CentOS - Nov 2017 - low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

hw wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
(especially
>> if using CentOS 6.x)
>
> What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
Yep, Dell's are good. And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
support is nothing like good. And once you run out the warranty, they
don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell will.

Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't
great,
I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
(the company divided a year or two ago).

If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a rebranded
LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
not super expensive.

Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're
*much* more
expensive than the 3.5" drives, and smaller disk space. For the price of a
1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.

One more thing: if you go with a vendor like ThinkMate, know that most of
them are reselling Supermicro systems. We used to buy a lot of Penguins,
but their quality control.... At any rate, the direct names are cheaper:
if you go for Dell, find a reseller, who may get you a better deal than
Dell direct. If you go this route, email me offlist, and I'll recommend my
preferred reseller for Dell - the discounts are good.

       mark

hw wrote:
>Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're
*much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For
the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have
been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives,
ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately,
that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).

Regards,

Richard

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> hw wrote:
>>Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives -
they're *much*
>> more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space.
For the
>> price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>
> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
have
> been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
Yeah - the WD Reds, and there are Seagate also NAS-rated, are about 1.3 or
so times the price of consumer-grade, but work in servers (consumer grade
WILL NOT*), whereas enterprise-grade are about 3 times the price of
consumer grade, and the quality of NAS-rated vs enterprise isn't
especially noticeable.

* The big differences, in addition to quality, between NAS-rated, or
enterprise-rated, vs consumber/desktop grade are this: the desktop REALLY,
REALLY want to spin down, whenever they can, and, most significant: TLER
(time limit error recovery, I think). The consumer or desktop or laptop
drives will, on encountering a hardware error, will keep trying for up to
two *minutes*. The ones meant for server give up and relocate the sector
after seven *seconds*. Servers gag and actively dislike a drive when it
takes too long....

m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> hw wrote:
>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
(especially
>>> if using CentOS 6.x)
>>
>> What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
>
> Yep, Dell's are good.
That?s good to hear.
> And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
> support is nothing like good.
Indeed, I wouldn?t buy HP new.  They don?t even give you a price for
a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can?t find
anything anymore.
> And once you run out the warranty, they
> don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell will.
Yes, this is a really big problem which makes me look out for other
manufacturers.  I really like their hardware, but the manufacturer not
standing behind their product breaks the deal.
> Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't
great,
> I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be
HPE
> (the company divided a year or two ago).
I?ve never heared of ThinkMate.
> If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
rebranded
> LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
> not super expensive.
Those don?t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of them
worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for making
incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.

Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> hw wrote:
>> Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're
*much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For
the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>
> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage.

On Thu, November 2, 2017 11:18 am, hw wrote:
> m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>>> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
>>>> (especially
>>>> if using CentOS 6.x)
>>>
>>> What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
>>
>> Yep, Dell's are good.
>
> That??s good to hear.
>
>> And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
>> support is nothing like good.
>
> Indeed, I wouldn??t buy HP new.  They don??t even give you a price for
> a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
> and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
> managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can??t find
> anything anymore.
>
>> And once you run out the warranty, they
>> don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell
will.
>
> Yes, this is a really big problem which makes me look out for other
> manufacturers.  I really like their hardware, but the manufacturer not
> standing behind their product breaks the deal.
>
>> Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support
ain't
>> great,
>> I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll
be HPE
>> (the company divided a year or two ago).
>
> I??ve never heared of ThinkMate.
>
>> If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
>> rebranded
>> LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
>> not super expensive.
>
> Those don??t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of
> them
> worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
> them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for
> making
> incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.
>
> Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.
If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
would be:

Areca
LSI (or whoever owns that line these days - Intel was the last one, I
recollect)

With LSI beware that they have really nasty command line client, and do
not have raid watch daemon with web interface like late 3ware had (alas,
3ware after they were bought out several times by competitors were drawn
down out of existence).

Good luck!

Valeri
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

hw wrote:
> m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>>> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
>>>> (especially
>>>> if using CentOS 6.x)
>>>
<snip>
>> And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
>> support is nothing like good.
>
> Indeed, I wouldn?t buy HP new.  They don?t even give you a price for
> a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
> and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
> managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can?t find
> anything anymore.
But wait, it's worse: the replacement *parts* have a different part number
than the original. I had to replace a PSU on a blade enclosure, and had to
get HP, or maybe a reseller, I forget, to tell me what the correct part
number for the replacement part was, and, IIRC, there were both 6-digit
number, or maybe 12....
<snip>
>> Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support
ain't
>> great,
>> I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll
be HPE
>> (the company divided a year or two ago).
>
> I?ve never heared of ThinkMate.
No biggie. As I said, they're another reseller of Supermicro h/w. Good
prices, so-so support.
>
>> If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
>> rebranded LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good
>> and reliable, not super expensive.
>
> Those don?t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of them
> worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
> them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for
> making incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.
>
> Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.
Oh, ok, I was assuming you did. No, if you're not buying Dell hardware,
with their own PERC cards, get an LSI/AVAGO/whoever. They *do* work on
anything, and MegaRAID software is not hard to find. Note: if you go that
route, I have a script I found only that makes basic monitoring *much*
easier than the hostile MegaRAID interface....

       mark