Re: Dell vs. Silicon Mechanics vs. FreeBSD Systems
On Wed, Apr 26, 2006 at 03:09:10PM -0500, Greg Barniskis wrote: > Questions wrote: > >Anyone have any opinions about the quality and/or value of these > >respective vendors? > [snip] > > > >How does Dell fit into all of this? I haven't dealt with Dell in > >years but when I have in the past, there didn't seem to be any major > >issues. I'm looking at a Power Edge 1850 with the Embedded RAID > >(ROMB) - PERC4e/Si Controller. > > Folks' mileage with Dell really seems to vary, so I'd guess you're > going to get a broad range of responses on that question. > > Our experience here is pretty consistent, over a long period of > time: Dell's low end consumer systems (e.g. Dimension models) tend > to be flaky, to the point where we simply won't buy them anymore, > while their high end business systems (e.g. Optiplex, PowerEdge) > tend to be pretty reliable, to the point where we'd need a pretty > compelling reason to change vendors. I'll second this - the current lineup of PowerEdge servers seems to be pretty solid, and Dell's business support (in the UK at least) is better than most of the other vendors we deal with. The only Dell kit I have FreeBSD on right now is a PE 1850, but that works well, including the PERC4 RAID and DRAC4 remote management card. I believe the serial redirection just works, although we're not using it. Haven't really looked into the IPMI stuff yet - the DRAC sends emails when things need attention, and that has been good enough so far. Pretty sure the serial redirection is a BIOS thing, so you wouldn't need the DRAC for that. Might be worth browsing through these threads: http://groups.google.com/group/lucky.freebsd.stable/browse_thread/thread/92587efda750d805/edf2b1f207759ecc http://groups.google.com/group/mailing.freebsd.stable/browse_thread/thread/12c6b661644047e/622ef848879a940a Someone else to consider if you're keen on Opterons is Sun - we have a couple of quad-CPU v20z boxes running Linux, they're very nice machines. The serial console redirection seems to stop working once the OS has booted, but I believe you can work around this. I've not tried FreeBSD on these, so you'd want to ask around and make sure everything works. I did read that the onboard RAID controller is a bit useless (we're only using it to protect against drive failures, rebuilds take _ages_ but performance seems OK otherwise), but there's an add-in RAID card available if you need it. Cheers, Scott -- === Scott Mitchell | PGP Key ID | "Eagles may soar, but weasels Cambridge, England | 0x54B171B9 | don't get sucked into jet engines" scott at fishballoon.org | 0xAA775B8B | -- Anon ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Dell vs. Silicon Mechanics vs. FreeBSD Systems
Questions wrote: Anyone have any opinions about the quality and/or value of these respective vendors? [snip] How does Dell fit into all of this? I haven't dealt with Dell in years but when I have in the past, there didn't seem to be any major issues. I'm looking at a Power Edge 1850 with the Embedded RAID (ROMB) - PERC4e/Si Controller. Folks' mileage with Dell really seems to vary, so I'd guess you're going to get a broad range of responses on that question. Our experience here is pretty consistent, over a long period of time: Dell's low end consumer systems (e.g. Dimension models) tend to be flaky, to the point where we simply won't buy them anymore, while their high end business systems (e.g. Optiplex, PowerEdge) tend to be pretty reliable, to the point where we'd need a pretty compelling reason to change vendors. There have been exceptions (like a large percentage of GX270 mobo's dying early due to bulging capacitors), but they've been pretty good about providing replacement parts, once we jump through all the hoops that their first tier phone support throws up. Does Dell support Serial Console Redirection without their extra lights out card? Can't comment on that as we've never needed to try. -- Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator South Central Library System (SCLS) Library Interchange Network (LINK) , (608) 266-6348 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Dell vs. Silicon Mechanics vs. FreeBSD Systems
I can't answer this too well unfortunately, but I can give you a bit of info. Dell does not carry AMD, and probably will not for a long time. However they do have AMD64 compatable Intel chips, which are better at bandwidth, though not as good for calculations. Dell treats their business customers nicely, but can be rather unpleasant to individuals not within a sizeable group. I had good experiences with Penguin Computing at a previous job, and their supports was good, but unfortunately, they are a mostly-linux group. They do have good support and AMD systems though. IBM is also a very nice choice, and I am pretty sure they have AMD servers, as well as the AMD64 compatable Intel counterparts. Although slightly more expensive than Dell, I definetly prefer IBM. I've no experience with Silicon Mechanics. > I've had bad experiences in the past with onboard SATA and/or RAID > controllers from Silicon Mechanics but it looks now like their > Rackform nServ A206 uses an Adaptec SATA controller and an Adaptec > RAID controller (this will do RAID1, right?) Probably, Adaptec makes pretty good stuff, and tends to aim towards the features/performance market, rather than the low-budget market. Silicon mechanics gives the model number of the card, so you can go here to read the specs: http://www.adaptec.com/ then go to the faq, linked to at http://www.freebsd.org/ and find out the compatability level of the hardware. I think the OpenLDAP thing with AMD64 is fixed (I had some apps that required it, and they didn't complain), however Java is a pain to setup (I gave up and just installed the i386 FreeBSD). I hope this is helpful, -Jim ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Dell vs. Silicon Mechanics vs. FreeBSD Systems
Anyone have any opinions about the quality and/or value of these respective vendors? I'm looking for something that has good AMD64 support, great RAID1 support and good Serial Console Redirection support, all obviously reasonably priced. I've had bad experiences in the past with onboard SATA and/or RAID controllers from Silicon Mechanics but it looks now like their Rackform nServ A206 uses an Adaptec SATA controller and an Adaptec RAID controller (this will do RAID1, right?) Anyone have any experience with FreeBSD Systems IPMI interface? I don't claim to know much about IPMI, so forgive me if I ask seemingly dumb questions: Is IPMI implemented entirely in userland or are is there hardware required that FreeBSD Systems just happens to include with their systems? Is IPMI really any good at the end of the day, or are there other solutions that are better/more relaibe (tm)? How does Dell fit into all of this? I haven't dealt with Dell in years but when I have in the past, there didn't seem to be any major issues. I'm looking at a Power Edge 1850 with the Embedded RAID (ROMB) - PERC4e/Si Controller. Does Dell support Serial Console Redirection without their extra lights out card? Lastly (I think) with regards to AMD64 Support (more for the Silicon Mechanics and FreeBSD Systems options), I had issues a couple of years ago with AMD64 and OpenLDAP. Something to do with Mutexes, and wound up having to backpedal and go with a 32bit install on my 64bit system. PITA. Are there any decently priced/stable options out there, other than the three I've mentioned? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
