Rack mounted server for SATA

[Rob Nicholson]

Anyone know of a manufacturer of a dual Pentium rack mounted server that can
take 4 x SATA hard disks plus a boot drive (an IDE or another SATA)? We've
got a dual AMD Athlon MP system with lots of disk space as a secondary
storage server and we're not happy with the stability of the system -
probably that dual AMD bit It's free standing as well at the moment. So
we're looking to buy another server for the rack without any hard disks into
which we can transfer the existing SATA disks.

Ohh, would be useful if it could take a PCI SCSI card which we have in there
as well.

Thanks, Rob.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

Anyone know of a manufacturer of a dual Pentium rack mounted server that can
take 4 x SATA hard disks plus a boot drive (an IDE or another SATA)? We've
got a dual AMD Athlon MP system with lots of disk space as a secondary
storage server and we're not happy with the stability of the system -
probably that dual AMD bit It's free standing as well at the moment. So
we're looking to buy another server for the rack without any hard disks into
which we can transfer the existing SATA disks.

Ohh, would be useful if it could take a PCI SCSI card which we have in there
as well.

Thanks, Rob.

Cue rb.


OD

 

[Dan Adams]

These come a dime a dozen these days lol. If money is no object and
stability is premium, check out the dual (dualcore?) Xeon offerings by
Dell, Gateway, HP and IBM.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

These come a dime a dozen these days lol. If money is no object and

stability is premium, check out the dual (dualcore?) Xeon offerings by
Dell, Gateway, HP and IBM.

We use Dell kit already but couldn't find anything on their site that had 5
bays.

Cheers, Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

Ohh, would be useful if it could take a PCI SCSI card which we have in

there
as well.

We're going to go for an Antec rackmount case and move the existing
motherboard and drives into it.

Cheers, Rob.

 

[Dan Adams]

If system stability is the issue you really should at least get a new
MoBo/CPU/Memory combination.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

If system stability is the issue you really should at least get a new

MoBo/CPU/Memory combination.

Actually - we're tempted to do this as part of the problem with the existing
server could be motherboard related.

Rob.

 

[Jim]

Could be? Unless it's a heat related issue and the new chassis is much
better cooled than the existing one, then you're chasing your tail.
Generally speaking, moving from a tower to a rackmount case, you're not
likely to get better cooling - usually it's the opposite.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

Could be? Unless it's a heat related issue and the new chassis is much

better cooled than the existing one, then you're chasing your tail.
Generally speaking, moving from a tower to a rackmount case, you're not
likely to get better cooling - usually it's the opposite.

No, it's more of a feeling that the Dual Athlon MP motherboard setup really
never took off and therefore I don't think this particular environment was
subjected to the same level of support as other dual CPU systems. The Athlon
MPs do run incredibly hot.

It's generally just a flaky system They happen.

Cheers, Rob.

 

[Curious George]

No, it's more of a feeling that the Dual Athlon MP motherboard setup really
never took off and therefore I don't think this particular environment was
subjected to the same level of support as other dual CPU systems. The Athlon
MPs do run incredibly hot.

It's generally just a flaky system They happen.

They were. Kinda. The first MP chipset based (tyan boards) were very
stable - If you jumped through the right hoops, kept things simple,
and proactively dealt with some of their design problems. For example
Northbridge tended to overheat causing stability & corruption problems
- so Tyan added a heatsink on later revisions. Smart early adopters
added one also, but the Tyan heatsink was pure crap. Tyan supplied
something with an extremely rough contact surface and so much thermal
goop it insulated the chip. Then if you added powerful PCI cards you
melted the ATX connector. And don't get me started about the video
bugs.

MPX was a little different because that was open to different
manufacturers. But the even the first revisions came out with that
dang USB issue...

At the time they were cheap, stable, & powerful - or rather ppl either
had great builds or great headaches.

After enduring all that treat yourself:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/
http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/

 

[Rob Nicholson]

melted the ATX connector. And don't get me started about the video

bugs.

There is a real weird quirk with the BIOS of our Tyan board. It responds
incredibly slowly to key presses. We've got a password on there and when you
go into the BIOS and enter the password you have to go press 1st key, wait a
second, press 2nd key, wait a second etc. Otherwise instead of typing
DIETCOKE (not our password btw) you get DTK

At the time they were cheap, stable, & powerful - or rather ppl either
had great builds or great headaches.

We're in the headache brigaide

Cheers, Rob.

 

[Curious George]

Which board are you using? Did the keyboard delay always exist?

 

[Rob Nicholson]

Which board are you using? Did the keyboard delay always exist?

Tiger MPX S2466N-4M motherboard.

No, I don't think the delay existed until we purchased one of the video
cards recommended by Tyan This server has always been a bit unstable and
it failed completely over the weekend. We think it might be the PSU (which
would explain an AWFUL lot) so I've got a new 550W one sat on my desk ready
to be installed in a few hours.

Cheers, Rob.

 

[Rob Nicholson]

would explain an AWFUL lot) so I've got a new 550W one sat on my desk

ready to be installed in a few hours.

Hmm, it does look like a PSU problem after all. The PSU gave up the ghost
over the weekend and we purchased a replacement 550W PSU from a local shop.
Installed it this evening and system came back up.

Took a gamble and installed the SATA RAID controller and 2 x 400GB SATA hard
drives that started the thread off a while back and touch-wood, the system
came up, was able to create the volume and the system is currently copying
the data from one volume to another.

If this turns out to be a dodgy PSU, I'll be very upset

Cheers, Rob.

 

[Curious George]

Hmm, it does look like a PSU problem after all. The PSU gave up the ghost
over the weekend and we purchased a replacement 550W PSU from a local shop.
Installed it this evening and system came back up.

Took a gamble and installed the SATA RAID controller and 2 x 400GB SATA hard
drives that started the thread off a while back and touch-wood, the system
came up, was able to create the volume and the system is currently copying
the data from one volume to another.

If this turns out to be a dodgy PSU, I'll be very upset

Don't be. It's a common problem. These boards are very demanding
when it comes to power & cooling. Most if not all PSU's aren't nearly
as good as they look on paper, Esp the highest poser ones i.e. >500W
IMHO.

OTOH it looks like you have this under control - and even if you
didn't there'sa wealth of information about how to troubleshoot these
things n the Tyan group. (Of course there shouldn't be though IMO.)