New subject: [suse-amd64] IBM or Tyan

1 Jun 2004

      Yes, U320 SCSI is WAY,WAY faster that SATA. That is my experience using Java web applications.

This is not a pure U320 SCSI versus SATA comparison. But on our production server with U320 SCSI, Intel RAID controller and 3 x
15000 rpm drives, database queries are almost 5 to 10 times faster than on a workstation with single SATA drive. The SCSI is in a
minimal RAID-5 configuration (i.e. only 3 disks). The production server has dual Opteron 240 chips (1.4Ghz), the test box has an AMD
Athlon 2500 (about 2Ghz).

First, the scsi bus can handle IO to multiple disks at one time.
Second you've got (usually one) 320MHZ bus versus a 150MHZ bus.
True, each SATA drive has 150MHZ.
Third,I would imagine, there has been a lot more time and money invested in optimizing drivers for the SCSI controllers, otherwise
folks would not buy them.

SCSI is expensive, but not that much more expensive than the equivalent SATA equipment. SATA's costs can be deceiving.

To get drives of the same caliber as SCSI drives you have to go to the Western Digital Raptor drives - they spin at 10,000 rpm - a
74MB drive is about US $206. A similar drive in U320 SCSI is about US $256, but you can also get a 15000 rpm drive for about US
$500.

The inexpensive BIOS/software RAID chips (card or motherboard) have no processor chip and no RAM CACHE. They simply do not compare
performance-wise to real hardware RAID. Actually Linux software RAID usually performs better than the RAID drivers that these chips
come with - there are a number of posts that have the results to prove this.

However a good SATA RAID controller with its own CPU and RAM is not really cheaper for SATA then SCSI. A 3Ware 8506-4LP SATA RAID
controller costs about US $340, the 8506-8LP costs about US $500. Adaptec U320 SCSI RAID controller are around US $400 for a single
channel card and about US $600 for a dual channel card (2 SCSI busses that can handle 15 devices each).

I am sure there's someone with more precise technical data, but I hope this helps.

If you need performance and you can affort the incremental costs, go SCSI.

 - Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: rrpalma@synopsis.ws [mailto:rrpalma@synopsis.ws]
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 8:32 AM
To: skarsch@s1.karsch-net.de
Cc: Richard Mixon (qwest); suse-amd64@suse.com
Subject: RE: [suse-amd64] IBM or Tyan

Hello Don,

Thanks for your reply.

You're absolutely right; that's the IBM I'm referring to.   What memory
are you using on your S2885?  Please pardon my ignorance, but is it right
to assume that U320 SCSI is faster than SATA?

Regards,
_____________________________
Ricardo R Palma
SYNOPSIS SA

Tel.     (+51 1) 275-7523, 275-4708
email:  rrpalma@synopsis.ws

www.synopsis.ws

"Pettini, Don" 
05/31/2004 02:18 PM

To
"Richard Mixon (qwest)" , 
cc

Subject
RE: [suse-amd64] IBM or Tyan

                 Hi Richard,

                 The system you are referring to is the 1u rackmount 325.
The
new system referenced by Ricardo is a new Dual Opteron desk-side unit
called the Intellistation A Pro.  This station can come with a choice of
Nvidia cards(Quadro Pro 1100 or 3000), U320 SCSI, Firewire onboard, 1Gb
Ethernet onboard, DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW.

                 I custom built a dual 246 using Tyan S2885, which is a
great
workstation, very fast.  I have 3 PCI-x SCSI adapters on it and all work
great, though a little fussy about PCI scan order on boot.  I now have
1.5TB on the system and I/O performance is exceptional as compared with
the older Xeon I had.  If you are looking for a workstation, either this
board, or the IBM Intellstation A Pro are great workhorses.

                 Don

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Mixon (qwest) [mailto:rnmixon@qwest.net]
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 3:05 PM
To: suse-amd64@suse.com
Subject: RE: [suse-amd64] IBM or Tyan

Given you are looking at a workstation, this may or may not help. We had
the same decision to make last November/December when
buying our application server (Java web apps).

We liked the IBM, but the kicker was its 1U rack case only had space for
two disk drives. It was certainly more expensive, but not
unreasonably so, given IBM's (usually) excellent support. You had to buy
an external disk array to expand storage.

The lack of drive slots caused us to go with a Tyan Thunder S2880 based
system. Although we have built many ADM/Intel boxes, the
Opteron/AMD64 is new enough that we decided to let Monarch Computing
build it for us. Their assembly/burnin charge is absolutely a
bargain - around US $65 if I remember correctly. Given the issues we had
with RAID and the SCSI drives, we are very glad we did. We
tried the more recent S2882 with buildin SCSI/RAID but it would not work
with SLES 8. All in all, Monarch's support has been
excellent.

I will probably put together our next Opteron test server. However it
will be pretty basic compared to our production servers.

Still, if you can afford the IBM, I would go for it - you know the video
and everything is integrated and works. Hope this helps.

 - Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: rrpalma@synopsis.ws [mailto:rrpalma@synopsis.ws]
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 7:12 AM
To: suse-amd64@suse.com
Subject: [suse-amd64] IBM or Tyan

Hello List,

We need to acquire a dual Opteron workstation.   Our choices are:

-  Build one ourselves , based on Tyan's Thunder K8W (S2885), with dual
Opteron's 250, SATA drives, and nVidia 5950 card
- Buy an IBM Intellistation A Pro with dual Opteron's 248, Ultra320SCSI
drives, and nVidia Quadro FX 1100

Thanks for your suggestions,

_____________________________
Ricardo R Palma
SYNOPSIS SA

Tel.     (+51 1) 275-7523, 275-4708
email:  rrpalma@synopsis.ws

www.synopsis.ws

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RE: [suse-amd64] IBM or Tyan

Richard Mixon (qwest)

rrpalma＠synopsis.ws

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