subject:"\[CentOS\] low end file server with h\/w RAID \- recommendations"


m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

hw wrote:

m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

hw wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
(especially
if using CentOS 6.x)





And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
support is nothing like good.


Indeed, I wouldn´t buy HP new.  They don´t even give you a price for
a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can´t find
anything anymore.


But wait, it's worse: the replacement *parts* have a different part number
than the original. I had to replace a PSU on a blade enclosure, and had to
get HP, or maybe a reseller, I forget, to tell me what the correct part
number for the replacement part was, and, IIRC, there were both 6-digit
number, or maybe 12



Well, I ended up buying a new UPS because a replacement battery was
unavailable.  Now I wouldn´t buy anything but APC for an UPS anymore.


[...]

If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
rebranded LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good
and reliable, not super expensive.


Those don´t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of them
worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for
making incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.

Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.


Oh, ok, I was assuming you did. No, if you're not buying Dell hardware,
with their own PERC cards, get an LSI/AVAGO/whoever. They *do* work on
anything, and MegaRAID software is not hard to find. Note: if you go that
route, I have a script I found only that makes basic monitoring *much*
easier than the hostile MegaRAID interface


I wouldn´t say I don´t buy Dell, only that I haven´t yet.  HP is much
easier to get (perhaps everyone is throwing them out because they can´t
get firmware updates anymore).

There´s also something to HP hardware --- for example, what´s Dells
equivalent to an ML350?  I couldn´t find anything like it from Dell.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


Valeri Galtsev wrote:

If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
would be:

Areca


Areca is forbiddingly expensive.


LSI (or whoever owns that line these days - Intel was the last one, I
recollect)

With LSI beware that they have really nasty command line client, and do
not have raid watch daemon with web interface like late 3ware had (alas,
3ware after they were bought out several times by competitors were drawn
down out of existence).


I like CLIs and don´t like web interfaces ...  3ware used to make good cards,
though also expensive.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

John R Pierce wrote:

On 11/2/2017 9:21 AM, hw wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

hw wrote:

Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8 3.5" drives be enough (DO
NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and
>smaller disk space. For the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.

I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have been an
issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives, ZERO issues.
I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon
(With WD owning HGST).

Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days. I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage.

3.5" SATA drives spinning at 5400 and 7200 rpm are the choice for large
capacity bulk 'nearline' storage which is typically sequentially written once

Why would you write them only once? Where are you storing your data when you
do that?
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

hw wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

hw wrote:

Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.


I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).


Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage.


Sorry, that depends 100% on what you *order*. We tell our resellers that
we want 3.5" drives, that's what we get. All the vendors, intluding Dell,
and the smaller ones, online you can configure what you want, to price it
out, and they *all* offer 3.5" drives.

The only 2.5" drives that we're ok with getting are the two internal SSD's
for RAID 1 for the o/s, and nothing else.

You may not be talking to the right sales folks.


That only goes when you buy new.  Look at what you can get used, and you´ll
see that there´s basically nothing that fits 3.5" drives.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

Valeri Galtsev wrote:


On Thu, November 2, 2017 11:21 am, hw wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

hw wrote:

Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or
8
3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.


I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and
4tb
drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).


Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage.


Ignoring existence of 2.5 inch, and getting rackmount machines with with
3.5 inch drives. Space wise (meaning GB wise) per U of rack they are at
the very least the same, only much cheaper per GB.


Y'know, I just had a thought: are there folks here who, when they say
"server", are *not* thinking of rackmount servers?


Does it matter?  19" cases are very well thought out, easy to work on
and fit nicely into the racks.  You can always use something else and
enjoy the disadvantages, but why would you.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


Stephen John Smoogen wrote:

On 2 November 2017 at 12:21, hw  wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:


hw wrote:


Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more
expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the price of a
1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.



I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have
been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives,
ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately,
that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).



Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage.



The 2.5 inch drives have a pretty good lifetime these days and seem to
be all you can get for various storage systems. It is like back when
we all wanted and loved 5.25 drives and all you could get was the
crappy 3.5 inch ones. And I expect in 3-5 years the 2.5 inch ones will
be replaced with only able to get the in card SIMM like drives.


