Show Off Your Server!

[Andreas]

Last autumn, I built 3 servers for a study project. People might be interested in the hw configs.

Server number 1 (single socket):
Before building the faster server, this one served as a kind of testbed. The goal was to configure it for good I/O performance.
i7-3930K, 64GB, 32 x SSDs via 4 LSI controllers, Mellanox 40 Gbit/sec network adapter

Fast I/O needs parallelism, like cpu bound programs need multicore cpus (or gpu's, if the application fits to this hw approach)


Before settling on the Samsung SSDs, I tested approx. 12 different SSDs for my workload. A few of those can be seen here.


one of the major benefits of the 4 memory channels of the LGA-2011 socket. They allow decent read performance beyond any LGA-1155 cpu.
16.7 GB/sec


Combined workloads with a simultaneous load on the cpu and io subsystem proofed the value of watercooling. The stock and be quiet air coolers limited overall performance. Using a watercooler increased overall performance by 30% on the non-overclocked cpu.
1.3 mio iops with 20 ssd. cpu is limiting the io subsystem here.


For flexibility and to facilitate many reconfigurations, i used long sata cables. Optically not nice, but useful.
This picture was taken when the stock vent was still on. wprime and super pi aren't taxing the CPU as heavily as for instance ycrunch, so the benefit of watercooling might not be as big.


This server was used for the record runs in ycrunch on calculating pi for 25, 50 and 100 billion digits in the category "single socket systems"
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post5153478


The other 2 servers had different design goals. One was build for peak io performance on 2 sockets, utilizing 2 x E5-2687W, 256 GB and 48 ssd's. The goal with the third server was to get 72 terabyte capacity under 150 watt on the plug outlet using one E3-1245v2


cheers,
Andy