As was recently seen with the Opteron 6100 4P platforms, moving to multi-processor systems can yield higher density installations. One challenge motherboard vendors face is that multi-processor designs require more complex traces that cost more to produce. While many users will want full-featured boards with SAS2008 and multiple expansion slots, others just need lower cost processing nodes. The Supermicro...
Previously we looked at how to install the Microsoft iSCSI Target software on a Windows Server 2008 R2 machine and then setup the iSCSI target on the server. The next step is being able to connect a client system to the iSCSI target. For Microsoft Windows, there is a built-in iSCSI initiator software that is very simple to configure...
Two big technological advancements occurred this week, with Intel announcing 22nm 3D transistors and Seagate announcing 1TB 3.5" disk platters. Both announcements will yield power consumption savings will boosting performance of their respective devices.
Intel Announces 3D transistors for 22nm Ivy Bridge CPUs
Traditional transistors work much like a highway with a bridge. Traffic (e.g. electrons) can travel atop the asphalt...
Recently I have been testing several AMD G34 and Intel 5520 series platforms. Each AMD G34 CPU requires four sticks of memory for full quad channel operation, and each Intel CPU requires at least three DIMMs for triple channel operation. With fourteen G34 sockets and dodeca core Magny cours CPUs in various stages of testing, the G34 platforms alone...
AMD's socket G34 platform currently supports up to four eight or twelve core Magny-cours CPUs. While having a dual socket G34 board is interesting, Intel's 2P platforms dominate most of the x86 DP market at the moment. One thing AMD does to combat Intel on price is specifically in the area of four socket servers. Whereas Intel CPUs must...
After Microsoft released its free iSCSI target for Windows Server 2008 R2, we posted a guide on how to install the iSCSI target software on a server. The next logical step was to create a guide for creating a target. To simplify the demo a bit, I also decided to use a virtual disk.
Test Configuration
For this guide I simply...
This week saw a new version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution (version 11.04) released, Toshiba making a pair of announcements around its NAND flash storage business, and Apple allegedly stamping its "i" of approval on the Cloud movement.
Ubuntu 11.04 Released
Ubuntu is a very popular (relatively) Linux distribution, so every six months, when a new version is released, it...
Recently Microsoft released an iSCSI Target for Windows Server 2008 R2. This is something that many users have requested for a long time, and with the introduction of Windows Storage Server 2008 R2, it became a logical add-on to offer with Windows Server 2008 R2. Perhaps the best part of the software is that Microsoft offers this software with...
Recently ServeTheHome.com looked at two different Intel P67 chipset boards, the ASUS P67 Sabertooth consumer offering and the Tyan S5512WGM2NR server motherboard. The ASUS P67 Sabertooth is marketed by ASUS as using high-quality components for better stability in the enthusiast space. The Tyan S5512WGM2NR was the first Tyan (and C204) motherboard reviewed on ServeTheHome and is targeted at the...
The Tyan S8230GM4NR is the second Tyan dual AMD G34 platform reviewed on ServeTheHome.com with the Tyan S8236WGM3NR being the first. Like the previously reviewed board, the S8230GM4NR packs two socket G34 CPUs and up to 24 Magny-Cours cores and sixteen DDR3 DIMM slots and four Intel LAN ports in an EATX form factor. With AMD's Magny-Cours architecture,...