Look at the prices.  Who can afford even 20TB storage in 2.5" disks.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Keith Keller

On 2017-11-02, Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>
> On Thu, November 2, 2017 4:43 pm, Keith Keller wrote:
>>
>> There are Nagios plugins that can check the status of LSI controllers,
>> arrays, and drives.  The plugin is nice even if you don't use Nagios;
>> it'd be pretty easy to write a short shell wrapper that sent email if
>> the plugin status wasn't OK.
>
> Thanks, Keith, you just solved one of my problems (and I do use nagios, so
> life is even better ;-)

Fabulous!  Glad I could help.  :)

I think the one I'm using is by Thomas Krenn:

https://github.com/thomas-krenn/check_lsi_raid

It's pretty thorough.  It's a little too sensitive sometimes; for
example, it will alert critical for a drive that's rebuilding (e.g. if
you replaced a failing drive recently).  But it covers everything I know
of, including physical devices, logical volumes, and BBUs.

--keith

-- 
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Valeri Galtsev


On Thu, November 2, 2017 4:43 pm, Keith Keller wrote:
> On 2017-11-02, Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>>
>> If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
>> would be:
>>
>> Areca
>> LSI (or whoever owns that line these days - Intel was the last one, I
>> recollect)
>>
>> With LSI beware that they have really nasty command line client, and do
>> not have raid watch daemon with web interface like late 3ware had (alas,
>> 3ware after they were bought out several times by competitors were drawn
>> down out of existence).
>
> I believe Broadcom now owns LSI.  LSI killed the 3ware line soon after
> they bought it, so the MegaRAID line is it from them now.
>
> Seconded on the horrific LSI command line tools.  Actually they have two
> tools, MegaCli and storcli.  They're both horrible, storcli slightly
> less so.  OTOH once you get your arrays configured you can forget about
> storcli (at least until a drive fails).
>
> There are Nagios plugins that can check the status of LSI controllers,
> arrays, and drives.  The plugin is nice even if you don't use Nagios;
> it'd be pretty easy to write a short shell wrapper that sent email if
> the plugin status wasn't OK.

Thanks, Keith, you just solved one of my problems (and I do use nagios, so
life is even better ;-)

Valeri
>
> --keith
>
> --
> kkel...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
>
>
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>



Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


On 11/2/2017 2:35 PM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

John R Pierce wrote:

On 11/2/2017 2:18 PM,m.r...@5-cent.us  wrote:

We have a fair number of SAS 3.5" drives, and yes, 10k or 15k speeds.

those are internally 2.5" disks in a 3.5" frame.   you can't spin a 3.5"
disk much faster than 7200 rpm without it coming apart.


Sorry, that's incorrect. I have, sitting here in front of me, a
Dell-branded Seagate Cheetah, 600GB (it's a few years old) 15k 3.5" drive.



if you take one of those apart, you will find ~63mm (2.5") disk platters 
inside, and an identical mechanism to the 2.5" 600GB 15000 rpm drive of 
the same generation, just sitting in a larger frame.








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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


On 11/2/2017 7:20 AM, Gary Stainburn wrote:

it's just a pity they're not compatible with Linux so I can't monitor or
manage them while the servers are running. The only way I know I have
problems is by watching the LEDS


I have a couple python scripts I've used for monitoring LSI/Avago 
"Megaraid" controllers, these scripts run the 'megacli' command line 
tool and parse the incredibly verbose output to generate a concise 
summary, and another returns true/false to be used in an alert email 
script run from a crontab entry.   I lifted these scripts off the net, 
and modified them a bit.


sample output, followed by the source for the two scripts.


# lsi-raidinfo | lsi-checkraid
RAID ERROR

# lsi-raidinfo
-- Controllers --
-- ID | Model
c0 | LSI MegaRAID SAS 9261-8i

-- Volumes --
-- ID | Type | Size | Status | InProgress
volume c0u0 | RAID10 1x2 | 2727G | Degraded | None
volume c0u1 | RAID60 1x8 | 16370G | Optimal | None
volume c0u2 | RAID60 1x8 | 16370G | Optimal | None

-- Disks --
-- Encl:Slot | vol-span-unit | Model | Status
disk 8:1 | 0-0-1 | Z291VTRPST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:2 | 1-0-0 | Z291VTKWST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:3 | 1-0-1 | Z291VT9YST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:4 | 1-0-2 | Z291VTT6ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:5 | 1-0-3 | Z291VT6CST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:6 | 1-0-4 | Z291VTLAST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:7 | 1-0-5 | Z291VTK1ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:8 | 1-0-6 | Z291VTNGST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:9 | 1-0-7 | Z291VTRAST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:10 | 2-0-0 | Z291VV05ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:11 | 2-0-1 | Z291VTW1ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:12 | 2-0-2 | Z291VTRLST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:13 | 2-0-3 | Z291VTRXST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:14 | 2-0-4 | Z291VSZGST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:15 | 2-0-5 | Z291VSW1ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:16 | 2-0-6 | Z291VTB5ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:17 | 2-0-7 | Z291VSX8ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:18 | x-x-x | Z291VTS7ST33000650NS 0003 | Unconfigured(bad)
disk 8:19 | 0-0-0 | Z291VT3HST33000650NS 0003 | Failed

There is at least one disk/array in a NOT OPTIMAL state.


