Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures

[Tom Metro]

Benjamin Carr wrote:
> I am personally enamored of the HP Proliant Microserver... It has
> a 64bit AMD Athlon II Neo processor, two DIMM slots (supports ECC), one
> gigabit NIC, a four drive cage (not hot-swap)...

Nice packaging. All that in a 10" x 10" x 8" cube. Given the 4-drive
cage, it seems to be aimed at NAS builders.


> It is $330 from NewEgg with a "throw away" 250GB drive and 1GB of Ram. I
> wish they would sell it "bare" for $50 less but the don't.

Agreed.

I wish there were better options for D-I-Y NAS enclosures. The few that
are available, like:
http://www.e-itx.com/cfi-a7879.html
 or
http://www.mypccase.com/chmiitxcawi4.html

are ridiculously expensive (they want $180 for the first; that's just
for the case, power supply, and drive cage; you can buy 4-bay SATA
enclosure, which includes all of that plus port multiplier electronics
for around $100; the later can be found for $120, but gets poor reviews
for its power supply).

I'm not sure why China hasn't stepped up with some offerings here.
What's needed is:

-cube style enclosure with space for a mini-ITX motherboard;
-150 ~ 200W power supply;
-5-bay drive cage (to accommodate two RAID1 pairs, plus a hot spare):
  -importantly the cage *must* be trayless; SATA drives are designed to
  handle this and there is no excuse for using trays these days;
  -optionally include a SATA port multiplier on the drive backplane, so
  a cheaper mini-ITX board with fewer SATA ports can be used;
-bonus: include an internal 2.5" bay for an SSD or SATA-to-CF card
adapter to hold the OS.

About the closest you can get to this is to cobble together a
combination using a "CD duplicator" type enclosure:
http://www.ocie.com/xcase-pro-duplicator-case-5-bay-64247-prd1.htm

along with a hot-swap, trayless 5-drive cage:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SKUSearch_v3.asp?scriteria=BA25917

and you end up with something that looks like:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215093&cm_re=sata_port_multiplier-_-16-215-093-_-Product

and yet with the cage costing $100 alone, the total price isn't much
better than the purpose-made commercial solution. Clearly economies of
scale haven't hit items like these drive cages, given that you can get
an entire computer enclosure with power supply for half their price.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/
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Re: [Discuss] Dell

[Tom Metro]

Jerry Feldman wrote:
> While Dell does make decent consumer grade PCs, I still question
> their servers.

I thought the general consensus was that the reverse was true.

I've had limited dealings with Dell, and they haven't left me with a
positive impression. I've known people who have had multiple failures
with business-grade Dell laptops. I attempted to repair a consumer-grade
Dell laptop (fairly current model at the time), and wasn't able to
obtain a driver needed to reload Windows, nor get any support without
paying a fee. (I avoided the issue by loading Ubuntu.)

At the last BLU meeting the speaker conveyed an interesting point about
how Dell successively outsourced more and more of its computer
production to ASUS, who then eventually took the final step of selling
their products directly to BestBuy under their own brand. A win for
ASUS' business skill, though if they've been the OEM for Dell for a
while, that makes me rethink the quality reputation of ASUS.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/
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Re: [Discuss] Small Linux server recommendation?

[Jerry Feldman]

On 07/16/2011 10:19 AM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
>> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey@blu.org [mailto:discuss-
>> bounces+blu=nedharvey@blu.org] On Behalf Of Jerry Feldman
>>
>> While Dell does make decent consumer grade
>> PCs, I still question their servers. The HP ProLiant (eg. Compaq) has a
>> long history of stability. The DL 380 is a real low end workhorse.
> About 10 years ago I thought Compaq servers were good.  But in the last 6
> years, I have consistently had the opposite experience from what Jerry
> describes here...  All the HP/Compaq servers and laptops that I've messed
> around with have been regretful experiences.
>
> I'm not saying Dell is the greatest thing on the face of the earth.  But as
> long as you keep 'em in warranty and don't stray too far outside of the
> supported OS platforms, they're what I usually prefer to use.
>
>
Our company is using HP DL 380 G7 systems for our vSphere systems. Not a
glitch. I think you have to separate laptops, desktops and servers.
There are also consumer grade and business grade laptops. For servers, I
would stick with HP, IBM, or Sun. I've also got several old Intel
whiteboxes that are all SuperMicro. Ours are well over 5 years old and
have been running 24x7 for most of that time. But, after the experience
with the 2 Dell servers that both quit under 3 years, I'll stick with
HP, IBM, and Sun.

-- 
Jerry Feldman 
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846


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Re: [Discuss] Small Linux server recommendation?

[Edward Ned Harvey]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey@blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey@blu.org] On Behalf Of Jerry Feldman
> 
> While Dell does make decent consumer grade
> PCs, I still question their servers. The HP ProLiant (eg. Compaq) has a
> long history of stability. The DL 380 is a real low end workhorse.

About 10 years ago I thought Compaq servers were good.  But in the last 6
years, I have consistently had the opposite experience from what Jerry
describes here...  All the HP/Compaq servers and laptops that I've messed
around with have been regretful experiences.

I'm not saying Dell is the greatest thing on the face of the earth.  But as
long as you keep 'em in warranty and don't stray too far outside of the
supported OS platforms, they're what I usually prefer to use.

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Re: [Discuss] Small Linux server recommendation?

[Edward Ned Harvey]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey@blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey@blu.org] On Behalf Of Robert La Ferla
> 
> I am looking for a hardware recommendation for a Linux server.  Price
under
> $500 ($300 ideal).  It should be small form factor, have 1-2 gigabit
ethernet
> ports (2 is preferred but not required), 8-16GB RAM.  I have a 64GB SATA
SSD
> I can use for it.  The system will run a web server, email, and a Java or
Ruby
> app server.
> 
> What should I be looking at?  Shuttle?  Dell?

Overstock

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Re: [Discuss] Small Linux server recommendation?

[Jerry Feldman]

On 07/15/2011 12:48 PM, Robert La Ferla wrote:
> I am looking for a hardware recommendation for a Linux server.  Price under 
> $500 ($300 ideal).  It should be small form factor, have 1-2 gigabit ethernet 
> ports (2 is preferred but not required), 8-16GB RAM.  I have a 64GB SATA SSD 
> I can use for it.  The system will run a web server, email, and a Java or 
> Ruby app server.
>
> What should I be looking at?  Shuttle?  Dell?
The BLU had a Dell server that we bought brand new along with Boston
User Groups. Both servers died. In contrast, Rick Zach has had 2 ancient
HP servers in the same rack that have been running for many years. He
recently decommissioned the mail server, but his web server is still up
and running. Note that both the BLU Dell server and the BUG Dell server
had RAID hardware failures. While Dell does make decent consumer grade
PCs, I still question their servers. The HP ProLiant (eg. Compaq) has a
long history of stability. The DL 380 is a real low end workhorse.

-- 
Jerry Feldman 
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846


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[Discuss] Linux Consulting

[Dutkiewicz, Vicky]

Hello,

 

Ages ago (in 2006) we had some interest in consulting for Safari through
your user group. We are running Linux, fedora core. We are using perl
scripts to process a very large amount of data each month. Our machine
has stopped working and we do not have the knowledge to fix it. 

 

Anyone out there interested in consulting work?

 

Thanks,

 

Vicky

 

 

Vicky Dutkiewicz

Controller

Safari Books Online, LLC | www.safaribooksonline.com
 

75 Arlington Street

Boston, MA 02116

617-848-7059

  

 

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