes that feasible, and often necessary.)  So, that seems
> to mean to me, that the only difference is how many times we need to
> read/write to/from disk, *not* the amount of data we actually
> transfer.  Given that the speed difference seems pretty substantial
> (ddr800 vs. ddr1066), faster ram seems the way to go, but, I may
> simply not know how to configure a system to use 16gb of ddr1066+ ram.
>  Any feedback would be great!
>
> Here's the system I'm considering:
>
>   
Okay, I'm biased, but get an ASUS Intel mother board, I'm sure I will 
get flamed by someone, but reliability is a factor, yes?  Spend a little 
extra and get hardware RAID (see below).

Second, get 5 1TB disks and raid them, you will get way better 
performance and it's cheaper.

Faster memory only makes a difference if you are doing some extreme app, 
generally more is better.  So go more cheaper RAM.





More information about the PLUG mailing list