zfs discuss - Feb 2009 - Can VirtualBox run a 64 bit guests on 32 bit host

I''ve seen some talk on vmware forums indicating it is possible to run
64 bit guests on a 32 bit host as long as something called VT
technology is available.

I have an athlon64 +3200 running 32 bit WinXP pro.  I wondered if I
would be able to run opensol in 64 bit as guest inside VirtualBox?

I suspect the Mobo (A0pen AK86-L) on that Athlon may cause problems if
installing opensol directly onto that hardware.  I don''t see any AOpen
motherboards on the HCL.  This one is somewhat dated.. maybe 4 yrs old
or so I doubt it has VT technology.. although I really don''t know.

I''m successfully running Opensol-11 on that machine as a
`VMware''
guest but didn''t know how to try to force a 64 bit install or if it
would be a bad idea anyway.

My whole purpose is to experiment with zfs... would I see much
difference if opensol was installed 64 bit as compared to 32 bit?

I noticed the Simon blogs that describe how to setup a home zfs server
( http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/ )
mention it is best setup 64 bit, but no real reason is given.

Then you would be looking for AMD-V extensions.  VT is only for Intel chips.

I highly doubt a 3200+ has the AMD-V extensions.

--Tim


On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 7:14 PM, Harry Putnam <reader at newsguy.com>
wrote:
> I''ve seen some talk on vmware forums indicating it is possible to
run
> 64 bit guests on a 32 bit host as long as something called VT
> technology is available.
>
> I have an athlon64 +3200 running 32 bit WinXP pro.  I wondered if I
> would be able to run opensol in 64 bit as guest inside VirtualBox?
>
> I suspect the Mobo (A0pen AK86-L) on that Athlon may cause problems if
> installing opensol directly onto that hardware.  I don''t see any
AOpen
> motherboards on the HCL.  This one is somewhat dated.. maybe 4 yrs old
> or so I doubt it has VT technology.. although I really don''t know.
>
> I''m successfully running Opensol-11 on that machine as a
`VMware''
> guest but didn''t know how to try to force a 64 bit install or if
it
> would be a bad idea anyway.
>
> My whole purpose is to experiment with zfs... would I see much
> difference if opensol was installed 64 bit as compared to 32 bit?
>
> I noticed the Simon blogs that describe how to setup a home zfs server
> ( http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/ )
> mention it is best setup 64 bit, but no real reason is given.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>
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Hi Harry,

I doubt it too. Try here to be sure (no need to install, unzip in a folder
and just run).

CPUID <http://www.cpuid.com/>

Check the processor features when you run the app. I hope that helps.


/Mark :-)


2009/2/26 Tim <tim at tcsac.net>
> Then you would be looking for AMD-V extensions.  VT is only for Intel
> chips.
>
> I highly doubt a 3200+ has the AMD-V extensions.
>
> --Tim
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 7:14 PM, Harry Putnam <reader at newsguy.com>
wrote:
>
>> I''ve seen some talk on vmware forums indicating it is possible
to run
>> 64 bit guests on a 32 bit host as long as something called VT
>> technology is available.
>>
>> I have an athlon64 +3200 running 32 bit WinXP pro.  I wondered if I
>> would be able to run opensol in 64 bit as guest inside VirtualBox?
>>
>> I suspect the Mobo (A0pen AK86-L) on that Athlon may cause problems if
>> installing opensol directly onto that hardware.  I don''t see
any AOpen
>> motherboards on the HCL.  This one is somewhat dated.. maybe 4 yrs old
>> or so I doubt it has VT technology.. although I really don''t
know.
>>
>> I''m successfully running Opensol-11 on that machine as a
`VMware''
>> guest but didn''t know how to try to force a 64 bit install or
if it
>> would be a bad idea anyway.
>>
>> My whole purpose is to experiment with zfs... would I see much
>> difference if opensol was installed 64 bit as compared to 32 bit?
>>
>> I noticed the Simon blogs that describe how to setup a home zfs server
>> ( http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/ )
>> mention it is best setup 64 bit, but no real reason is given.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> zfs-discuss mailing list
>> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
>> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>
>