# cat bin/lsi-checkraid
#!/usr/bin/python
# created by johnpus...@gmail.com  on 08/14/11
# rev 01
import os
import re
import sys
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
  print 'Usage: accepts stdin from lsi-raidinfo'
  sys.exit(1)
blnBadDisk = False
infile = sys.stdin
for line in infile:
#  print 'DEBUG!! checking line:'+str(line)
  if re.match(r'disk .*$',line.strip()):
    if re.match(r'^((?!Online, Spun Up|Online, Spun down|Hotspare, Spun 
Up|Hotspare, Spun down|Unconfigured\(good\), Spun Up).)*$',line.strip()):

      blnBadDisk = True
      badLine = line
#      print 'DEBUG!! bad disk found!'
  if re.match(r'volume ',line.strip()):
    if re.match(r'^((?!Optimal).)*$',line.strip()):
#      print 'DEBUG!! bad vol found!'
      blnBadDisk = True
      badLine = line
if blnBadDisk == True:
  print 'RAID ERROR'
#  print badLine
else:
  print 'RAID CLEAN'


# cat bin/lsi-raidinfo
#!/usr/bin/python
# megaclisas-status 0.6
# renamed lsi-raidinfo
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with Pulse 2; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
# MA 02110-1301, USA.
#
# Copyright (C) 2007-2009 Adam Cecile (Le_Vert)
## modified by johnpus...@gmail.com  08/14/11
# fixed for LSI 9285-8e on Openfiler

## modified by pie...@hogranch.com  2012-01-05
# fixed for newer version of megacli output on RHEL6/CentOS6
# output format extended to show raid span-unit and rebuild % complete
import os
import re
import sys
if len(sys.argv) > 2:
    print 'Usage: lsi-raidinfo [-d]'
    sys.exit(1)
# if argument -d, only print disk info
printarray = True
printcontroller = True
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
    if sys.argv[1] == '-d':
        printarray = False
        printcontroller = False
    else:
        print 'Usage: lsi-raidinfo [-d]'
        sys.exit(1)
# Get command output
def getOutput(cmd):
    output = os.popen(cmd)
    lines = []
    for line in output:
        if not re.match(r'^$',line.strip()):
lines.append(line.strip())
    return lines
def returnControllerNumber(output):
    for line in output:
        if

Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Keith Keller

On 2017-11-02, Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>
> If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
> would be:
>
> Areca
> LSI (or whoever owns that line these days - Intel was the last one, I
> recollect)
>
> With LSI beware that they have really nasty command line client, and do
> not have raid watch daemon with web interface like late 3ware had (alas,
> 3ware after they were bought out several times by competitors were drawn
> down out of existence).

I believe Broadcom now owns LSI.  LSI killed the 3ware line soon after
they bought it, so the MegaRAID line is it from them now.

Seconded on the horrific LSI command line tools.  Actually they have two
tools, MegaCli and storcli.  They're both horrible, storcli slightly
less so.  OTOH once you get your arrays configured you can forget about
storcli (at least until a drive fails).

There are Nagios plugins that can check the status of LSI controllers,
arrays, and drives.  The plugin is nice even if you don't use Nagios;
it'd be pretty easy to write a short shell wrapper that sent email if
the plugin status wasn't OK.

--keith

-- 
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

John R Pierce wrote:
> On 11/2/2017 2:18 PM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
>> We have a fair number of SAS 3.5" drives, and yes, 10k or 15k speeds.
>
> those are internally 2.5" disks in a 3.5" frame.   you can't spin a 3.5"
> disk much faster than 7200 rpm without it coming apart.
>
Sorry, that's incorrect. I have, sitting here in front of me, a
Dell-branded Seagate Cheetah, 600GB (it's a few years old) 15k 3.5" drive.

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


On 11/2/2017 2:18 PM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

We have a fair number of SAS 3.5" drives, and yes, 10k or 15k speeds.


those are internally 2.5" disks in a 3.5" frame.   you can't spin a 3.5" 
disk much faster than 7200 rpm without it coming apart.




