Thoughts on compact server system

[dZeus]

Right now I'm actively using the following three computer systems
- NAS: QNAP, Marvell Kirkwood 1.2 GHz ARM running Debian 7, hooked up to a 5-bay eSATA enclosure for my storage needs
- Notebook: IBM Thinkpad T43 (read: IBM not Lenovo), 2GHz Dothan with 2GB RAM, running Windows 8 on an SSD
- Virtualization Server: Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 2.8, 4GB ECC RAM (3992 MB usable), running Debian 7 and VitualBox with headless client VMs

Both the laptop and the server are really pushing it, and I'm not able to virtualize Windows 8 and up on the server (lack of NX), nor 64-bit operating systems. The laptop is fine so far, but it's noisy and I'm not sure how much longer it'll last (its motherboard is notoriously for flex issues leading to breakage of traces and the chipset & ATI X300 often get bad contacts requiring reflowing of their contacts).

My business-provisioned laptop is currently used for all heavy virtualization, as it's a quad-core i7 with 16GB RAM. However, I'd like to upgrade my private systems to provide similar capabilities.

For a while I've been eyeing different options:
1. high-end Haswell notebook for everything (internet/office + virtualization)
or..
2. simple notebook + a small, low-power server for most heavy virtualization needs that stores all VM guest images on the NAS.

I want the notebook to have a good keyboard (no super-short key travel), a good display panel (IPS with no super-reflective glass coating), good battery life and a smaller formfactor than my current notebook (13"-14").

Option 1. then leads me to chose between the new Apple Macbook Pro Retina 13", or a Lenovo Thinpad T440p. However, both don't come cheap, especially not in Europe. I'd be afraid to lose my laptop wherever I take it; especially Apple laptops are a very popular target among thieves. The Apple also does not come with a TPM chip (no playing around with the virtual smart card that Windows NT6.2 and up have), and are difficult to impossible to service yourself (hello expensive repairs!).

Option 2. Allows me to keep using my Thinpad T43 for a while longer, until it really is no longer usable, and then can be replaced by a mid-range model with good IPS panel. Since IPS is getting in fashion again, this should be easier in about a year time. I've been looking at the Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga, and really like its concept; the keyboard and monitor flex is putting me off for the moment though.

As for server components, this is what I've been looking at so far:
Case: MS-Tech CI-70.
mini-itx, very compact, and sufficiently powerful PSU (60W).
Motherboard and CPU:
either the Asrock E3C226D2I + Intel Xeon E3-1230L v3
or the Supermicro X10SLV-Q + Core i7-4765T.
I'd go for 16GB of Crucial 1.35v SO-DIMMs with either option, ECC in case of the Xeon and regular in case of the Core i7.

There might be better ideas out there, and I'm not sure if the Xeon+ECC should be any better than the Core i7+regular RAM. The Northwood server has ECC RAM, and the ECC error detection log in the BIOS has so far detected 0 errors over the many years of operation it has had.

Edit: I've just seen This motherboard with a 8-core ATOM server chip... I'm wondering how it compares to the i7 and Xeon CPUs. The max 64GB RAM (max 32GB realistically with currently available DIMMs) is definitely very nice to have for a server platform. I'm afraid I'd max out the 16GB rather sooner than later with either of the two motherboards listed in my post, even with memory overcommiting. Main question is how does the ATOM cores compare e.g. a Xeon E3-1230Lv3, and if VT-d is available on this platform.

[Jammrock]

My first post seems to have vanished ...

The problem with the Xeon E3-1230Lv3 is finding one. They are notoriously hard to find. And expensive. But if you are running a heavy server load in a small space and don't want to pay a large electric bill, this is the best there is.

Be careful with that case. Keeping your internals cool will be tricky if you don't plan them right. You will need to double and triple check the height of the internals as well.