-- 

Laurence J. Peter  - "If two wrongs don''t make a right, try
three."
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Mark <mark.homoky at gmail.com> writes:
> I doubt it too. Try here to be sure (no need to install, unzip in a folder
> and just run).
>
> CPUID <http://www.cpuid.com/>
>
> Check the processor features when you run the app. I hope that helps.
That is a nice little tool.  Thanks

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 07:14:14PM -0600, Harry Putnam
wrote:
> 
> My whole purpose is to experiment with zfs... would I see much
> difference if opensol was installed 64 bit as compared to 32 bit?
> 
> I noticed the Simon blogs that describe how to setup a home zfs server
> ( http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/ )
> mention it is best setup 64 bit, but no real reason is given.
I think it would be better to answer this question that it would to attempt
to answer the VirtualBox question (I run it on a 64-bit OS, so I can''t
really
answer that anyway).

The benefit to running ZFS on a 64-bit OS is if you have a large amount of RAM.
I don''t know what the breaking point is, but I can definitely tell you
that a
32-bit kernel and 4GB ram doesn''t mix well.  If all you are doing is
testing ZFS
on VMs you probably aren''t all that worried about performance so it
really shouldn''t
be an issue for you to run 32-bit.  I''d say keep your RAM allocations
down, and I
wish I knew what to tell you to keep it under.  Hopefully someone who has a
better
grasp of all that can chime in.

Once you put it on real hardware, however, you really want a 64-bit CPU and as
much
RAM as you can toss at the machine.

-brian
-- 
"Coding in C is like sending a 3 year old to do groceries. You gotta
tell them exactly what you want or you''ll end up with a cupboard full
of
pop tarts and pancake mix." -- IRC User (http://www.bash.org/?841435)

The changelog says 64-bit guest on 32-bit host support was added in 2.1:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:48 AM, Brian Hechinger <wonko at 4amlunch.net>
wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 07:14:14PM -0600, Harry Putnam wrote:
>>
>> My whole purpose is to experiment with zfs... would I see much
>> difference if opensol was installed 64 bit as compared to 32 bit?
>>
>> I noticed the Simon blogs that describe how to setup a home zfs server
>> ( http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/ )
>> mention it is best setup 64 bit, but no real reason is given.
>
> I think it would be better to answer this question that it would to attempt
> to answer the VirtualBox question (I run it on a 64-bit OS, so I
can''t really
> answer that anyway).
>
> The benefit to running ZFS on a 64-bit OS is if you have a large amount of
RAM.
> I don''t know what the breaking point is, but I can definitely tell
you that a
> 32-bit kernel and 4GB ram doesn''t mix well. ?If all you are doing
is testing ZFS
> on VMs you probably aren''t all that worried about performance so
it really shouldn''t
> be an issue for you to run 32-bit. ?I''d say keep your RAM
allocations down, and I
> wish I knew what to tell you to keep it under. ?Hopefully someone who has a
better
> grasp of all that can chime in.
>
> Once you put it on real hardware, however, you really want a 64-bit CPU and
as much
> RAM as you can toss at the machine.
>
> -brian
> --
> "Coding in C is like sending a 3 year old to do groceries. You gotta
> tell them exactly what you want or you''ll end up with a cupboard
full of
> pop tarts and pancake mix." -- IRC User (http://www.bash.org/?841435)
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>

Correct, VirtualBox 2.1 and above will allow a 64 bit VM on top of a 32 
bit host OS, but it requires a CPU with AMD-V or VT-x support.  Without 
the CPU virtualization extensions Virtualbox will only allow a 32 bit VM 
on a 32 bit host OS.

For the Athlon64 chip AMD-V will only be present for socket-F and newer 
chips.


Marco.