--
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

John R Pierce wrote:
> On 11/2/2017 9:21 AM, hw wrote:
>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>> hw wrote:
 Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4
 or 8 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're
 *much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space.
 For the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>>
>>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
>>> have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and
>>> 4tb drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
>>> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>>
>> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
>> everyone is doing about storage.
>
>
> 2.5" SAS drives spinning at 10k and 15k RPM are the performance solution
> for online storage, like databases and so forth.   also make more sense
> for large arrays of SSDs, as they don't even come in 3.5".    With 2.5"
> you can pack more disks per U (24-25 2.5" per 2U face, vs 12 3.5" max
> per 2U)... more disks == more IOPS.
>
> 3.5" SATA drives spinning at 5400 and 7200 rpm are the choice for large
> capacity bulk 'nearline' storage which is typically sequentially written
> once
>
We have a fair number of SAS 3.5" drives, and yes, 10k or 15k speeds.

mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


On 11/2/2017 9:21 AM, hw wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

hw wrote:
Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 
or 8 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're 
*much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. 
For the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.


I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives 
have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 
4tb drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. 
Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).


Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage. 



2.5" SAS drives spinning at 10k and 15k RPM are the performance solution 
for online storage, like databases and so forth.   also make more sense 
for large arrays of SSDs, as they don't even come in 3.5".    With 2.5" 
you can pack more disks per U (24-25 2.5" per 2U face, vs 12 3.5" max 
per 2U)... more disks == more IOPS.


3.5" SATA drives spinning at 5400 and 7200 rpm are the choice for large 
capacity bulk 'nearline' storage which is typically sequentially written 
once




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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
>> everyone is doing about storage.
>
> The DL20 gen9 I bought was setup LFF (3.5")
>
> The DL380 gen9 could be either SFF (2.5) or LFF. I had to buy SFF for our
> new server due I was told to spec / build it exact to vendor
> recommendation.
>
> To better? Answer this. Agreed, I'm not a fanboy of 2.5" stuff in
> enterprise equipment. To me a better but more costly answer would be setup
> a LFF SAN server and go from there.
>
> My employer is a SMB (60 people?) and our storage is exploding at times.
> SAN's can give more economical storage and flexibility. Especially since
> were considering fail-over scenarios for not only our Windows ERP software
> but our all Linux based :) file servers.
>
Storage Ok, I'll give a plug to one of our favorite vendors: AC,
who manufacture JetStor.They're RAID appliances, very nice internal
webserver to manages, and yes, it can send emails. The prices are *very*
reasonable, cheaper than Dell, or HP, or even NetApp. Lessee, we just
bought a couple, one for a new system, one for a backup thereof. Each of
them ran just over $12k, with 12 10TB SAS drives, and a DAS card. And they
are both reliable and *last*. We did just finally retire the one pair that
had a true SCSI connection

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>
> On Thu, November 2, 2017 11:21 am, hw wrote:
>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>> hw wrote:
 Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or
 8
 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
 more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
 price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>>
>>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
>>> have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and
>>> 4tb
>>> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
>>> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>>
>> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
>> everyone is doing about storage.
>
> Ignoring existence of 2.5 inch, and getting rackmount machines with with
> 3.5 inch drives. Space wise (meaning GB wise) per U of rack they are at
> the very least the same, only much cheaper per GB.
>
Y'know, I just had a thought: are there folks here who, when they say
"server", are *not* thinking of rackmount servers?

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

hw wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
>>> more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
>>> price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>
>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
>> have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
>> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
>> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
> everyone is doing about storage.

Sorry, that depends 100% on what you *order*. We tell our resellers that
we want 3.5" drives, that's what we get. All the vendors, intluding Dell,
and the smaller ones, online you can configure what you want, to price it
out, and they *all* offer 3.5" drives.

The only 2.5" drives that we're ok with getting are the two internal SSD's
for RAID 1 for the o/s, and nothing else.

You may not be talking to the right sales folks.

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

hw wrote:
> m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
 DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
 (especially
 if using CentOS 6.x)
>>>

>> And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
>> support is nothing like good.
>
> Indeed, I wouldn´t buy HP new.  They don´t even give you a price for
> a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
> and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
> managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can´t find
> anything anymore.

