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Date:      Fri, 8 Sep 2006 13:11:40 -0300 (ADT)
From:      "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org>
To:        Michael Vince <mv@thebeastie.org>
Cc:        freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org, freebsd-proliant@freebsd.org, Josef Grosch <jgrosch@juniper.net>
Subject:   Re: DL 380/G5 with 16G of ram
Message-ID:  <20060908130444.V64655@ganymede.hub.org>
In-Reply-To: <4500F627.1040104@thebeastie.org>
References:  <45008628.2000007@juniper.net> <4500F627.1040104@thebeastie.org>

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On Fri, 8 Sep 2006, Michael Vince wrote:

> I got a HP because I needed a new server fast and Dell claimed 4 weeks, 
> I will give you my run down on whats happened with me.

We're running 2xDL360 G4p's here, and so far, have been extremely happy 
with them ... third is about to be installed ...


> So far I am annoyed about many things, firstly at has no built in writeback 
> battery on the 256mg SAS controller which means no write cache which is 
> something you have to pay extra for from HP.
> In the Dells its built in, with 256mg battery backed writecache for 
> guaranteed filesystem consistency on sudden power loss,  write cache is 
> important and is otherwise a waste of a good machine if you need top write 
> performance, otherwise may as well get really low end stuff that has really 
> simple controller cards like supermicro etc.

'k, can't easily comment on this, but I swear the base system that I 
bought had the battery included ... I don't recall ever having ordered it 
seperately, and do know that when I first power on, I get a 'battery 
error' while it charges up ...

> Currently it took over 2 hours to build world, on Quad Xeon Core 2

Stupid question, but are all 4 CPUs working in the kernel?  I'll have to 
test on the new server once its online, but I'm only workign with Dual 
Xeon, no Dual-Core yet ...

> I have been doing all this while being on the other side of the world.
> The other problem is the remote serial support via tip for reaching into the 
> bios is quite stuffed, all the text garbles into a single line and is just to 
> hard to read, I hacked the minicom port to use the USB to 9pin serial device 
> to see if I could make it more like how people in linux would use it and it 
> made little difference.
> It looks like HP were trying to have better remote serial bios support by 
> going really basic command line style for remote BIOS control but its no 
> good.
> The Dell bios is all nice and menu'ed and works flawlessly over remote 
> serial, no garbledness overwriting other text.

Here, what is 'remote serial'?  Is that the same as REMCONS through iLO 
over SSH?  Again, will have to double check, as my other two machines are 
production right now, but my experience with iLO/REMCONS has been most 
pleasant, but, I also hook up two ethernet cables, I don't do the 'piggy 
backing' that I know is possible over one ...

> I gave up trying to do anything via the bios and aimed ta PXE remote 
> install, this worked after a total of 5 hours. It kept dieing out during 
> the install, I finally got it right once.

In my case, I put the server in a different room, no monitor or keyboard, 
CD in the drive, and did everything using REMCONS ... no problems ...

> Once I booted in a fresh FreeBSD 6.1-Release AMD64 install the 'bce' 
> ether device kept dieing and timing out, looking back I have no idea how 
> I managed to get a complete PXE remote install in the first place.

'k, in my case, its a bge device for ethernet ... haven't had any problems 
with it so far *cross fingers*

> There is no IPMI with HP even though it appears to be standard on most 
> other x86 servers. On the new Dell they now have IPMI v2, and I can use 
> a native FreeBSD IPMI client port for remote control. On HP it appears I 
> have to pay for some kind of LO software, this might be the reason for 
> useless uncontrollable remote 9pin serial for BIOS access.

There are two levels of iLO ... the server (at least the ones we've been 
buying) come with the 'basic iLO" standard, and then there is an advanced 
one that we've never felt a desire / requirement for ...



----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email . scrappy@hub.org                              MSN . scrappy@hub.org
Yahoo . yscrappy               Skype: hub.org        ICQ . 7615664



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