Blake wrote:
> The changelog says 64-bit guest on 32-bit host support was added in 2.1:
> 
> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog
> 
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:48 AM, Brian Hechinger <wonko at
4amlunch.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 07:14:14PM -0600, Harry Putnam wrote:
>>> My whole purpose is to experiment with zfs... would I see much
>>> difference if opensol was installed 64 bit as compared to 32 bit?
>>>
>>> I noticed the Simon blogs that describe how to setup a home zfs
server
>>> ( http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/ )
>>> mention it is best setup 64 bit, but no real reason is given.
>> I think it would be better to answer this question that it would to
attempt
>> to answer the VirtualBox question (I run it on a 64-bit OS, so I
can''t really
>> answer that anyway).
>>
>> The benefit to running ZFS on a 64-bit OS is if you have a large amount
of RAM.
>> I don''t know what the breaking point is, but I can definitely
tell you that a
>> 32-bit kernel and 4GB ram doesn''t mix well.  If all you are
doing is testing ZFS
>> on VMs you probably aren''t all that worried about performance
so it really shouldn''t
>> be an issue for you to run 32-bit.  I''d say keep your RAM
allocations down, and I
>> wish I knew what to tell you to keep it under.  Hopefully someone who
has a better
>> grasp of all that can chime in.
>>
>> Once you put it on real hardware, however, you really want a 64-bit CPU
and as much
>> RAM as you can toss at the machine.
>>
>> -brian
>> --
>> "Coding in C is like sending a 3 year old to do groceries. You
gotta
>> tell them exactly what you want or you''ll end up with a
cupboard full of
>> pop tarts and pancake mix." -- IRC User
(http://www.bash.org/?841435)
>> _______________________________________________
>> zfs-discuss mailing list
>> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
>> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>>
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss

Brian Hechinger <wonko at 4amlunch.net> writes:

[...]
> I think it would be better to answer this question that it would to
> attempt to answer the VirtualBox question (I run it on a 64-bit OS,
> so I can''t really answer that anyway).
Thanks yes and appreciated here
> The benefit to running ZFS on a 64-bit OS is if you have a large
> amount of RAM.  I don''t know what the breaking point is, but I can
> definitely tell you that a 32-bit kernel and 4GB ram doesn''t mix
> well.  If all you are doing is testing ZFS on VMs you probably
> aren''t all that worried about performance so it really
shouldn''t be
> an issue for you to run 32-bit.  I''d say keep your RAM allocations
> down, and I wish I knew what to tell you to keep it under.
> Hopefully someone who has a better grasp of all that can chime in.
>
> Once you put it on real hardware, however, you really want a 64-bit
> CPU and as much RAM as you can toss at the machine.
>
Sounds sensible, thanks for common sense input.

Just the little I''ve tinkered with zfs so far I''m in love
already. zfs
is much more responive to some kinds of things I''m used to waiting for
on linux reiserfs.

Commands like du, mv, rm etc on hefty amounts of data are always slow
as molasses on linux/reiserfs (and reiserfs is faster than ext3).  I
have''nt tried ext4 but have been told it is no faster.

Whereas zfs gets those jobs done in short order... very noticably
faster but I am just going by feel but at least on very similar
hardware (cpu wise). (The linux is on Intel 3.06 celeron 2gb ram)

I guess there is something called btrfs (nicknamed butter fs) that is
supposed to be linux answer to zfs but it isn''t ready for primetime
yet and I can say it will have a ways to go to compare to zfs.

My usage and skill level is probably the lowest on this list easily
but even I see some real nice features with zfs.  It seams taylor made
for semi-ambitious home NAS.

So Brian, If you can bear with my windyness a bit more, one of the
things flopping around in the back of my mind is something already
mentioned here too.. change out the mobo instead of dinking around
with addon pci sata controller..