But wait, it's worse: the replacement *parts* have a different part number
than the original. I had to replace a PSU on a blade enclosure, and had to
get HP, or maybe a reseller, I forget, to tell me what the correct part
number for the replacement part was, and, IIRC, there were both 6-digit
number, or maybe 12

>> Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't
>> great,
>> I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
>> (the company divided a year or two ago).
>
> I´ve never heared of ThinkMate.

No biggie. As I said, they're another reseller of Supermicro h/w. Good
prices, so-so support.
>
>> If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
>> rebranded LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good
>> and reliable, not super expensive.
>
> Those don´t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of them
> worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
> them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for
> making incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.
>
> Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.

Oh, ok, I was assuming you did. No, if you're not buying Dell hardware,
with their own PERC cards, get an LSI/AVAGO/whoever. They *do* work on
anything, and MegaRAID software is not hard to find. Note: if you go that
route, I have a script I found only that makes basic monitoring *much*
easier than the hostile MegaRAID interface

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

>Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what 
>everyone is doing about storage.

The DL20 gen9 I bought was setup LFF (3.5")

The DL380 gen9 could be either SFF (2.5) or LFF. I had to buy SFF for our new 
server due I was told to spec / build it exact to vendor recommendation.

To better? Answer this. Agreed, I'm not a fanboy of 2.5" stuff in enterprise 
equipment. To me a better but more costly answer would be setup a LFF SAN 
server and go from there. 

My employer is a SMB (60 people?) and our storage is exploding at times. SAN's 
can give more economical storage and flexibility. Especially since were 
considering fail-over scenarios for not only our Windows ERP software but our 
all Linux based :) file servers.

Regards,

Richard

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Valeri Galtsev


On Thu, November 2, 2017 11:18 am, hw wrote:
> m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
 DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
 (especially
 if using CentOS 6.x)
>>>
>>> What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
>>
>> Yep, Dell's are good.
>
> ThatÂ´s good to hear.
>
>> And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
>> support is nothing like good.
>
> Indeed, I wouldnÂ´t buy HP new.  They donÂ´t even give you a price for
> a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
> and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
> managed to completely mess up their web site so that you canÂ´t find
> anything anymore.
>
>> And once you run out the warranty, they
>> don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell will.
>
> Yes, this is a really big problem which makes me look out for other
> manufacturers.  I really like their hardware, but the manufacturer not
> standing behind their product breaks the deal.
>
>> Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't
>> great,
>> I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
>> (the company divided a year or two ago).
>
> IÂ´ve never heared of ThinkMate.
>
>> If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
>> rebranded
>> LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
>> not super expensive.
>
> Those donÂ´t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of
> them
> worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
> them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for
> making
> incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.
>
> Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.

If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
would be:

Areca
LSI (or whoever owns that line these days - Intel was the last one, I
recollect)

With LSI beware that they have really nasty command line client, and do
not have raid watch daemon with web interface like late 3ware had (alas,
3ware after they were bought out several times by competitors were drawn
down out of existence).

Good luck!

Valeri

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Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Valeri Galtsev


On Thu, November 2, 2017 11:21 am, hw wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
>>> more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
>>> price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>
>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
>> have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
>> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
>> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
> everyone is doing about storage.

Ignoring existence of 2.5 inch, and getting rackmount machines with with
3.5 inch drives. Space wise (meaning GB wise) per U of rack they are at
the very least the same, only much cheaper per GB.

Just my $0.02

Valeri

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Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Stephen John Smoogen

On 2 November 2017 at 12:21, hw  wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>
>> hw wrote:
>>>
>>> Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more
>>> expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the price of a
>>> 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>
>>
>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have
>> been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives,
>> ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately,
>> that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
>
> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
> everyone is doing about storage.
>

The 2.5 inch drives have a pretty good lifetime these days and seem to
be all you can get for various storage systems. It is like back when
we all wanted and loved 5.25 drives and all you could get was the
crappy 3.5 inch ones. And I expect in 3-5 years the 2.5 inch ones will
be replaced with only able to get the in card SIMM like drives.

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


Richard Zimmerman wrote:

hw wrote:

Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8 3.5" drives be enough (DO 
NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and 
>smaller disk space. For the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.


I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have been an 
issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives, ZERO issues. 
I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon 
(With WD owning HGST).


Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

hw wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially
if using CentOS 6.x)


What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?


Yep, Dell's are good.


That´s good to hear.


And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
support is nothing like good.


Indeed, I wouldn´t buy HP new.  They don´t even give you a price for
a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can´t find
anything anymore.


And once you run out the warranty, they
don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell will.


