Re: Replacement rack server recommendations

[Steve Berg]

I haven't used the H330's but I do have quite a few R610's, R620's, R720xd's, R730xd's and a few other various systems where I work.  They all run SciLinux, (6.x and 7.x).  We've been very happy with them so far, got half a dozen or so in the ordering pipeline too.

Some of the smaller RAID cards are Window's only so be careful that you check the specs before you buy.  Got burned on one of those a few years back, my fault, I didn't read the fine print.  Most of my systems have H7xx or H8xx RAID controllers.

----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Stainburn [mailto:[e-mail]]
To: [e-mail]
Sent: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 14:24:27 +0100
Subject: Re: Replacement rack server recommendations

On Monday 03 August 2015 14:09:13 Todor Petkov wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I can recomment IBM M4/M5 Series (now it's Lenovo). They are newer than
> yours, they play well with CentOS/RHEL (got plenty installations). You
> have IPMI/dual PSU/dual CPU.
> The RAID is LSI, which is supported and you can monitor it with the
> tools from LSI.
> I am sure you can find many companies in UK, that offer this hardware.
>
> Regards,

Hi Todor,

Thanks for that. I am looking at Lenovo at the moment.

I'm also looking at the DELL PowerEdge R630 with the H330 RAID controller. 
Google seems to come up with conflicting reports on this though, some saying 
it works fine while others are having trouble with the RAID controller not 
showing any drives when doing the install.

Does anyone have experience of this kit?

Replacement rack server recommendations

[Rick Stevens]

On 08/03/2015 06:31 AM, [e-mail] wrote:
> I haven't used the H330's but I do have quite a few R610's, R620's, R720xd's, R730xd's and a few other various systems where I work.  They all run SciLinux, (6.x and 7.x).  We've been very happy with them so far, got half a dozen or so in the ordering pipeline too.
>
> Some of the smaller RAID cards are Window's only so be careful that you check the specs before you buy.  Got burned on one of those a few years back, my fault, I didn't read the fine print.  Most of my systems have H7xx or H8xx RAID controllers.

We use tons of Dell R610s with the LSI MegaRAID cards under CentOS and
have had very few issues. HP's DL160s, DL360s and DL380s with RAID have
also served us quite well (also under CentOS).
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gary Stainburn [mailto:[e-mail]]
> To: [e-mail]
> Sent: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 14:24:27 +0100
> Subject: Re: Replacement rack server recommendations
>
> On Monday 03 August 2015 14:09:13 Todor Petkov wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I can recomment IBM M4/M5 Series (now it's Lenovo). They are newer than
> > yours, they play well with CentOS/RHEL (got plenty installations). You
> > have IPMI/dual PSU/dual CPU.
> > The RAID is LSI, which is supported and you can monitor it with the
> > tools from LSI.
> > I am sure you can find many companies in UK, that offer this hardware.
> >
> > Regards,
>
> Hi Todor,
>
> Thanks for that. I am looking at Lenovo at the moment.
>
> I'm also looking at the DELL PowerEdge R630 with the H330 RAID controller.
> Google seems to come up with conflicting reports on this though, some saying
> it works fine while others are having trouble with the RAID controller not
> showing any drives when doing the install.
>
> Does anyone have experience of this kit?

Replacement rack server recommendations

[Cameron Simpson]

On the subject of LSI MegaCLI cards, I have an "mcli" command which is a 
wrapper for the LSI MegaRAID commands which I find very useful, both for 
interactive use on the command line and also as a plugin to our monitoring.

URL:
  https://pypi.python.org/pypi/cs.app.megacli/

"pip install cs.app.megacli" gets you the module and the "mcli" command line 
script.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson

On 03Aug2015 09:41, Rick Stevens  wrote:
> On 08/03/2015 06:31 AM, [e-mail] wrote:
> > I haven't used the H330's but I do have quite a few R610's, R620's, R720xd's, R730xd's and a few other various systems where I work.  They all run SciLinux, (6.x and 7.x).  We've been very happy with them so far, got half a dozen or so in the ordering pipeline too.
> >
> > Some of the smaller RAID cards are Window's only so be careful that you check the specs before you buy.  Got burned on one of those a few years back, my fault, I didn't read the fine print.  Most of my systems have H7xx or H8xx RAID controllers.
>
> We use tons of Dell R610s with the LSI MegaRAID cards under CentOS and
> have had very few issues. HP's DL160s, DL360s and DL380s with RAID have
> also served us quite well (also under CentOS).
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Gary Stainburn [mailto:[e-mail]]
> > To: [e-mail]
> > Sent: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 14:24:27 +0100
> > Subject: Re: Replacement rack server recommendations
> >
> > On Monday 03 August 2015 14:09:13 Todor Petkov wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I can recomment IBM M4/M5 Series (now it's Lenovo). They are newer than
> > > yours, they play well with CentOS/RHEL (got plenty installations). You
> > > have IPMI/dual PSU/dual CPU.
> > > The RAID is LSI, which is supported and you can monitor it with the
> > > tools from LSI.
> > > I am sure you can find many companies in UK, that offer this hardware.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> >
> > Hi Todor,
> >
> > Thanks for that. I am looking at Lenovo at the moment.
> >
> > I'm also looking at the DELL PowerEdge R630 with the H330 RAID controller.
> > Google seems to come up with conflicting reports on this though, some saying
> > it works fine while others are having trouble with the RAID controller not
> > showing any drives when doing the install.
> >
> > Does anyone have experience of this kit?
> --
> Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    [e-mail] -
> AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 226437340           Yahoo: origrps2 -
>                                                                -
> If your broker is so damned smart...why is he still working?    -

Replacement rack server recommendations

[Rick Stevens]

On 08/03/2015 03:20 PM, Cameron Simpson wrote:
> On the subject of LSI MegaCLI cards, I have an "mcli" command which is a
> wrapper for the LSI MegaRAID commands which I find very useful, both for
> interactive use on the command line and also as a plugin to our monitoring.
>
> URL:
>   https://pypi.python.org/pypi/cs.app.megacli/
>
> "pip install cs.app.megacli" gets you the module and the "mcli" command
> line script.
>
> Cheers,
> Cameron Simpson
>
> On 03Aug2015 09:41, Rick Stevens  wrote:
> > On 08/03/2015 06:31 AM, [e-mail] wrote:
> > > I haven't used the H330's but I do have quite a few R610's, R620's,
> > > R720xd's, R730xd's and a few other various systems where I work.
> > > They all run SciLinux, (6.x and 7.x).  We've been very happy with
> > > them so far, got half a dozen or so in the ordering pipeline too.
> > >
> > > Some of the smaller RAID cards are Window's only so be careful that
> > > you check the specs before you buy.  Got burned on one of those a few
> > > years back, my fault, I didn't read the fine print.  Most of my
> > > systems have H7xx or H8xx RAID controllers.
> >
> > We use tons of Dell R610s with the LSI MegaRAID cards under CentOS and
> > have had very few issues. HP's DL160s, DL360s and DL380s with RAID have
> > also served us quite well (also under CentOS).
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: Gary Stainburn [mailto:[e-mail]]
> > > To: [e-mail]
> > > Sent: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 14:24:27 +0100
> > > Subject: Re: Replacement rack server recommendations
> > >
> > > On Monday 03 August 2015 14:09:13 Todor Petkov wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I can recomment IBM M4/M5 Series (now it's Lenovo). They are newer than
> > > > yours, they play well with CentOS/RHEL (got plenty installations). You
> > > > have IPMI/dual PSU/dual CPU.
> > > > The RAID is LSI, which is supported and you can monitor it with the
> > > > tools from LSI.
> > > > I am sure you can find many companies in UK, that offer this hardware.
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Hi Todor,
> > >
> > > Thanks for that. I am looking at Lenovo at the moment.
> > >
> > > I'm also looking at the DELL PowerEdge R630 with the H330 RAID
> > > controller.
> > > Google seems to come up with conflicting reports on this though, some
> > > saying
> > > it works fine while others are having trouble with the RAID
> > > controller not
> > > showing any drives when doing the install.
> > >
> > > Does anyone have experience of this kit?

We've had issues with some RAIDs. Typically upgrading the BIOS on the
Dell server (and sometimes the iDRAC firmware) fixes it, but we haven't
had a lot of experience with the H330 cards. We're pretty comfortable
with the MegaRAID cards and tend to stick to them. YMMV.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    [e-mail] -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 226437340           Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
-         The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR FILES!!!       -
----------------------------------------------------------------------