I have 64 bit hardware... but am a bit scared of having lots of
trouble getting opensol to run peacefully on it.  Its a (somewhat old
fashioned now) athlon64 2.2 ghz +3400/Aopen AK86-L mobo. (socket 754)

The little jave tool that tests the hardware says my sata controller
wont work (the testing tool saw it as a VIA raid controller) and
suggests I turn off RAID in the bios.

After a carefull look in the bios menus I''m not finding any way to
turn it off so guessing the sata ports will be useless unless I
install a pci addon sata controller.

So thinking of justs changing out the mobo for something with stuff
that is known to work.

The machine came with an Asus mobo that I ruined myself by dicking
aournd installing RAM... somehow shorted out something, then mobo 
became useless.

But I''m thinking of turning to Asus again and making sure there is
onboard SATA with at least 4 prts  and preferebly 6.

So cutting to the chase here... would you happen to have a
recommendation from your own experience, or something you''ve heard
will work and that can stand more ram... my current setup tops out at
3gb.

Marco Lopes <Marco.Lopes at Sun.COM> writes:
> Correct, VirtualBox 2.1 and above will allow a 64 bit VM on top of a
> 32 bit host OS, but it requires a CPU with AMD-V or VT-x support.
> Without the CPU virtualization extensions Virtualbox will only allow a
> 32 bit VM on a 32 bit host OS.
>
> For the Athlon64 chip AMD-V will only be present for socket-F and
> newer chips.
Thanks.. very helpful.

Check out http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/data/os


Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 28, 2009, at 2:20 AM, Harry Putnam <reader at newsguy.com> wrote:
> Brian Hechinger <wonko at 4amlunch.net> writes:
>
> [...]
>
>> I think it would be better to answer this question that it would to
>> attempt to answer the VirtualBox question (I run it on a 64-bit OS,
>> so I can''t really answer that anyway).
>
> Thanks yes and appreciated here
>
>> The benefit to running ZFS on a 64-bit OS is if you have a large
>> amount of RAM.  I don''t know what the breaking point is, but I
can
>> definitely tell you that a 32-bit kernel and 4GB ram doesn''t
mix
>> well.  If all you are doing is testing ZFS on VMs you probably
>> aren''t all that worried about performance so it really
shouldn''t be
>> an issue for you to run 32-bit.  I''d say keep your RAM
allocations
>> down, and I wish I knew what to tell you to keep it under.
>> Hopefully someone who has a better grasp of all that can chime in.
>>
>> Once you put it on real hardware, however, you really want a 64-bit
>> CPU and as much RAM as you can toss at the machine.
>>
>
> Sounds sensible, thanks for common sense input.
>
> Just the little I''ve tinkered with zfs so far I''m in love
already. zfs
> is much more responive to some kinds of things I''m used to waiting
for
> on linux reiserfs.
>
> Commands like du, mv, rm etc on hefty amounts of data are always slow
> as molasses on linux/reiserfs (and reiserfs is faster than ext3).  I
> have''nt tried ext4 but have been told it is no faster.
>
> Whereas zfs gets those jobs done in short order... very noticably
> faster but I am just going by feel but at least on very similar
> hardware (cpu wise). (The linux is on Intel 3.06 celeron 2gb ram)
>
> I guess there is something called btrfs (nicknamed butter fs) that is
> supposed to be linux answer to zfs but it isn''t ready for
primetime
> yet and I can say it will have a ways to go to compare to zfs.
>
> My usage and skill level is probably the lowest on this list easily
> but even I see some real nice features with zfs.  It seams taylor made
> for semi-ambitious home NAS.
>
> So Brian, If you can bear with my windyness a bit more, one of the
> things flopping around in the back of my mind is something already
> mentioned here too.. change out the mobo instead of dinking around
> with addon pci sata controller..
>
> I have 64 bit hardware... but am a bit scared of having lots of
> trouble getting opensol to run peacefully on it.  Its a (somewhat old
> fashioned now) athlon64 2.2 ghz +3400/Aopen AK86-L mobo. (socket 754)
>
> The little jave tool that tests the hardware says my sata controller
> wont work (the testing tool saw it as a VIA raid controller) and
> suggests I turn off RAID in the bios.
>
> After a carefull look in the bios menus I''m not finding any way to
> turn it off so guessing the sata ports will be useless unless I
> install a pci addon sata controller.
>
> So thinking of justs changing out the mobo for something with stuff
> that is known to work.
>
> The machine came with an Asus mobo that I ruined myself by dicking
> aournd installing RAM... somehow shorted out something, then mobo
> became useless.
>
> But I''m thinking of turning to Asus again and making sure there is
> onboard SATA with at least 4 prts  and preferebly 6.
>
> So cutting to the chase here... would you happen to have a
> recommendation from your own experience, or something you''ve heard
> will work and that can stand more ram... my current setup tops out at
> 3gb.
>
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss

