Message-ID: <4D8353C3.6060300@tweakers.net>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:44:51 +0100
From: Arjen van der Meijden <acmmailing@tweakers.net>
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To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Request for feedback on hardware for a new database
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On 18-3-2011 10:11, Scott Marlowe wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 1:16 AM, Arjen van der Meijden
> <acmmailing@tweakers.net>  wrote:
>> On 18-3-2011 4:02 Scott Marlowe wrote:
>> We have several 1U boxes (mostly Dell and Sun) running and had several in
>> the past. And we've never had any heating problems with them. That includes
>> machines with more power hungry processors than are currently available, all
>> power slurping FB-dimm slots occupied and two raid cards installed.
>
> Note I am talking specifically about the ability to cool the RAID
> card, not the CPUS etc.  Many 1U boxes have poor air flow across the
> expansion slots for PCI / etc cards, while doing a great job cooling
> the CPUs and memory.  If you don't use high performance RAID cards
> (LSI 9xxx  Areca 16xx 18xx) then it's not an issue.  Open up your 1U
> and look at the air flow for the expansion slots, it's often just not
> very much.
>

I was referring to amongst others two machines that have both a Dell 
Perc 5/i for internal disks and a Perc 5/e for an external disk 
enclosure. Those also had processors that produce quite some heat (2x 
X5160 and 2x X5355) combined with all fb-dimm (8x 2GB) slots filled, 
which also produce a lot of heat. Those Dell Perc's are similar to the 
LSI's from the same period in time.

So the produced heat form the other components was already pretty high. 
Still, I've seen no problems with heat for any component, including all 
four raid controllers. But I agree, there are some 1U servers that skimp 
on fans and thus air flow in the system. We've not had that problem with 
any of our systems. But both Sun and Dell seem to add quite a bit of 
fans in the middle of the system, where others may do it a bit less 
heavy duty and less over-dimensioned.

Best regards,

Arjen