[Beowulf] Reccomendations For Beowulf Cluster SMP Motherboards?

[Joshua Baker-LePain]

On Fri, 9 Jun 2006 at 2:09am, EKC wrote

> I would like to find out what motherboards people would recommend for
> a Linux cluster such as this? I have had nightmare experiences in the
> past with "server-class" motherboards that barfed under SMP Linux. I
> would like the motherboard to support 2 x dual-core opterons, at least
> 6GB of dual-channel ram, and have two gigabit Ethernet ports.

I've had very good luck with SuperMicro for a while now.  My preferred 
vendor <http://www.siliconmechanics.com> uses them quite extensively.  My 
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 
boot).  The newer SM boards use the ServerWorks HT1000 SATA controller 
which, e.g. RHEL4U3 claims to support, but I've no experience with 'em.

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University