>>>>> "hp" == Harry Putnam <reader at
newsguy.com> writes:
    hp> I''m thinking of turning to Asus again and making sure there
is
    hp> onboard SATA with at least 4 prts and preferebly 6.

I would like 64-bit hardware with ECC, 8GB RAM, and a good Ethernet
chip, that can run both Linux and Solaris.  I do not plan to use the
onboard SATA.  So far I''m having nasty problems with an nForce 750a
board from asus (M3N72-D) under Linux.

 * random powerdowns.  about once per week.

 * freezes setting the rtc clock.  as in, locks the whole board hard.
   and confuses something deep inside the board, not just Linux.  Why
   do I think this?  I''ve set it to ``power on after power
failure''''
   which it normally obeys, and I know it normally obeys because I
   always do cold-boots of this board because of other strange
   intermittent problems below.  But after such a clock-set freeze, i
   try to cold-boot, and it stays off until I press the front panel
   button disrespecting the BIOS setting (and making a Baytech strip
   useless.  piece of shit!)

 * sound card attaches sometimes, not other times.  In ''cat
   /proc/interrupts'' I see the sound card shares an interrupt with USB
   (which AIUI it should not need to do with ACPI and ioapic, aren''t
   there plenty of interrupts now?), and it seems to march through
   interrupt wirings after each warm boot, always picking a different
   one, so I blame the Asus BIOS.  I think it attaches about 1/3 the
   time.  It does play sound when it attaches.

 * a USB key that works with other motherboards does not work with
   this one.  I am not trying to boot off the key.  I boot with
   Etherboot PXE.  I''m only trying to use the key under the booted OS,
   and it does not work, while the same OS on a different motherboard
   is able to use the key for months without problem.

 * with the Supermicro/Marvell 8-SATA-port PCI card installed, the
   Asus board will not enter the Blue Screen of Setup.  Sometimes it
   does, though, maybe 1 in 10 times.  It runs fine with this card
   installed, just won''t enter setup unless I remove it.

 * with ``fill memory holes'''' enabled in BSoS, as it is by
default,
   memtest86+ crashes and reboots the machine.  When I turn this off,
   memtest86+ runs fine.  I''m not sure how I even found this
   workaround, but seriously, I would rather waste time on mailing
   lists than mess aroudn with such junk.

maybe other things that I''m forgetting.

Under Solaris, and I think also Linux, the nForce 750a''s nvidia
ethernet chip is pretty performant.  (newegg says realtek ethernet,
but this is wrong, it''s an nvidia MAC).  And also nvidia AHCI SATA
which is supposedly better than AMD AHCI SATA.  I can verify at least
four SATA ports work well, on Linux, but I haven''t tried the other two
``RAID'''' SATA ports which are rumored to be on a crappy
JMicron
controller with weird mandatory fakeRAID or something.  Maybe they
work fine, I don''t know.

While the ATI/AMD chipset boards actually do have crappy realtek
ethernet (crappy performance on every OS), and there is supposedly a
bug in their AMD AHCI that has persisted through several chip
steppings that makes SATA slow under Linux and buggy under Solaris, and
I''ve heard no resolution so I''m operating under the assumption
the
most recent 790{X,GX,FX}/SB750 still have the bug.

