[K12OSN] Server choices

Petre Scheie petre at maltzen.net
Wed Jul 26 19:57:12 UTC 2006


I haven't worked with Dells for a few years, but I suspect their RAID controllers are 
similar to HP/Compaqs.  When the machine is going through its power on self test (POST), 
you'll probably see some message about pressing some key to access the RAID controller. 
  Within that, there will be a utility for putting two disks into a RAID1 logical disk 
and putting the other five into a RAID5 logical disk.  Then when Linux talks to the 
controller and asks 'how many disks do you have?' the controller just says 'I have a 
single 146GB disk and a single 584GB disk'; Linux doesn't have to worry about the 
RAIDing.  (This is the only way to do RAID in my book, when I'm spending other people's 
money.)  The driver that Dell said they'd provide allows the kernel to talk to the RAID 
controller.  Yes, it will probably work with Fedora; as mentioned, I work with 
HP/Compaqs, not Dells, but I've had no trouble switching between FC4 and RHEL3/4 
(haven't tried FC5 yet).

HTH

Petre

Michael Blinn wrote:
>  I'm nearing the purchase point of my terminal server, but I thought 
> before laying down the serious $$, I should get the opinions of those 
> who have been there before!
> 
>  I'm partial to Dell servers because the ones that I have had in the 
> past have worked very well. They don't (yet) offer AMD products. They've 
> quoted me on an Intel 64-bit dual-processor dual-core system w/ 8GB of 
> ram and a two raid arrays (one system array @ RAID1, one /var, /home 
> array @ RAID5). It will be using a PERC SAS controller card hooked to 
> (2+5=) 7 146gb drives to accomplish this. With three gigabit cards (two 
> for two separate subnets and one for external interface), the grand 
> total came in around $6,500. This leaves me $1500 in the budget for 4 
> terminals & monitors and two switches to round out the testbed.
> 
>  Does FC4 or FC5 (and therefore k12ltsp) support Intel's 64-bit 
> architecture? If not, does someone have a good source for reliable 
> Opteron servers?
> 
>  I have no experience with hardware RAID on the Linux side of things. 
> Dell said they'd provide RHEL drivers for the RAID card - can these be 
> used in Fedora? How does one set up the arrays prior to OS installation?
> 
> Thank you to everyone - I've enjoyed reading the archives, especially 
> the newer posts about local devs and NIC bonding to remove that bottleneck.
> 
> Many thanks,
>  Michael Blinn
> 




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