[geeks] OT: Pointers for buying System Components (high-end PC server)

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Phil Stracchino <phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net>
>Date: Mon Feb 06 17:39:28 CST 2006
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] OT: Pointers for buying System Components (high-end PC server)

>Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> Background: Building about 50 DVR boxes each with 4 four-port PCI capture cards, and video storage in RAID config. The hard part seems to be that wee need 4x PCI slots for the capture cards, 2x PCI slots for the SATA RAID cards, and maybe an AGP graphics card slot, all on the same MB. (If the MB has a good on-board video system the AGP card slot could be omitted)
>
>Would using a motherboard with onboard SATA RAID controllers help the
>problem?  The GigaByte K8N motherboard that I built vorlon on had
>4xPATA, 4xSATA1, 4xSATA2 onboard, and RAID on all three sets of
>controllers.  (And it's PCI-Express.)

Not really, but it is a very interesting MB...

We need to have 16 hard drives in the case - we presently have systems in the field with 8 drives, but they don't hold enough data... We need the drives to be the same, for consistency/simplify spares.

>Fry's used to carry a server case very similar to what you've described;
>a very large wheeled cabinet with locking side and front doors, dual
>redundant power supplies, and at least 14 internal bays.  I don't know
>if it was hot-swap though.  It certainly didn't look to be designed for
>hot-swap; having 16 hot-swap drive bays in a PC chassis, ANY PC chassis,
>is probably a bit of a tall order without going to something in the
>class of the big HP netservers ... um, no more HP ... maybe Compaq
>Prosignias ... um, no more Compaq ...  maybe IBM NetFinity chassis?

When you are taling about a (likely) $1000+ case, you are talking in the class of a big net server...

Rack mount is important - our current installation of DVRs has 12 systems (in the 8 drive cases), and we plan to put over 2 dozen 16 Drive DVRs in our next installation this summer. I can't propose that we deploy 25 floor cabinets - that would be like the IBM server ad (where the grey box servers take over ;^)

I'd like to go to a seperate storage box myself, but that puts too much reliance on the communication between the capture box and the storage box. As it is right now, we deploy "cold spare systems" that get swapped in when a system fails - having everything in one case simplifies matters greatly.

Thanks,

Lionel