There''s dispute about updating the BIOS.  in general you have to
update it to work with the latest CPU''s.  Sometimes you need an old
CPU to run the BIOS updater before you can run the new CPU, even if
you ordered the CPU and the motherboard on the same invoice.  That
seems highly bogus to me.  I did not update mine at first, then
updated it to try to solve the random powerdowns, which it did not.
Other forum posters say the first BIOS revisions are written by the
BIOS programmers who did well in college, while the later updates for
newer CPUs are written by the ones who barely scraped by and are full
of regressions, and since they''re not selling a new motherboard with
the update they don''t give a shit and would almost rather brick the
board and force you to upgrade, so these posters say the newest BIOS
builds should be *AVOIDED*.  I''ve no idea!

Maybe you should buy two or three cheap boards and try them all, since
the CPU and RAM make up a bigger fraction of the cost.  I''ve just
bought this one:

 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186150

because it has Broadcom ethernet, which is actually a good-performing
chip with a decent driver, but this chip has a lot of errata among
revisions so your Ethernet driver has to be updated more aggressively
than it does with the Intel gigabit chips.  I''m hoping it is the older
non-RNIC version, because the newest Broadcom chips have a
(newly-added, <cough> <COUGH>) Proprietary driver in Solaris, while
I
think the older chips have a free driver.  Broadcom, like AHCI SATA,
is decent and much easier to obtain onboard than on a PCI card, so
it''s nice to find a board which has it.

This one is also interesting:

 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136058

because it''s also an AMD chipset also without a Realtek Ethernet.  It
has Marvell Ethernet, which is an uncooperative company so the Linux
driver is probably poor but the Solaris driver may be better or at
least worth a go, since I know the Realtek chip is always bad no
matter what Theo de Raadt says.  The newegg comments say it does have
onboard video even though you can''t see the jack (DVI only).  Also it
has 3 PCI slots while almost every other desktop board has only two,
so you could put cheap 4-port Sil3124 SATA cards in those for 12 SATA
ports that do not have the AMD AHCI bug.  It would probably be a
better plan to use the PCIe LSI SATA board with the backwards-bracket
that everyone likes, though, in which case you don''t need old PCI
slots:

 http://www.thenerds.net/SUPERMICRO.Supermicro_AOC_USAS_L8i_8_Port_SAS_RAID_Controller_1_x_SAS_x4_SAS_300_Serial_Attached_SC.AOCUSASL8I.html?affid=8&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=AOCUSASL8I%5E~%5ESUPERMICRO
 http://www.thenerds.net/3WARE.AMCC_Serial_Attached_SCSI_SAS_Internal_Cable.CBLSFF8087OCF10M.html
x2

I''ve also bought one of these:

 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131363 $200
 http://www.shopblt.com/cgi-bin/shop/shop.cgi?action=enter&thispage=011003000502_BT25946P.shtml&order_id=!ORDERID!
$230
 http://www.memorydepot.com/details.asp?id=KVR1066D3E7K2%2F4G x2 $180
 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141083 $36  <--
nvidia instead?
 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125 $20
 http://www.servercase.com/miva/miva?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SC&Product_Code=CK4020&Category_code=MS

which is not assembled yet---I will let you know if it works at all.
There seem to be few choices for AM3 boards (DDR3 RAM), or else I
wouldn''t have gotten that one since it has no onboard video, and Asus
seems to have more dissatisfied commenters than Gigabyte, DFI, MSI,
....  However the AMD 790FX northbridge may be a good choice for ZFS
because of SATA port density: It has four 8-lane PCIe slots.
Hopefully you can fill three of them with the LSI Logic card at full
8-lane width, for 24 non-oversubscribed SATA ports (non-oversubscribed
meaning no ``port multipliers'''', SAS or SATA).  The fastest
AM3 CPU
seems to be 2.6GHz while the fastest AM2+ is 3.0GHz, and the overall
system cost is lower with the AM2+ CPU, so this path is probably a
rip-off, but I wanted to try out the latest AMD generation just to see
if it actually works or not.

