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

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
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>

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

On 2017-11-02, Valeri Galtsev <galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu>
wrote:
>
> 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).
I believe Broadcom now owns LSI.  LSI killed the 3ware line soon after
they bought it, so the MegaRAID line is it from them now.

Seconded on the horrific LSI command line tools.  Actually they have two
tools, MegaCli and storcli.  They're both horrible, storcli slightly
less so.  OTOH once you get your arrays configured you can forget about
storcli (at least until a drive fails).

There are Nagios plugins that can check the status of LSI controllers,
arrays, and drives.  The plugin is nice even if you don't use Nagios;
it'd be pretty easy to write a short shell wrapper that sent email if
the plugin status wasn't OK.

--keith

-- 
kkeller at wombat.san-francisco.ca.us

On Thu, November 2, 2017 4:43 pm, Keith Keller wrote:
> On 2017-11-02, Valeri Galtsev <galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>
>> 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).
>
> I believe Broadcom now owns LSI.  LSI killed the 3ware line soon after
> they bought it, so the MegaRAID line is it from them now.
>
> Seconded on the horrific LSI command line tools.  Actually they have two
> tools, MegaCli and storcli.  They're both horrible, storcli slightly
> less so.  OTOH once you get your arrays configured you can forget about
> storcli (at least until a drive fails).
>
> There are Nagios plugins that can check the status of LSI controllers,
> arrays, and drives.  The plugin is nice even if you don't use Nagios;
> it'd be pretty easy to write a short shell wrapper that sent email if
> the plugin status wasn't OK.
Thanks, Keith, you just solved one of my problems (and I do use nagios, so
life is even better ;-)

Valeri
>
> --keith
>
> --
> kkeller at wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
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> 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
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Valeri Galtsev wrote:
> If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
> would be:
>
> Areca
Areca is forbiddingly expensive.
> 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).
I like CLIs and don?t like web interfaces ...  3ware used to make good cards,
though also expensive.

On Fri, November 3, 2017 3:36 am, hw wrote:
> Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>> If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
>> would be:
>>
>> Areca
>
> Areca is forbiddingly expensive.
Yes, and it is worth every dollar it costs. All good RAID cards will be on
the same price level. Those cheaper ones I will not let into our stables
(don't get me started ranting about them...)
>
>> 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).
>
> I like CLIs and don??t like web interfaces ...
I _am_ a command line person myself. Yet, when dealing with RAID, I do
prefer GUI interface, as it is much harder to screw up when you use 3ware
web interface, compared to, say, 3ware command client interface, the last
being much better and clearer than LSI command client... Again, it can be
just me, or it can be the same for many people that our perception of
things in GUI is less prone to grave mistakes.

Valeri
>  3ware used to make good
> cards,
> though also expensive.
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> 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
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++