[Beowulf] Reccomendations For Beowulf Cluster SMP Motherboards?

[Gerry Creager N5JXS]

Mark Hahn wrote:
>>>I have had nightmare experiences in the past with "server-class" 
>>>motherboards that barfed under SMP Linux.
> 
> 
> SMP-specific barfage sounds very strange.  might this have been in 
> the dark ages with dual-intel boards that had bad apic buses?  or 
> athlon-mp's?  things are very different now.  I don't believe there's 
> much of anything SMP-oriented that the board vendor needs to do...
> 
> 
>>I've had very good luck with SuperMicro for a while now.  My preferred 
> 
> 
> I tend to Tyan for supra-desktop machines, though expect most SuperMicro 
> and MSI would also do OK.

Tyan or SuperMicro, depending on whether I'm going Opteron (preferred) 
or Xeon.

>>dual core nodes use the H8DAR-T motherboard.  The SATA chipset isn't 
>>supported, but a 2 port 3ware fixes that right up (and is rock-solid to 
> 
> 
> well, there is a sata_mv driver; I think I've seen positive reports:
> http://linux-ata.org/sata-status.html#marvell

We've seen spotty Linux support of Via chipset SATA controllers, but 
most others are well supported, at least in our experience.

gerry
-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.862.3983
Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843