# Server Ordered



## Dragoneer (Dec 1, 2006)

Good news, everyone! I have good news! Our new server, Tiamat, has been ordered! We expect to have the new server configured mid-December, provided reality doesn't twist itself into a exploding miasma of terrible, horrible yellow things!

*PowerEdge 2950 *- Quad Core IntelÂ® XeonÂ® E5320, 2x4MB Cache, 1.86GHz, 1066MHz FSB
*Operating System *- No Operating System, Microsoft
*Additional Processor* - Single Processor only
*Memory* - 8GB 667MHz (4x2GB), Dual Ranked DIMMs
*Riser Card* - Riser with 3 PCIe Slots
*Primary Hard Drive *- 73GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Hard Drive
*2nd Hard Drive *- 73GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Hard Drive
*4th Hard Drive* - 73GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Hard Drive
*3rd Hard Drive *- 73GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Hard Drive
*Primary Controller* - PERC 5/i, x6 Backplane, Integrated Controller Card
*Hard Drive Configuration* - Integrated SAS/SATA RAID 5, PERC 5/i Integrated
*Network Adapter* - Dual Embedded BroadcomÂ® NetXtreme II 5708 Gigabit Ethernet NIC
*CD/DVD Drive* - 24X IDE CD-ROM
*Bezel *- Rack Bezel
*Backplane *- 1x6 Backplane for 3.5-inch Hard Drives
*Chassis Configuration *- Rack Chassis w/Sliding Rapid/Versa Rails and Cable Management Arm,Universal
*Hardware Support Services* - 3Yr BASIC SUPPORT: 5x10 HW-Only, 5x10 NBD Onsite
*Power Supply* - Non-Redundant Power Supply


[size=x-large]Total: $5,065.18 [/size]
(with $1,000 discount, down from $6,065.18).

*Estimated ship date:* December 8, 2006


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## Fox Amoore (Dec 1, 2006)

Time to hit the dancefloor!


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## Cerise (Dec 2, 2006)

I feel moist. Can't wait to buy the next processor and more ram. BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!


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## WelcomeTheCollapse (Dec 2, 2006)

That makes my knees weak. Congratulations, guys!


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## cesarin (Dec 2, 2006)

hey dragoneer, is this a clovertown right?
I hope you didnt buy these lamme TULSA!!!


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## En Den (Dec 2, 2006)

Tiamat: good name


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## Dragoneer (Dec 2, 2006)

cesarin said:
			
		

> hey dragoneer, is this a clovertown right?
> I hope you didnt buy these lamme TULSA!!!


Yes, it's the latest clovertown.


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## Dragoneer (Dec 8, 2006)

Note - Dell canceled the previous server order due to an issue on their site which caused my order to corrupt, and instead of fixing it, they just gave me a "We canceled your order, sir! Have a good day, and be sure to order another server through Dell to fix the mistake!" thing. I went back to their site to re-order, and every single page I clicked took me to a French-Canadian version of Dell's site, DESPITE the fact I was on the US site. Pfffhet. 

Their sales staff were less than polite, and I opened to get a new server through Thinkmate.

Revised stats
Tyan GT24 (B3992)
  1 x Tyan Transport GT24 B3992G24V4H
AMD Opteron 2000 Series Processor
  2 x Dual-core AMD Opteronâ„¢ Model 2212 - 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (95W)
DDR2 ECC/Registered Memory
  4 x Crucial 2GB PC4200 533MHz DDR2 ECC Registered
Tyan Rails
  1 x Rackmount Sliding Rails
Slim Optical Drive
  1 x Slim 24x CD-ROM
Server 4 Port
  1 x 3WARE 9550SX-4LP SATA II RAID
SATA Hard Drive(s)
  4 x 74GB Serial ATA 10,000 RPM - Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD
Server Warranty
  1 x Thinkmate Server 3 Year No Worry Warranty

*$4,635.03*

($400 cheaper than the other server, although we don't get the $1,000 of free upgrades due to Dell's discounts)


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## Xipoid (Dec 8, 2006)

Dell is on notice


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## Keto (Dec 8, 2006)

awesoma power

Curious, how much was made from donations?


