Hello fellow list users,
I am constantly needing more computation power, RAM and HDD storage such
that I have finally decided to buy a server for my next "workstation". The
reasoning is that my experience with "real" servers is that they are most
reliable, very helpful in indicating errors (dedicated LEDs next to the
PCIe
slots for instance) and modern servers' noise seems to be acceptable for my
working envirnoment (?)
I currently use a Fujitsu RX 1330 M1 (1U server, very silent) and it
clearly
is not "enough" in terms of RAM and HDD capacity. A little more graphics
processing power than a low-profile GPU would be nice, too :)
Rack-Mountability is a must, although I am open to putting another tower in
there, sideways, should that be advantageous.
In terms of "performance" specifications, I am thinking of the following:
* 1x16-core CPU (e.g. AMD EPYC 7302)
* 64 GiB RAM (e.g. 2x32 GiB or 4x16 GiB)
I plan to extend this to 128 GiB as soon as the need arises.
As I am exceeding the 4T mark, I am increasingly considering the
use of ZFS.
Currently, I have the maximum of 32 GiB installed in the
RX 1330 M1 and while it is often enough, there are times where I
am using 40 GiB SSD swap to overcome the limits.
* 2x2T HDD for slow storage (local Debian Mirror, working data),
2x4T SSD for fast storage (VMs, OS)
I will do software-RAID1 (ZFS or mdadm is still undecided).
I possible, I would like to use the power of the modern NVMe PCIe
U.2 (U.3?) SSDs, because they really seem to be much faster and that
may speed-up the parallel use of VMs and be more future-proof.
* 1-2x 10G N-BaseT Ethernet for connecting to other machines to share
virtual machine storage (I am doing this already and it works...)
* a 150W GPU if possible (75W full-sized card would be OK, too).
Typical workloads:
data compression (Debian live build, xz),
virtual machines (software installation, updates)
Rarely:
GPGPU (e.g. nVidia CUDA, but some experimentation with OpenCL, too)
single-core load coupled with very high RAM use (cbmc)
Some time ago, there was this thread
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2020/06/msg01117.html
It already gave me some ideas...
I am considering one the following models which are AMD EPYC based (I think
AMDs provide good performance for my types of use).
* HPE DL385 G10 Plus
* Dell PowerEdge R7515
I have an old HP DL380 G4 in the rack and while it is incredibly loud,
it is
also very reliable. Of course, it is rarely online for its excessive
loudness and power draw, but I derive that HPE is going be reliable? Before
the Fujitsu, I used a HP Z400 workstation and before that a HP Compaq d530
CMT and all of these still "function", despite being too slow for today's
loads.
I am also taking into consideration these, although they are Intel-based
and
I find it a lot harder to obtain information on prices, compatibility etc.
for these manufacturers:
* Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX2540 M5
* Oracle X8-2L
(seems to be too loud for my taste. especially compared to the others?)
I have already learned from my local vendor that HPE does not support the
use of non-HPE HDDs in the server which means I would need to buy all my
drives directly from HPE (of course this will be very expensive).
Additionally, none of the server manufacturers list Debian compatibility,
thus my questions are as follows:
* Does anybody run Debian stable (10) on any of these servers?
Does it work well?
* Is there any experience with "unsupported" HDD configurations i.e.
disks not bought from the server manufacturer?
I would think that during the warranty period (3y) I best stay with
the manufacturer-provided HDDs but after that, it would be nice to be
able to add some more "cheap" storage...
* Of course, if there are any other comments, I am happy to hear them, too.
I am looking into all options although a fully self-built system is
probably too much. I once tried to (only) get a decent PC case and
failed
at it... I can only imagine it being worse for rackmount PC cases and
creating a complete system composed of individual parts?
Thanks in advance
Linux-Fan