[Beowulf] storage server hardware considerations

[Orion Poplawski]

On 07/15/2009 11:23 AM, Joe Landman wrote:
> Orion Poplawski wrote:
>> I'm thinking about building a moderately fast network storage server
>> using a striped array of SSD disks. I'm not sure how much such a
>> device would benefit from being dual processor and whether the latest
>> Nehalem chips would be better than the older in the tooth (and less
>> expensive) AMD Opteron offerings. I'm almost certainly going to be
>> limited at the moment by using GigE, but would like to move to
>> Infiniband in future. Thoughts?
>>
>
> What specifically are you trying to do with this?
>
> Rather than looking at the solution, could you describe the problem you
> need to solve?

I've been building cheap, big, slow storage servers for our use. 
However, some of our users are starting to need higher performance IO. 
We still don't have a lot of money, but I'd like to provide something 
with a modest amount of storage (at least 500GB) that can at least 
handle full GigE, perhaps up to DDR Infiniband for future expansion, 
without breaking the bank.

We have only about 10 compute machines so we're pretty small.

-- 
Orion Poplawski
Technical Manager                     303-415-9701 x222
NWRA/CoRA Division                    FAX: 303-415-9702
3380 Mitchell Lane                  orion at cora.nwra.com
Boulder, CO 80301              http://www.cora.nwra.com