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## Dragoneer (Dec 8, 2006)

Keto [ BlueKanine  said:
			
		

> ]
> awesoma power
> 
> Curious, how much was made from donations?


At least $4,500. I am going to do the math tomorrow and get a total amount. Any that was left over is going to go towards the upgraded storage server. It needs a new case, a better RAID card, etc.


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## Jakal (Dec 8, 2006)

So all these server problems are going to end soon?


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## TehSean (Dec 8, 2006)

Maybe. We keep hearing the rhetoric "IT'LL BE FIXED IN FERROX" which is supposed to be due up next year or something.

I really doubt that the server problems are because of a high load because when FA /does/ work, it isn't particularly sluggish as it'd used to be.


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## Dragoneer (Dec 8, 2006)

TehSean said:
			
		

> Maybe. We keep hearing the rhetoric "IT'LL BE FIXED IN FERROX" which is supposed to be due up next year or something.
> 
> I really doubt that the server problems are because of a high load because when FA /does/ work, it isn't particularly sluggish as it'd used to be.


The code has much improved, but there's still room to improve it further. The issue is that we just don't have enough RAM to support FA right now and can not upgrade it past 4GB, and we're using swap disk.

I'm not saying the code's not to blame, but the lack of wiggle room in the RAM sure isn't helpin'.


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## Sieneko (Dec 8, 2006)

Oooh this makes me all happy. ^_^

There IS a Santa Claus, and his name is Dragoneer!


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## Dragoneer (Dec 8, 2006)

Sieneko said:
			
		

> Oooh this makes me all happy. ^_^
> 
> There IS a Santa Claus, and his name is Dragoneer!


Does that mean I'm going to end up punched by our own mascot now?


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## cesarin (Dec 8, 2006)

Dragoneer said:
			
		

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what a good idea !!!!



*gets ready to punch*Â¬_Â¬


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## Kougar (Dec 10, 2006)

Looks like a decent enough build there... Quick question on the drives though... that's about a little under 280gigs before you RAID anything. I assume RAID 5 will be used? As that RAID controller card only has 4 SATA ports, future expansion isn't an option with it. And if considering RAID 10, it would drop the space down to a little under 150gb. So my question is even after turning the old server into the content/storage box like you'd mentioned, will this be enough room for the foreseeable future?

Sorry to hear Dell wasn't very cooperative with that previous server build, that seems kind of fishy they'd just drop the order and not attempt to get a second one worked out with you.


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## Dragoneer (Dec 10, 2006)

Kougar said:
			
		

> So my question is even after turning the old server into the content/storage box like you'd mentioned, will this be enough room for the foreseeable future?


We raised a bit of money a while ago to upgrade the current server's hard drives, but when we went to upgrade the drives, we ran into a problem. We can't add more drives without replacing the server case (ick). And we'll need another RAID card, too.

That upgrade is going to happen in Jan/Feb.


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## cesarin (Dec 10, 2006)

Dragoneer said:
			
		

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well unless you want extrictly super fast 10,000 rpm drives..
toshiba and samsung are already offering 750 GB hdds


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## Kougar (Dec 10, 2006)

So if I understood ya, yer planning to upgrade the hard drive arrangement/RAID card/server rack at the end of winter then?? Eh... 

WD Raptors are 10k RPM drives Cesarin.  I'm personally not keen on them truth be told, as a single 750GB Seagate drive offers better performance over the 74gb model Raptors (both the original or refreshed varients of them), while offering 1/4th of the cost per gigabyte. GB density does wonders for performance.