Yes, this is a really big problem which makes me look out for other
manufacturers.  I really like their hardware, but the manufacturer not
standing behind their product breaks the deal.


Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't great,
I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
(the company divided a year or two ago).


I´ve never heared of ThinkMate.


If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a rebranded
LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
not super expensive.


Those don´t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of them
worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for making
incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.

Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> hw wrote:
>>Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
>> more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
>> price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>
> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have
> been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
Yeah - the WD Reds, and there are Seagate also NAS-rated, are about 1.3 or
so times the price of consumer-grade, but work in servers (consumer grade
WILL NOT*), whereas enterprise-grade are about 3 times the price of
consumer grade, and the quality of NAS-rated vs enterprise isn't
especially noticeable.

* The big differences, in addition to quality, between NAS-rated, or
enterprise-rated, vs consumber/desktop grade are this: the desktop REALLY,
REALLY want to spin down, whenever they can, and, most significant: TLER
(time limit error recovery, I think). The consumer or desktop or laptop
drives will, on encountering a hardware error, will keep trying for up to
two *minutes*. The ones meant for server give up and relocate the sector
after seven *seconds*. Servers gag and actively dislike a drive when it
takes too long

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

I can help a little here... Yes, dropping NPAPI is a huge problem. FireFox ESR 
is available for Linux x32 and x64.

Solved my problems using Lantronix Spider IP/KVM device until Java updates, 
then refuses to run it yet again :(

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/

Hopes this helps

Richard


-Original Message-
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of Leroy Tennison
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 11:08 AM
To: centos
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Good to know about the HPE and Dell "gotchas", thanks to those who posted.

I can speak to SuperMicro (11 systems, mostly X9 and X10).  Hardware seems to 
be fine, management utilities (IPMI - like iLO) are more basic.  The real 
heartburn right now is that the browsers for Linux have pretty much dropped 
NPAPI which means remote console doesn't work since it needs Java.  They have 
alternatives on their web site (look for IPMIView and IPMICFG).  One of their 
solutions only works with Gnome (but I don't remember which one - too long 
ago).  Differing versions of IPMI firmware have their own quirks.  Bottom line: 
support is there but more basic and not as easy to use.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Leroy Tennison

Good to know about the HPE and Dell "gotchas", thanks to those who posted.

I can speak to SuperMicro (11 systems, mostly X9 and X10).  Hardware seems to 
be fine, management utilities (IPMI - like iLO) are more basic.  The real 
heartburn right now is that the browsers for Linux have pretty much dropped 
NPAPI which means remote console doesn't work since it needs Java.  They have 
alternatives on their web site (look for IPMIView and IPMICFG).  One of their 
solutions only works with Gnome (but I don't remember which one - too long 
ago).  Differing versions of IPMI firmware have their own quirks.  Bottom line: 
support is there but more basic and not as easy to use.

- Original Message -
From: "Richard Zimmerman" <rzimmer...@riverbendhose.com>
To: "centos" <centos@centos.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 8:33:17 AM
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

I just put a call into AT Office 365 asking them to explain the spoof warning 
thing...

To answer your question

At the moment, no I can't. I like HPE stuff, we bought a DL380 gen9 say five 
months ago and totally happy with it. In fairness, its running Server 2012 r2 
too but I didn't run into the hardware gotchas I did on the other stuff. It 
just seems HPE skimped on their lower end stuff and CentOS 6.x doesn't play 
well. 

This whole incident with the DL20 JUST happened. It's (finally) been spinning 
Server 2012 r2 for about a week now. It was a long 5 week process just to get 
to to this answer.

I haven't had the time to research out what my next buys are going to be. I'm 
listening as well if someone has a suggestion.

Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't seem to be 
built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the 5 year 
mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the machines mostly 
TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted a move to a new ERP 
system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4 months ago, periodically get 
the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell quality / quality control might not 
be where it needs to be. 

Then again, I get a constant flow of HPE advisories. :(

I've thinking of taking a look at Supermicro severs. 

Bottom line is, they all have their quirks, problems, deficiencies

WHY did Lenovo have to quit selling the RS140's? I *LOVE* those machines 
Fast, reliable and just work GREAT with Centos 6.9!

Regards,

Richard

-Original Message-
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of hw
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 9:09 AM
To: centos@centos.org
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if 
> using CentOS 6.x)

What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

hw wrote:
>Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8 3.5" 
>drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more 
>expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the price of a 
>1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.

