[Beowulf] Network Filesystems performance

[Ashley Pittman]

On Sat, 2007-11-10 at 18:33 +1100, Chris Samuel wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Michael Will wrote:
> > The first advise is to stay away from redhat for file servers since
> > they have some bursty I/O bugs and don't support XFS.
> 
> We've run through Fedora (OK, but release cycle too quick), Ubuntu 
> (Dapper has longer support, but a bit flakey) and now run Debian Etch 
> (very happy).

This is an interesting proposition, you seem to imply it's easier to
change distribution that it is to customise the one you are already
using, I'm wondering what your reasoning for this is.

Granted in theory it *should* be easy to change distro and it has
getting easier as they have become more and more homogeneous over time
but equally replacing the RedHat Kernel with one that supports XFS isn't
the end of the world either.

Are you choosing a distro which you can run un-modified and hence buy
support for or do you genuinely believe it's easier to learn and support
a new distro than it is to install a new kernel on the current one?
Personally I've always been of the opinion that you should pick a distro
based on what you have experience of in-house and then modify that
distro to meet your needs rather than the other way around.

Ashley,