A big issue for all AMD desktop boards is whether they support ECC or
not.  The slots need to be physically wired, and the BIOS needs to
write to a few very simple registers in the CPU at boot time to
request the ECC correction, scrubbing, and chip-kill features.  I''ve
been using memtest86+ from memtest.org (_not_ memtest86) to query the
ECC on/off status, and it DOES seem to be responding sanely on the
Asus M3N72-D board with the random-powerdown problem.  For example,
memtest shows that ``chip-kill'''' is on when the DIMMs are in
ganged
mode, and off when they are unganged, which supposedly corresponds to
the controller''s limitation.  But the ultimate ECC test is to short
one of the pins with a 10-ohm resistor and verify the machine (a)
keeps running, and (b) increments an ECC error counter.  That, I have
not done.  Also I have not tested with memtest the Foxconn board that
I haven''t received yet.

In the early part of the Newegg comment section for the AM3 DDR3
board, Asus claims it supports ECC, but to me this does not mean it
actually corrects errors.  It may mean ``it boots up with ECC memory,
but in non-ECC mode,'''' or ``it enables ECC, and then randomly
powers
down as soon as you hit the first ECC error because of a bug in some
machine-check exception handler.''''  who knows.  I''m
highly suspicious.
But if you look in that comment section you will see Asus mention some
DDR3 unbuffered ECC sticks compatible with their AM3 board, which they
quietly added to the QVL after I complained.  I think Newegg does not
sell any of the sticks they mention---you have to resort to
froogle---but you shuld probably get ECC RAM off Asus''s QVL as posted
among the oldest Newegg comments and not the Kingston sticks in my URL
which are not on the QVL because I ordered them before Asus responded
to my comment.  Foxconn does not even have a QVL that I can find. :)

I''m still in the process of building so I''ll let you know when
I have
some more results, but those are the directions I''m looking in---I
hope they work out.
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On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Miles Nordin wrote:
>
> I would like 64-bit hardware with ECC, 8GB RAM, and a good Ethernet
> chip, that can run both Linux and Solaris.  I do not plan to use the
> onboard SATA.  So far I''m having nasty problems with an nForce
750a
> board from asus (M3N72-D) under Linux.
Did you accidentally blast this to the wrong group?  This is the ZFS 
discussion group, not Linux on my broken hardware group.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/

Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> writes:
> On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Miles Nordin wrote:
>>
>> I would like 64-bit hardware with ECC, 8GB RAM, and a good Ethernet
>> chip, that can run both Linux and Solaris.  I do not plan to use the
>> onboard SATA.  So far I''m having nasty problems with an nForce
750a
>> board from asus (M3N72-D) under Linux.
>
> Did you accidentally blast this to the wrong group?  This is the ZFS
> discussion group, not Linux on my broken hardware group.
I may have elicited Miles comments with my questions... and in fact
was glad to see some input about motherboards.

However it may be a bit out of place here... so Miles, if you would
like to email me privately about this subject, I am very interested
but I give fair warning that I am not at your technical level.

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 01:20:54AM -0600, Harry Putnam
wrote:
> So cutting to the chase here... would you happen to have a
> recommendation from your own experience, or something you''ve heard
> will work and that can stand more ram... my current setup tops out at
> 3gb.
The link to the HCL that was posted is probably your best bet.  I know very
little about PC hardware as I''ve always worked on SPARC (or
POWER/MIPS/etc).

-brian
-- 
"Coding in C is like sending a 3 year old to do groceries. You gotta
tell them exactly what you want or you''ll end up with a cupboard full
of
pop tarts and pancake mix." -- IRC User (http://www.bash.org/?841435)