freebsd stable - Apr 2009 - experiences with Supermicro Twin servers? (6016TT / 6026TT / 6015TW)

Hi all,
are there somebody with some experiences (bad or good) with Supermicro 
Twin servers? Mainly with 2U model 6026TT-TF or 1U model 6016TT-TF build 
on top of Intel 5520 Tylersburg (or any other?)

We would like to buy some Twin servers, but I do not have chance to test 
it before.
Are there any know problems with Twin servers generally, or are there 
any issus with FreeBSD 7.x with used CPU / chipsets / NICs?

Any advices will be welcomed.

Miroslav Lachman

Miroslav Lachman wrote:
> are there somebody with some experiences (bad or good) with Supermicro 
> Twin servers? Mainly with 2U model 6026TT-TF or 1U model 6016TT-TF build 
> on top of Intel 5520 Tylersburg (or any other?)
They lack PS2 ports so you need USB keyboard to work properly.  When I 
tried FreeBSD 7.1 on the previous generation (based on Intel 5400 
Seaburg), the keyboard would not work at all, even though it worked with 
7.0.

The IPMI daughterboard conflicts with the on-board LAN when FreeBSD is 
running, causing packet loss and reduced performance and sometimes locks 
you out.  So you need to use IPMI with a dedicated external LAN port - 
which then blocks the only available PCIe slot.


- Andrew

On Apr 30, 2009, at 6:09 AM, Miroslav Lachman wrote:
> Hi all,
> are there somebody with some experiences (bad or good) with  
> Supermicro Twin servers? Mainly with 2U model 6026TT-TF or 1U model  
> 6016TT-TF build on top of Intel 5520 Tylersburg (or any other?)
>
> We would like to buy some Twin servers, but I do not have chance to  
> test it before.
> Are there any know problems with Twin servers generally, or are  
> there any issus with FreeBSD 7.x with used CPU / chipsets / NICs?
>
I own 2 personally, and my employer has 2 also.  I'm pleased with  
them.  Thus far, they've run a year w/o any issues.  They were  
purchased from iX Systems(.com).

Things you should be aware of, at least for the 1U units (I don't have  
the 2U).  FreeBSD 7.0R didn't support booting off USB media.  The IP  
KVM, while it works wonderfully, provides virtual media that show up  
as USB.

They only have 1 PCI-e slot, I filled mine with the IP KVM dedicated  
interface.

Don't use the onboard "RAID"  it's somewhere between
unreliable and
non-functional.  It shows up as either Intel matrix, or Adaptec host  
RAID.

I've been using them with ZFS and gmirror.  Fast, solid, happy.
--
Louis Kowolowski                                louisk@cryptomonkeys.org
Cryptomonkeys:                      http://www.cryptomonkeys.org/~louisk

Making life more interesting for people since 1977

Andrew Snow wrote:
> Miroslav Lachman wrote:
> 
>> are there somebody with some experiences (bad or good) with Supermicro 
>> Twin servers? Mainly with 2U model 6026TT-TF or 1U model 6016TT-TF 
>> build on top of Intel 5520 Tylersburg (or any other?)
> 
> 
> They lack PS2 ports so you need USB keyboard to work properly.  When I 
> tried FreeBSD 7.1 on the previous generation (based on Intel 5400 
> Seaburg), the keyboard would not work at all, even though it worked with 
> 7.0.
I have a bunch of Sun Fire X2100 M2 which lack PS2 too, but USB keyboard 
is working fine. Did you test it with upcomming 7.2?
> The IPMI daughterboard conflicts with the on-board LAN when FreeBSD is 
> running, causing packet loss and reduced performance and sometimes locks 
> you out.  So you need to use IPMI with a dedicated external LAN port - 
> which then blocks the only available PCIe slot.
Can you explain it more detailed? Do you have model where IPMI card have 
shared NIC port with standard on-board NIC? Intel 5520 Tylersburg based 
Twin servers have IPMI + KVM integrated onboard with dedicated third NIC 
port. May I expect problems or am I save with dedicated port?

There are 4 NIC ports on Sun Fire X2100 M2, where 2 are nVidia and 2 are 
Broadcom (bge). One of those bge is shared with IPMI + KVM, but in this 
case, it works fine for more than year with hw.bge.allow_asf="1" in 
loader.conf. No locks, no packet loss.

What is model number of your servers?

Thank you for your reply

Miroslav Lachman