Following theIntel SASUC8I and LSI SAS3081E-R 1068e Based RAID Controller Review which featured a LSI 1068e based Intel SASUC8I I have started to take a look at LSI SAS 2008 based controllers. One such controller I have been working with is based on the Supermicro X8SI6-F which has an onboard LSI SAS 2008 8-port SAS2 controller. This onboard controller is...
The ability to remotely monitor servers utilizing IPMI 2.0 is a key differentiator between server grade hardware and consumer hardware. Supermicro's IPMIview software is an often overlooked piece of software that makes managing multiple servers remotely a simple task. While there is a simple web interface that Supermicro uses on many of its boards, the IPMI 2.0 features, including...
I often get questions regarding good ways to stress test home servers, especially new drives. As part of the in-development FreeBSD 8.x based Mesa ZFS Web Interface, sub.mesa has released 0.1.7-preview of the interface with a built-in benchmark that runs for 12+ hours on many systems. Running this a few times on a new build is probably a good...
Western Digital announced new 2.5TB and 3TB Green Series drives at $189.99 and $239.99. These drives are an interesting proposition for large home server users that are not running Windows Home Server V1.
Unlike Intel, AMD produces a full line of triple core processors including the AMD Athlon II X3 445 3.1GHz that will be reviewed here today. STH has already reviewed the single core Sempron 140, the dual core Athlon II X2 260 Regor, and the quad core Athlon II X4 640 Propus so hopefully this helps fill in the performance...
Since publishing the Intel SASUC8I and LSI SAS3081E-R 1068e Based RAID Controller Review I have received quite a few questions regarding how to flash the LSI IT firmware to the Intel card. This guide shows one how to get around the sasflash utility's vendor check.The problem arises because the sasflash utility checks the vendor of the card before flashing...
Recently STH took a look at the AMD Athlon II X2 260 Regor chip and found it to be fairly power efficient and fast enough for most tasks. AMD has virtually every $5 increment in the sub-$120 CPU space covered, so today I am looking at a CPU that costs approximately $30 more, but has two additional cores. While...
According to Bloomberg, Isilon Systems is reportedly looking for bidders, no doubt in response to the recent string of acquisitions by HP and IBM in the area. After losing the bidding war to HP for 3Par, Dell is undoubtedly a potential acquirer as is Oracle, EMC, Cisco, and NetApp. The NAS/ SAN storage space seems to still be on...
AMD's focus on low power and low cost CPUs and chipsets keep them at the forefront of home server builder's minds when spec'ing a new build. After investigation of the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition yielded great performance with lots of power consumption and the Sempron 140 EE offered solid power consumption figures but anemic performance, it is...
On September 12, 2010 NetApp and Oracle agreed to dismiss an ongoing lawsuit over ZFS and WAFL. The original suit was filed by NetApp accusing then Sun Microsystems' (which Oracle recently acquired) ZFS file system of infringing on NetApp's patents.
Two intervening factors in the dismissal are likely that Sun was purchased by Oracle and on the other side of...