I would personally go with the Asrock board. They are a great value and people I know who have used them have had no troubles with them. It also has dual LAN with an IPMI (remote digital KVM) controller, which is a nice touch. SuperMicro makes good boards but I'm not a fan of SoDIMMs on a server board. Personal preference though.

As for the ATOM Avaton C2750, it would work fine for low end server stuff and virtualization. Not for heavy server loads. These chips are a preemptive strike against the upcoming 64-bit ARM server-grade processors. Good for file sharing, web servers and tasks like that, but nothing heavy. So fine if you'll do nothing heavy. Not fine if you plan to do any heavy lifting.

Found a pretty good review here, including benchmarks from the E3-1230 V3 (non-L):

http://www.servethehome.com/Server-detail/intel-atom-c2750-8-core-avoton-rangeley-benchmarks-fast-power/

[dZeus]

hmmm that page tells me the E3-1230v3 is about 1.5-2x as fast as the C2750.

The E3-1230Lv3 has 1.8 GHz clockspeed vs 3.3 for the non-L version. This indicates that the performance gap between the C2750 and the E3 1230Lv3 should be way smaller... except for those instructions which the Xeon executes at full speed, and which are way slower on the ATOM (e.g. FPU, AES-NI, SSE3/4, etc.); unless the C2750 behaves differently from the Bay Trail CPU in this regard (I have my doubts about that assumption, as they both should be Silvermont architecture).

Another issue is finding a mini-ITX motherboard which takes 4 DIMMs for the Xeon, in order to reach 32GB RAM. Not an easy job.

Concerning the case, I'm actually not very worried about the temperature. What worries me is the 60W PSU, which might be rather on the low end after a couple of years of operation, when the usable power output slowly decreases (due to wearing out of components in a switching power supply).

[UtwigMU]

RE: Noisy T43:

You can dissassemble cooler without any tools (remove cooler, open copper tabs, remove metal cover, pull out fan - it's not attached just planted inside) add a drop of oil for sewing machines to sleeve, clean fan with brush and reassemble it.

Then use ThinkpadFanControl utility if you don't use it already.

What happened to the T60p?

The last time I researched server components, mini ITX while attractive prooved to be too limiting. What about mATX + LV Xeon + 4 DIMMS or just mini HP or other OEM desktop?

My last server research was one of supermicro mATX boards, LV Xeon, 4 DIMMS, LSI controller or NAS, big Scythe or Noctua cooler..

[dZeus]

RE: Noisy T43:

You can dissassemble cooler without any tools (remove cooler, open copper tabs, remove metal cover, pull out fan - it's not attached just planted inside) add a drop of oil for sewing machines to sleeve, clean fan with brush and reassemble it.

Then use ThinkpadFanControl utility if you don't use it already.

What happened to the T60p?

The heatsink-fan unit has been replaced by a T42 model, as it is known to be less noisy than the T43 model. It helps, but still is too noisy to my liking. I briefly looked at disassembling the native T43 unit, but didn't manage to open it up easily. Might look at it again...

TPFancontrol is in use; I let it spin up above level 3 when any temperature gets above 60C. In practice this means the machine is mostly hovering between 50 and 60C under normal use, and around 65 with fan level 7 under load. The loudness of fan level 7 is especially annoying, and level 3 is not that quiet either in a tranquil environment.

re the T60p: I've never owned one (although I wish I had the 15" model with the 1600x1200 IPS screen)

The last time I researched server components, mini ITX while attractive prooved to be too limiting. What about mATX + LV Xeon + 4 DIMMS or just mini HP or other OEM desktop?

My last server research was one of supermicro mATX boards, LV Xeon, 4 DIMMS, LSI controller or NAS, big Scythe or Noctua cooler..

mATX is an option, but I don't like the case options available so far. Compact cases to my liking are rather excessively expensive (200-300 euro range).

the ATOM mini-ITX board offers 4x DIMM with ECC support. Maybe there are previous generation mini-ITX Xeon boards with 4x full size DIMM too... might look into that (at the cost of higher power draw during idle).

