[Beowulf] storage server hardware considerations

[Orion Poplawski]

On 07/15/2009 10:48 AM, Jan Heichler wrote:
> Hallo Orion,
>
>
> Mittwoch, 15. Juli 2009, meintest Du:
>
>
> OP> I'm thinking about building a moderately fast network storage server
>
> OP> using a striped array of SSD disks. I'm not sure how much such a device
>
> OP> would benefit from being dual processor and whether the latest Nehalem
>
> OP> chips would be better than the older in the tooth (and less expensive)
>
> OP> AMD Opteron offerings. I'm almost certainly going to be limited at the
>
> OP> moment by using GigE, but would like to move to Infiniband in future.
>
> OP> Thoughts?
>
>
> Can you give a bit more Info?
>
>
> Network Storage Server = NFS?

NFS, though I'm open for trying other options.

> Why SSDs?
>

Performance per watt, $?  I'm happy to be corrected.

> What speed do you want to reach?

I'd be happy with saturating 1 GigE ( ~ 100MB/s ?) to start, with some 
headroom.  Don't want to break the bank though for the last bit of 
performance.

> In general: RAM does help, CPU power is normally not necessary.

That's my feeling, but wondering how low on the cpu to go.  Is a dual 
(physical) processor system a help?

-- 
Orion Poplawski
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