On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 02:16:29PM -0800, David Liontooth wrote:
I'm having a hard time finding server hardware for a university project
-- we need a dozen of these, running Debian sid:
* 1U chassis
* 1 dual-core amd64
* 4 SATA drives
* 1 32-bit PCI slot (preferably 2)
None of the supermicro systems accomodates us. Can someone suggest a
system like this that is known to run Debian amd64?
I suspect one of the Tyan boards would fit the bill. I don't personally
use Tyan (I use Asus) and I don't use rackmount (so hence no problem
there). I know the nforce chipsets in general have fairly decent
support in Linux. I believe the AMD chipsets do too. No idea how the
ServerWorks for opteron are doing Linux wise.
As for PCI, well usually you can get a 90degree adapter to put at least
one pci slot in a rackmount. More than that often means custom board
for a specific case design is required. Maybe this problem has been
solved now, but I certainly haven't seen it done yet, other than custom
systems (like IBM, etc). 1U is just a pain for expansion cards.
Maybe this is what you are wanting:
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/gt20b3870.html (1 PCI-X slot)
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/gt24b2891.html (1 PCI-X and 1 PCIe slots).
They have lots more, but most have just one expansion slot. 4 SATA
drives seem standard, and they can even be hotswap it seems. I don't
think linux supports hotswap in libata yet, but it is being worked on.
Len Sorensen