[Jammrock]

hmmm that page tells me the E3-1230v3 is about 1.5-2x as fast as the C2750.

The E3-1230Lv3 has 1.8 GHz clockspeed vs 3.3 for the non-L version. This indicates that the performance gap between the C2750 and the E3 1230Lv3 should be way smaller... except for those instructions which the Xeon executes at full speed, and which are way slower on the ATOM (e.g. FPU, AES-NI, SSE3/4, etc.); unless the C2750 behaves differently from the Bay Trail CPU in this regard (I have my doubts about that assumption, as they both should be Silvermont architecture).

Another issue is finding a mini-ITX motherboard which takes 4 DIMMs for the Xeon, in order to reach 32GB RAM. Not an easy job.

Concerning the case, I'm actually not very worried about the temperature. What worries me is the 60W PSU, which might be rather on the low end after a couple of years of operation, when the usable power output slowly decreases (due to wearing out of components in a switching power supply).

The difference varied greatly between types workloads. In some benchmarks they were 2x faster, in others they were 4+x faster. Your Xeons are general purpose processors, the Avaton's are very workload specific. And the new Avaton's have AES-NI instructions as well, but lack most of the other general purpose instruction sets.

My home server is an old slow AMD Athlon NEO N40L. Dual-core old tech at 1.5GHz and 4GB RAM. As a NAS, media streamer, web server and domain server it works just fine. Unless you're going to put major floating point intensive workloads on your server the Avaton should work fine.

I've never seen a mini-ITX with more than 2 DIMMs. Micro ATX does, but those boards are much larger in comparison.

[dZeus]

yes, further research indeed does not seem to provide me other 4-dimm-slots-bearing mini-ITX boards (btw, the Asrock Avaton board does sport 4 regular size DIMM slots!).

Keep in mind that the Silvermont architecture notionally supports most of the instruction set goodness that Haswell has (AES-NI, SSE, etc.), their implementation differs greatly. A lot of instructions are not actually run at the same speed as on a Xeon, probably because they are emulated / or implemented in a die-space optimized way rather than for maximum speed of execution (least clock cycles).

[Jammrock]

Yeah, I noticed 4 DIMMs on the mini-ITX Avaton boards. Must be because of the smaller, embedded CPU.

Avaton does look like a nice platform for a home server. Can do virtualization and has a decent amount of power for regular server tasks.

[Evildead666]

I understood Avoton boards were really just for having "better" networked appliances.
Its not really for server work of any kind, apart from network related work. I thought they came with 4-8 intergrated intel LAN PHY's ? (I might be confusing with another Atom-based chip).
Generally, ATOM based machines will be very very ppor at Folding, and if you fold and ask it to do server stuff, it won't be very useful.
Your P4 system might end up faster.

As for Micro-ATX cases, I have just bought a Fractal Design Arc Mini R2, since it looks pretty sleek (No annoying fancy colours, or silly cutouts, or plastic 'beautification').
It also has plenty of room for watercooling. or Aircooling.

The In WIn Dragon Slayer micro-ATX was also a favorite of mine, due to the possibility of putting a couple of 51/4 inch hard drive bays in the bottom, near the psu and the SATA ports on the mobo.
It was never really on sale here though.

[dZeus]

I understood Avoton boards were really just for having "better" networked appliances.
Its not really for server work of any kind, apart from network related work. I thought they came with 4-8 intergrated intel LAN PHY's ? (I might be confusing with another Atom-based chip).
Generally, ATOM based machines will be very very ppor at Folding, and if you fold and ask it to do server stuff, it won't be very useful.
Your P4 system might end up faster.

As for Micro-ATX cases, I have just bought a Fractal Design Arc Mini R2, since it looks pretty sleek (No annoying fancy colours, or silly cutouts, or plastic 'beautification').
It also has plenty of room for watercooling. or Aircooling.

The In WIn Dragon Slayer micro-ATX was also a favorite of mine, due to the possibility of putting a couple of 51/4 inch hard drive bays in the bottom, near the psu and the SATA ports on the mobo.
It was never really on sale here though.

That's Rangeley, a version of Avoton with a CryptoEngine for accelerating commonly used cryptographic algorithms.

The Silvermont architecture cannot really be compared with previous ATOMs, it's an entirely different beast. out-of-order execution, support for 64-bit, much better IPC, etc. The page that Jammrock linked gives you a good impression of how fast the latest generation of ATOM is.

Certain instructions, such as part of SSE, FPU and AES-NI are much faster on the 'Core' processor architecture, but for generic use the ATOM is not that slow any more.

As for cases:
I prefer mini-ITX because the cases can be very small (low volume). The best micro-ATX cases I've found are at least 3 times as big, and are considerably more expensive than mini-ITX. micro-atx cases I like :
- Silverstone LC-19 (9.2 litres)
- Streacom FC5WS (8.5 litres)

... as compared to the MS-Tech CI-70 mini-itx case with 3.4 litres. There are even smaller options available such as the Silverstone PT13 if one choses the thin mini-itx formfactor. However, I haven't seen any server motherboards for that formfactor; one would be restricted to using non-ECC RAM and a consumer-grade CPU.

as far as the server goes:
I'll probably buy a second hand i3 dual core + RAM and use an ATX motherboard I've received for free for now. I'll re-evaluate which mini-itx motherboard options with 4 ECC-capable DIMM slots are available in about a year, and then make the decision to go either with Avoton + mini-ITX or L-series Xeon + micro-ATX.

[Evildead666]

Ah my mistake.

I know the Atom chips are now OoO, and are much much better than they used to be.
I'd be very very happy if they could come up with one of these with the latest Atom chips in it :

http://www.myviliv.com/v4/product/n5/n5.asp?PKIND=SPEC

And a slightly bigger screen, that is probably 16/9 or 19/10. There are so many phone screen to choose from now with HD or Full HD resolution...

edit: The i3 is probably a much better choice.
The extra power it gives, for such a small increase in power consumtion will blow any Atom out of the water, even the latest ones.

[dZeus]

Ah my mistake.

I know the Atom chips are now OoO, and are much much better than they used to be.
I'd be very very happy if they could come up with one of these with the latest Atom chips in it :

http://www.myviliv.com/v4/product/n5/n5.asp?PKIND=SPEC

And a slightly bigger screen, that is probably 16/9 or 19/10. There are so many phone screen to choose from now with HD or Full HD resolution...

edit: The i3 is probably a much better choice.
The extra power it gives, for such a small increase in power consumtion will blow any Atom out of the water, even the latest ones.

In the end I bought an i5-750 (quad core). Only realized just now that it does not have a GPU! I hope the motherboard accepts an old OAK PCI VGA card I have lying around...

A socket 1156 32nm i3 would probably have been more energy efficient because of much lower idle power draw, but I kind of like the idea of having the horsepower of a quad core, and this i5 was only 20 euros more than an i3.

[UtwigMU]

I hope the motherboard accepts an old OAK PCI VGA card I have lying around...

What kind of Matrox user are you. Go ebay Millennium, G200 or G450 I was actually using Millennium PCI untill last year in my server.

And on friday I had to reuse an old PC (Debian) to test hosting of website (it actually hosted test site online) and I'm using G400 DH. My test webserver is presently some VIA mobo, 754 Sempron 1.6 64-bit, 512DDR, G400, WD1200JB (put together from parts I had laying around). For some reason the board doesn't recognise SATA drives but 120GB is enough for simple website.

I'm actually thinking of rebuilding Parhelia box with Core2 or high end P4 or Opteron 185 and 3 17"s

[dZeus]

ok, ok, I'll use the Mystique 220 instead...

[Umfriend]

I loved that card (the Mystique 220). That was, uhm, 1998??