Best of luck with those upgrades, disk storage can quickly become the majority of the cost in a server...  :roll:


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## cesarin (Dec 11, 2006)

Kougar said:
			
		

> So if I understood ya, yer planning to upgrade the hard drive arrangement/RAID card/server rack at the end of winter then?? Eh...
> 
> WD Raptors are 10k RPM drives Cesarin.  I'm personally not keen on them truth be told, as a single 750GB Seagate drive offers better performance over the 74gb model Raptors (both the original or refreshed varients of them), while offering 1/4th of the cost per gigabyte. GB density does wonders for performance.
> 
> Best of luck with those upgrades, disk storage can quickly become the majority of the cost in a server...  :roll:


maybe I Wasnt very clear...
since never mentioned raptors per se... , I was saying "IF HE WAS FORCED OR INTERESTED IN USING 10K rpm drives" ( as in if dragoneer was suposed to chose these )
if not... because the 750 GB hdds obviusly are 7200rpm.. but the capacity ....

besides, the seagates cheetahs are already on 15,000rpm since a year or more...(with shitty garantee, durability and very low density )


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## tesfox (Dec 11, 2006)

Kougar said:
			
		

> Looks like a decent enough build there... Quick question on the drives though... that's about a little under 280gigs before you RAID anything. I assume RAID 5 will be used? As that RAID controller card only has 4 SATA ports, future expansion isn't an option with it. And if considering RAID 10, it would drop the space down to a little under 150gb. So my question is even after turning the old server into the content/storage box like you'd mentioned, will this be enough room for the foreseeable future?
> 
> Sorry to hear Dell wasn't very cooperative with that previous server build, that seems kind of fishy they'd just drop the order and not attempt to get a second one worked out with you.



I think he was asking a slightly different question, but my own is along the same lines, even with a RAID 5, is this going to be enough disk storage for the database, given FA's huge scale?


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## Dragoneer (Dec 11, 2006)

tesfox said:
			
		

> I think he was asking a slightly different question, but my own is along the same lines, even with a RAID 5, is this going to be enough disk storage for the database, given FA's huge scale?


Fur Affinity's database is pretty big, but not THAT big. It will comfortable fit on 148GB of drives. =)

Originally, we had planned to go with SCSI on the DELL, but some complications rose up. Between ordering the original server, I learned that Seagate's pushing out an update to their awesome Savvio line of SCSI drives, but they're not out yet. So, we'll go with an interim solution, and down the line, we'll jump to SCSI and 16GB of RAM at the same time.


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## Janglur (Dec 13, 2006)

Actually, the 750 GB drives are NOT faster than the Raptors /overall/.

Perpendicular recording and high data density makes the sustained read and write much faster, and marginally improve seek time.
But the latest 750 GB drives are still 8.9ms seek time and ~78 MB/s sustained.
The 36 GB Raptors are 72 MB/s sustained and 5.2ms seek time.

Lower seek time results in faster performance on most applications, because few files loaded are very large individually.  Most software and OSs operate on lots and lots and lots of teeny tiny files scattered all around.  Unless you are loading insanely large files, a higher sustained read/write won't make a big difference.  (Such applications are multi-track audio editing, video editing, and such)

Another case of Numbers =/= performance.  It's the sum and meaning of said numbers, and the utilization.


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## yak (Dec 13, 2006)

Current FA's database uses 11G of hard drive space, and the table layout implies about ~40% of data redundancy that is going to go away with Ferrox.
148G is /more then enough/ for quite a long period of time.


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## Arshes Nei (Dec 13, 2006)

Depends on how expansive FA becomes. Prepare for the worst.


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## yak (Dec 13, 2006)

148G is the worst, frankly. With the database that large, clustering becomes a must anyway. One machine will most probably not be able to dish out decent responce times.


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## starlite528 (Dec 23, 2006)

Dragoneer said:
			
		

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What about eSATA?  Fiber Channel?  You could get a rack case specifically for a RAID then use that for the main server?


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## blueroo (Dec 24, 2006)

starlite528 said:
			
		

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You're offering to bankroll that expansion?


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