comments about hardware

[Faheem Mitha]

Dear People,

My bioinformatics research group at Duke is buying a server, which will mostly 
be used as a server, particularly for web based services. The idea here is that 
a user will submit a request for some bioinformatics calculation via a web 
interface (often using Python or R or similar), the server does the 
calculation, and returns it as a web page.

None of us are experts about recent hardware, so would appreciate any feedback 
about hardware specs.

The following quote is from Monarch Computers.

We plan to run Linux on this. It has not yet been decided yet what, but it 
seems most likely that it will be either some Red Hat variant (Fedora Core, 
CentOS), or Debian (possibly Ubuntu).

Ok, so here are some specific questions.

1) Dual core Opterons first came on the market in April. The sales rep 
said that AMD Dual Core Opterons did not work with Fedora Core, which does 
not seem promising.

Any idea what the status is here? How well are they supported, and how 
stably do they run under Linux?

Also, I was told that a dual core Opteron, which is somewhat more than twice 
the cost two regular Opterons of similar speed, is not equivalent to two 
regular Opterons in functionality. Can anyone point me to information about 
this, or offer a comment?

2) I'm wondering if the listed motherboard is the best choice. I see it listed 
in http://alioth.debian.org/docman/view.php/30192/27/mainboards.html

Apparently the motherboard itself works Ok with Fedora Core. It is only 
the Dual CPUs that are problematic.

We are looking for the motherboard that has the least known issues. Preferably 
something that will work right out of the box.

The specs are here http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8spro_spec.html

It looks like both the graphics card and the ethernet cards are onboard. Looks 
like the graphics card is ATI RAGE XL PCI, which supposedly works with the 
'ati' driver. Is this under XFree 4.3?

The ethernet cards are an Intel Ethernet Pro 100, which supposedly works with 
the e100 driver and a Gigabit Broadcom which works with the tg3 driver. There 
seem to be two cards here. Is that correct?

I'm kinda allergic to onboard cards. They are often trouble.

Has anyone had experience with Fedora Core with this? Does anyone have a 
board to suggest that they prefer to this?

3) I'm also wondering if peple have thoughts about the RAID setup. The rep said 
he would be using RAID 1, but I see RAID 10 is listed. I'll have to check on 
this. Anyway, assuming this corresponds to 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#RAID_10 with 
each RAID 1 set as two drives, and 4 RAID 1 sets striped together, does this 
seem reasonable?

Please CC me on any reply.

Thanks.                                                        Faheem.

***********************************************************************
ITEM                             NUM  PRICE PER ITEM TOT

Monarch Empro Custom 2U Rack S   1.00    75.00   75.00

RMC2K2-9I-XPSS,2U,8 Bays,SATA,   1.00   725.00   725.00

AIC 2U Riser Card/Rear Window    1.00   112.00   112.00

Tyan S2882G3NR-D Dual Socket94   1.00   394.00   394.00

Amd OSA265FAA6CB Dual Core Opt   2.00   851.00 1,702.00

Thermal Grease, Shin-Etsu G675   2.00    14.00    28.00

THERMALTAKE A1838 AMD Opteron    2.00    25.00    50.00

WESTERN DIGITAL 250 GB 2500JD    1.00   115.00   115.00

3WARE Escalade 9500S-8 - 8-por   1.00   485.00   485.00

RAID 10 Setup                    1.00    25.00    25.00

WESTERN DIGITAL 250 GB 2500JD    8.00    115.00  920.00

SONY DWD-56A 8X4X2.4 DVD RW+/-   1.00    129.00  129.00

SUSE Linux 9.3 Professional Ed   1.00     92.00   92.00

24/7 TECH SUPPORT+ONSITE 3 YR.   1.00    199.00  199.00

Net Order:                                     5,051.00
Freight:                                          75.00
                                                5,126.00