In this follow up article on the LSI HBA features comparison we take a look at the power consumption of LSI's SAS2008 and SAS2308 based HBA controllers. Whether you are building a small business server, colocated server or a simple home server, power consumption is a major focus these days and it helps to know how much an add-in...
Today we are looking at the Intel Core i5-3450, which is a fairly fast Ivy Bridge CPU. Recently we looked at the Intel Core i7-3770 and found it to be an able performer. For those looking to save a few dollars, the Core i5-3450 sells for under $200 and is plenty fast for most workloads today. The Core i5-3450...
After finding some PDFs with various bit of info on LSI's range of host bus adapters (HBAs) I thought I would bring them here to help anyone looking at using one. LSI HBA cards are great way to add fast storage beyond the motherboard supplied SAS and SATA ports. A LSI HBA is a simple disk controller and is great...
One of the most requested features we have on this site is for a RAID reliability calculator. Over the past few years, one of the big questions is how can a user get a rough ballpark estimate about which RAID levels are the most risky to implement. About two years ago I published the RAID Reliability Anthology primer which...
The Supermicro X9SCL+-F is a a Intel Xeon E3-1200 (and V2) series, LGA 1155 server motherboard that is designed to be a solid, low-cost entrant in the marketplace. Before we continue, let's address the obvious question, what is the difference between the Supermicro X9SCL-F and X9SCL+-F? Simple, the X9SCL-F utilizes the platform's Intel 82579LM gigabit NIC alongside a 82574L...
You may remember back in May Patrick did a review on the ASUS P8Z77 WS workstation motherboard. Since he tests a lot of hardware, this board made it my way to replace an old ASRock P55 Deluxe3 and try it out long term. Below is a write up on my experiences setting up the ASUS P8Z77 WS motherboard, getting it...
We recently received word that LSI is busy at VMworld this week releasing a new LSI Nytro MegaRAID in 100GB, 200GB and 800GB capacities. This is a product where we really see the fruit of the LSI SandForce acquisition. The product basically combines a LSI MegaRAID controller and caching technology with SandForce solid state drives.
I actually think this is...
Where in the world is the AMD Operon 3200 series? Back on 20 May 2012 I did a quick news piece about the AMD Opteorn 3200 series launch, something I was super excited about at the time. Here's the thing, Intel is completely dominant in the single CPU server space and the market needs competition. Sure, the ARM based...
In Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 Microsoft introduced SMB 3.0 which greatly improves shared storage performance. After playing with it a bit, and I think others can concur, whereas SMB 2.1 was not a superior performance option, this generation of Windows SMB 3.0 does a lot to bridge the gap between it and faster protocols such as iSCSI...
Supermicro is adding another motherboard to the burgeoning list of current LGA 2011 Intel Xeon E5 offerings with their X9SRL and X9SRL-F. The main difference between the Supermicro X9SRL-F motherboard and the X9SRL motherboard is that the Supermicro X9SRL-F has IPMI 2.0 remote management capabilities while the Supermicro X9SRL motherboard does not. This makes the Supermicro X9SRL motherboard slightly less expensive....