I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have been 
an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives, ZERO 
issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately, that will 
come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).

Regards,

Richard

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Gary Stainburn wrote:
> On Thursday 02 November 2017 14:10:25 Bowie Bailey wrote:

> By using H/W RAID, it's literally just a case of removing the dead drive
> and inserting the replacement. I've got a number of IBM and DELL boxes
> like this.
> it's just a pity they're not compatible with Linux so I can't monitor or
> manage them while the servers are running. The only way I know I have
> problems is by watching the LEDS

I don't understand the above - what's not compatible with Linux? We've got
a ton, and if it's a Dell PERC/LSI, MegaRaid works just fine to monitor
the drives.

mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

> Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't seem
> to be built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the
> 5 year mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the
> machines mostly TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted
> a move to a new ERP system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4
> months ago, periodically get the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell
> quality / quality control might not be where it needs to be.

That's... odd. We have a bunch of Dells, R4[123]0's, R520's, R7[23]0's, an
R815, etc, and they keep chugging. Some of them are 5, 6, 7 years old, and
I rarely have any h/d issues, and PSU issues are equally rare.

If you're having this kind of issue, you should talk to Dell support, and
escalate it, so that a manager takes ownership. I've had one do that,
years ago, when we kept having issues with one machine, and they were
*serious* about "taking ownership" (as opposed to Sun/Oracle, file them
under "none of the above").

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Chris Adams

Once upon a time, Gary Stainburn  said:
> I've used MDADM before on previous servers, but have found that this setup 
> isn't hot swap. Ultimately if I had to replace a drive it involved a lot of 
> effort, especially the first drive.

I use mdadm RAID in a bunch of places; it isn't automated, but it isn't
that hard to replace a drive.  It would be nice if the storaged project
had support for this (I think the various needed bits are there, just
needs somebody to write a front-end to make the calls I guess).

> By using H/W RAID, it's literally just a case of removing the dead drive and 
> inserting the replacement. I've got a number of IBM and DELL boxes like this. 
> it's just a pity they're not compatible with Linux so I can't monitor or 
> manage them while the servers are running. The only way I know I have 
> problems is by watching the LEDS

I also use Dell servers with various hardware RAID cards in a bunch of
places.  I install the Dell tools (they have yum repos for this), and
then can use omreport and omconfig to monitor and manage RAID from
within Linux, and their SNMP agent to monitor system health from my
external monitoring system.

One nice thing with omreport/omconfig is that it doesn't matter what
type of RAID card/chip/whatever they use (because they change things
over generations), the commands are the same.

Newer Dell servers also have integrated RAID management to the DRAC
directly, so you can monitor/manage/etc. through the out-of-band web and
SSH UI.

-- 
Chris Adams 
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

hw wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially
>> if using CentOS 6.x)
>
> What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?

Yep, Dell's are good. And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
support is nothing like good. And once you run out the warranty, they
don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell will.

Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't great,
I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
(the company divided a year or two ago).

If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a rebranded
LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
not super expensive.

Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more
expensive than the 3.5" drives, and smaller disk space. For the price of a
1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.

One more thing: if you go with a vendor like ThinkMate, know that most of
them are reselling Supermicro systems. We used to buy a lot of Penguins,
but their quality control At any rate, the direct names are cheaper:
if you go for Dell, find a reseller, who may get you a better deal than
Dell direct. If you go this route, email me offlist, and I'll recommend my
preferred reseller for Dell - the discounts are good.

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Gary Stainburn

On Thursday 02 November 2017 14:10:25 Bowie Bailey wrote:
> If you want raid 5 or 6, then you should get a hardware controller. For
> raid 1, mdadm should work just fine.  I would suggest trying it before
> buying a raid controller.  If it works for you, you save a few hundred
> dollars and you have one less piece of hardware to worry about.
>
> I haven't looked at them in quite a few years, but last time I was in
> the market for a raid controller, Areca controllers were the way to go.

I've used MDADM before on previous servers, but have found that this setup 
isn't hot swap. Ultimately if I had to replace a drive it involved a lot of 
effort, especially the first drive.

By using H/W RAID, it's literally just a case of removing the dead drive and 
inserting the replacement. I've got a number of IBM and DELL boxes like this. 
it's just a pity they're not compatible with Linux so I can't monitor or 
manage them while the servers are running. The only way I know I have 
problems is by watching the LEDS
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

2017-11-02 Thread Bowie Bailey


On 11/2/2017 8:04 AM, Gary Stainburn wrote:

I'm just about to build a new server and I'm looking for recommendations on
what hardware to use.

