NVMe and RAID?
-
@PhlipElder Excellent! Bookmarking your blog as well.
On a side note, I really really like Mangolassi.it Actual realife sys admins who you can bounce stuff off and ask questions. Glad this site is doing well. Its always my first search for something technical that I know someone in here will have dealt with at some point in their career.
-
The SFF-8654 to dual SFF-8643 is a bit of a unicorn isn't it? Heck, the SFF-8654 isn't even listed in the SAS wiki.
-
@biggen said in NVMe and RAID?:
The SFF-8654 to dual SFF-8643 is a bit of a unicorn isn't it? Heck, the SFF-8654 isn't even listed in the SAS wiki.
They are now. Finding them was a real challenge. And even then, we need to order them in bulk.
We may put a few up for sale for folks doing custom builds since they are so hard to find.
We have plans for them.
-
@PhlipElder said in NVMe and RAID?:
They are a perfect board for our cluster storage nodes with two built-in 10GbE ports. An AMD EPYC Rome 7262 processor, 96GB or 192GB of ECC Memory, four NVMe via SlimSAS x8 on board, and up to twelve SATA SSDs or HDDs for capacity and we have a winner.
Just a side note - 4 NVMe drives is a typical Supermicro config that they have on a plethora of motherboards and chassis. So your config is not unusual at all and you could buy one off the shelf from Supermicro. Supermicro is not HPE or Dell - they probably have 20 times as many models, maybe more. And they cater to OEM system builders.
-
@PhlipElder said in NVMe and RAID?:
@biggen said in NVMe and RAID?:
The SFF-8654 to dual SFF-8643 is a bit of a unicorn isn't it? Heck, the SFF-8654 isn't even listed in the SAS wiki.
They are now. Finding them was a real challenge. And even then, we need to order them in bulk.
We may put a few up for sale for folks doing custom builds since they are so hard to find.
We have plans for them.
It could be good to know that Broadcom/LSI have them. They're used on Broadcoms Tri-Mode storage adapters (SAS/SATA/NVMe).
I think it's this model you want: 05-60002-00
-
@Pete-S said in NVMe and RAID?:
@PhlipElder said in NVMe and RAID?:
They are a perfect board for our cluster storage nodes with two built-in 10GbE ports. An AMD EPYC Rome 7262 processor, 96GB or 192GB of ECC Memory, four NVMe via SlimSAS x8 on board, and up to twelve SATA SSDs or HDDs for capacity and we have a winner.
Just a side note - 4 NVMe drives is a typical Supermicro config that they have on a plethora of motherboards and chassis. So your config is not unusual at all and you could buy one off the shelf from Supermicro. Supermicro is not HPE or Dell - they probably have 20 times as many models, maybe more. And they cater to OEM system builders.
I love SuperMicro, so easy to customize.
-
@PhlipElder What cases/heatsinks are you using when building these custom systems?
-
NVMe drives really don't produce heat, of course the CPU and power supplies do but standard ventilation that comes with those with vent controls likely would handle that just fine.
-
@DustinB3403 said in NVMe and RAID?:
NVMe drives really don't produce heat, of course the CPU and power supplies do but standard ventilation that comes with those with vent controls likely would handle that just fine.
Actually they do become hot. Especially M.2 and that is one reason that they are not suitable for intensive workloads. As they become too hot, they throttle down the performance so save themselves from damage.
The benefit of 2.5" U.2 is the cooling properties and the hotswap capability. And larger capacity, since it's bigger than M.2.
Also the NVMe drives that goes right into the slot (aka HHHL) features a heatsink for cooling.
-
Also to put things in perspective.
A NVMe U2 drive uses up to 15W. Which is about the same as two conventional spinning drives (SAS enterprise drives).
Heat is only something you have to think about if you're DIY. If you use real server chassis made for SAS/NVMe/whatever you don't have to even consider it.
-
But what about the server case itself? What models are you putting these components in? I'd probably do a tower for the initial build.
-
@biggen said in NVMe and RAID?:
But what about the server case itself? What models are you putting these components in? I'd probably do a tower for the initial build.
Pedestal: Silversone CS381.
Rack Chassis: We go barebones from a variety of vendors. Intel, TYAN, ASRock Rack, and others
Rack Chassis Standalone: Chenbro comes to mind. Silverstone also makes them. We've looked into iStar and Rosewill though never jumped on board.
