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On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 6:01 AM Frank Steinmetzger <Warp_7@×××.de> wrote: |
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> |
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> Gamer boards tend to skimp on ports, because those people generally care |
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> mostly for their GPU (plus design and RGB). |
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Well, that, and the CPU only has so many PCIe lanes and adding ports |
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beyond that requires a switch. Also, if they have two 16x slots to |
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allow for dual graphics cards those eat up quite a few of the lanes |
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(even if one isn't actually 16x). |
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> |
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> Here, Linus is showcasing an 8-drives storage machine in a Fractal Define R4: |
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> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpJViwtct5g |
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> And here a system with 18 drives 🤪 in a Fractal Define 7XL: |
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> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAy9N1vX76o |
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I think a lot of the consumer cases have been moving away from |
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accommodating hard drives and making more room for gigantic GPUs. |
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All that said, I have largely abandoned the crusade of trying to |
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squeeze a dozen hard drives into one host, in favor of distributed |
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filesystems. If you're only putting a few drives per host and having |
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more hosts then it becomes pretty easy to find hardware that works. |
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Finally, for any system that will be running 24x7 I'd suggest |
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optimizing for power use per unit of computation (which is a hard |
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figure to find), and idle power use (unless you actually do something |
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that keeps the server busy 24x7). Usually newer processors will do |
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better here. The up-front costs of a CPU are likely to be dwarfed by |
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the cost of powering it. ARM is of course advantageous if you don't |
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need too much horsepower or RAM. Unfortunately ARM boards with lots |
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of RAM are crazy-expensive so it isn't a great option if you need more |
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than a few GB. |
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There has been interest in using mini PCs from corporate used sales as |
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servers, and I'm thinking about building storage around a solution |
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like this. The drives would need to be external of course, but USB3 |
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is plenty fast for hard drives. However, it is hard to find easy to |
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lookup metrics on power use and stats like USB3/etc - most filters on |
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used product sale sites just have filters for RAM and maybe CPU. You |
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do need to be careful as some of those systems could have high power |
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draw or lack USB3 or even gigabit LAN, making them unsuitable for 24x7 |
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storage. The price and form factor can be very attractive though, and |
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power use still tends to be low since large companies do think about |
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those costs. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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-- |
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Rich |