I'm happy with either a brand name, or building my own, but would like a
hardware RAID controller to run a pair of disks as RAID1 that is actually
compatible with and manageable through Linux.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.


If you want raid 5 or 6, then you should get a hardware controller. For 
raid 1, mdadm should work just fine.  I would suggest trying it before 
buying a raid controller.  If it works for you, you save a few hundred 
dollars and you have one less piece of hardware to worry about.


I haven't looked at them in quite a few years, but last time I was in 
the market for a raid controller, Areca controllers were the way to go.


--
Bowie
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

I just put a call into AT Office 365 asking them to explain the spoof warning 
thing...

To answer your question

At the moment, no I can't. I like HPE stuff, we bought a DL380 gen9 say five 
months ago and totally happy with it. In fairness, its running Server 2012 r2 
too but I didn't run into the hardware gotchas I did on the other stuff. It 
just seems HPE skimped on their lower end stuff and CentOS 6.x doesn't play 
well. 

This whole incident with the DL20 JUST happened. It's (finally) been spinning 
Server 2012 r2 for about a week now. It was a long 5 week process just to get 
to to this answer.

I haven't had the time to research out what my next buys are going to be. I'm 
listening as well if someone has a suggestion.

Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't seem to be 
built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the 5 year 
mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the machines mostly 
TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted a move to a new ERP 
system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4 months ago, periodically get 
the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell quality / quality control might not 
be where it needs to be. 

Then again, I get a constant flow of HPE advisories. :(

I've thinking of taking a look at Supermicro severs. 

Bottom line is, they all have their quirks, problems, deficiencies

WHY did Lenovo have to quit selling the RS140's? I *LOVE* those machines 
Fast, reliable and just work GREAT with Centos 6.9!

Regards,

Richard

-Original Message-
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of hw
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 9:09 AM
To: centos@centos.org
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if 
> using CentOS 6.x)

What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations


Richard Zimmerman wrote:

DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if 
using CentOS 6.x)


What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if 
using CentOS 6.x)

I don't use hardware raid (mdadm for the win!) so cannot speak to that.

DL20, bought it on a stock 'B' sale. Great price. Works well on Windows. HPE 
doesn't sell hard drive trays, etc. You pretty much have to buy their equipment.

You CAN get 3rd party parts (drive trays, etc.) but will nickel and dime you. 
Example, try to get an HPE-ODD power to sata power adapter. I haven't been able 
to locate one. The one HPE sells, doesn't work on a standard SSD drive. **NO** 
standard place inside machine to mount an SSD drive either. **NO** standard 
power connectors either. So trying in install a bootable SDD, then raid your 
storage drives will be a task. One I gave up on.

THEIR website says the DL20 gen9 it supports CentOS 6.x In reality, NO 
unless you want the pain of downloading, compiling drivers, etc. 
If you don't use THEIR hard drives, they work but you don't get "LED Support" 
from the smart array controller. i.e. A drive craps, the smart array won't lite 
up the dead drive tray. You have a 50/50 shot at guessing which one. At least 
the Smart Array software (in Windows) will tell you what bay its in.

The DL20 once you get past the crap in setting it up (again, you have to use 
the smart provisioning utility to install server 2012 r2 on it; Seriously HPE) 
but once up and running, so far no more headaches.

My ML10 gen9 experience is a mix. 

The newer ML10 gen9 experience was worse. First several installs just never ran 
right. Unexplained lockup and crashes. Onboard nic never ran right. Now, it's 
using a transplanted install of CentOS 6.9, using installed Intel nics and this 
setup so far is running pretty well, no issues so far.

On the other hand, I've got an year (maybe two) older ML10 gen9 running CentOS 
6.9. Hasn't given me a day of trouble from day one. 

Hopefully some of this helps...

Regards,

Richard

-Original Message-
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of vychytraly .
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 8:28 AM
To: CentOS mailing list
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Hello, what is the purpose of this server?

On Thursday, November 2, 2017, Gary Stainburn <g...@ringways.co.uk> wrote:
> I'm just about to build a new server and I'm looking for 
> recommendations
on
> what hardware to use.
>
> I'm happy with either a brand name, or building my own, but would like 
> a hardware RAID controller to run a pair of disks as RAID1 that is 
> actually compatible with and manageable through Linux.
>
> Any recommendations would be appreciated.
>
> Gary
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> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations