Rig Recommendation For Company

[86technie]

That would have been a superficial comparison between the consume grade i5/7 core chipset versus the xeon chipsets.

The major difference between Xeon chipset and the rest is the capability to have multi sockets within the same motherboard. Another is that only Xeon chipset support ECC memory which are necessary for mission critical systems. Xeon also have longer longevity compared to i7. When it comes to in-chipset cache, xeon chips are designed with more.

I guess other than those obvious differences, when it comes to durability, one can only find out if putting 2 systems one i7 and one Xeon side by side in a data centre for testing. Unfortunately I think they would be hard since we uses rack form factor in data centres and these enclosures are design rather differently from the pedestal form factor, and so for durability, everything from airflow and vibrations and so forth comes into play, but I have not really come across 1U rack server boards that will accommodate i5/i7 chipsets.

i5/i7 usually are not in the form of 1U rack but rather a workstation
acting as a server. In the past I do have such a server but later was replaced with 1U server fundamentally it isn't that reliable.

Time to time it hang unknowingly thus have to change it.

 

[hawthorne]

For database servers, u might want to up both ur RAM and number of disks in ur array,

Creation of memory pools for ur database can easily consume large amount of RAMs. U need more disks to allow higher I/Os for ur data pools.

While u r at it, pls think of a backup and HA solution. U will appreciate it when things break...... and things will break. Its just a question of when only

I can see why u want to cut costs, but industry servers from the usual vendors (HP, IBM, Dell etc) costs more for a reason. They provide the proper design and architecture for business contingencies and continuity. These hardware are designed for redundancy, ensuring u can still continue to operate when things break. The service standards u purchase will also play a part.

For instance, we purchased the 2hr on site support for most of our hardware. and when a hardware breaks, their support engineer ensured that they reaches our site within 2 hrs. For hardware failures that are easily rectified, we were up and running within the next 1-2 hrs.

All these cost $$$ and add to ur operating cost, and u might not see the benefits in the short term. When things breaks and ur business comes to a halt, customers come breathing down at u, contract milestone slips, customers exercise LD against u, u will think why did I skim and save on these.

Not trying to scare u, but I'm speaking from experience.

Like someone else has advised, if u do not have the resources to handle those, outsourcing is something to consider.

 

[shsh91]

That would have been a superficial comparison between the consume grade i5/7 core chipset versus the xeon chipsets.

The major difference between Xeon chipset and the rest is the capability to have multi sockets within the same motherboard. Another is that only Xeon chipset support ECC memory which are necessary for mission critical systems. Xeon also have longer longevity compared to i7. When it comes to in-chipset cache, xeon chips are designed with more.

I guess other than those obvious differences, when it comes to durability, one can only find out if putting 2 systems one i7 and one Xeon side by side in a data centre for testing. Unfortunately I think they would be hard since we uses rack form factor in data centres and these enclosures are design rather differently from the pedestal form factor, and so for durability, everything from airflow and vibrations and so forth comes into play, but I have not really come across 1U rack server boards that will accommodate i5/i7 chipsets.

There are server boards that support i5 and i7 in 1U Chassis.
You can look at supermicro X11SSZ-F and CSE-813MTQ-350CB
This board includes 2 DP and 1 DVi-I for integrated GPU and VGA for IPMI.

Even i5/i7 does not spoil easily. HDDs will be the first to fail followed by PSU.

 

[hawthorne]

There are server boards that support i5 and i7 in 1U Chassis.
You can look at supermicro X11SSZ-F and CSE-813MTQ-350CB
This board includes 2 DP and 1 DVi-I for integrated GPU and VGA for IPMI.

Even i5/i7 does not spoil easily. HDDs will be the first to fail followed by PSU.

True. That's y factor enuf HDD for redundancy

 

[davidktw]

There are server boards that support i5 and i7 in 1U Chassis.
You can look at supermicro X11SSZ-F and CSE-813MTQ-350CB
This board includes 2 DP and 1 DVi-I for integrated GPU and VGA for IPMI.

Even i5/i7 does not spoil easily. HDDs will be the first to fail followed by PSU.

Thanks for the info on the server boards. It will not be a fair comparison between harddisk and chipsets. It am discussing on the durability between xeon and normal consumer class processors. Harddisks are always ready to be expendable because what we are really concern with is data, not the storage media.

 

[darkarn]

That would have been a superficial comparison between the consume grade i5/7 core chipset versus the xeon chipsets.

The major difference between Xeon chipset and the rest is the capability to have multi sockets within the same motherboard. Another is that only Xeon chipset support ECC memory which are necessary for mission critical systems. Xeon also have longer longevity compared to i7. When it comes to in-chipset cache, xeon chips are designed with more.

I guess other than those obvious differences, when it comes to durability, one can only find out if putting 2 systems one i7 and one Xeon side by side in a data centre for testing. Unfortunately I think they would be hard since we uses rack form factor in data centres and these enclosures are design rather differently from the pedestal form factor, and so for durability, everything from airflow and vibrations and so forth comes into play, but I have not really come across 1U rack server boards that will accommodate i5/i7 chipsets.

Thanks, I didn't consider the ability of using 2 physical CPUs as an advantage. But the ability to use ECC memory is an advantage for server usage for sure (even though there's still the debate on how effective it is, but that's another debate for another thread...)

I am just not sure that Xeons are better than i7s in terms of longevity; what statistics should we look to confirm this?

 

[davidktw]

I am just not sure that Xeons are better than i7s in terms of longevity; what statistics should we look to confirm this?

This probably would be hard to find unless one is working in a data centre and monitoring project that have such mixture. Guess you just have to google for it

People that opt for xeon largely are business purposes, if you are large enough and your business actually offload management of these machines to other parties, it is not likely something else unless sanction by support and warranties. In enterprises that I have come across, they all opted for xeon class machines.

What do you think are more expensive ? The differences between a i7 core and xeon machine or the labour cost and business downtime cost ? When you have a machine running for a project across 3 years, the machine cost difference are negligible. And so this is a risk cost balance.

 

[darkarn]

This probably would be hard to find unless one is working in a data centre and monitoring project that have such mixture. Guess you just have to google for it

People that opt for xeon largely are business purposes, if you are large enough and your business actually offload management of these machines to other parties, it is not likely something else unless sanction by support and warranties. In enterprises that I have come across, they all opted for xeon class machines.

What do you think are more expensive ? The differences between a i7 core and xeon machine or the labour cost and business downtime cost ? When you have a machine running for a project across 3 years, the machine cost difference are negligible. And so this is a risk cost balance.

"Penny wise pound foolish" applies a lot here right I guess? No sense in trying to save money by getting cheaper parts if that will cost you your business.

And looks like it will be a while before I can find the data; it's not as if this is as hotly debated as compared to HDD brands (which Backblaze kindly provided the data for!)