More Power To Us Part 1: Wolverine
Saturday, June 24th, 2006 at 3:57 pm by zack
In the recent weeks, we’ve been dealing with an increased amount of user traffic on our guide data servers. This has meant slower guide data download times during peak hours for some users. The servers providing the data up to this point were in no way underpowered (dual processor Xeon, 4gb ram, 10k rpm SCSI drives, ect), but just weren’t up to the task.
So we went shopping!
The requirements were simple: Pack enough horsepower into a 1u (that’s geek speak for really small) chassis to fix the problem and provide scalability for the future….. without breaking the bank.
We looked into HP, Gateway, Dell and Custom Built solutions, comparing the price and feature sets available at each level. In the end, the brand new Dell 1950 chassis was exactly what we were looking for.
Given Dell’s crazy pricing schemes and freebies, we were able to secure a Xeon, Dual Core, Dual Processor, HyperThreaded, 3.0ghz box with dual 146gb 10k rpm drives across a Perc 5/i controller without going over budget. If you know servers, then you get the picture. If you don’t know servers, then suffice it to say that this box is Honkin!
Gratuitous Server Shots:
We put Wolverine into service this morning without too much trouble. Knock on wood…. when you get guide data tonight, it should be from the new box.
What’s next?
Well, on top of a processor shortage for the guide data, we also need a little bit of extra drive space to house a few things.
Juggernaut will be born next week. Evil Laugh.
Keep in mind, the drives shown in the picture will only fill 1/4 of the hot swap bays of the new machine. Another Evil Laugh.
Here’s a teaser of some of it’s parts (yes, those are 500gb drives):
In the recent weeks, we’ve been dealing with an increased amount of user traffic on our guide data servers. This has meant slower guide data download times during peak hours for some users. The servers providing the data up to this point were in no way underpowered (dual processor Xeon, 4gb ram, 10k rpm SCSI drives, ect), but just weren’t up to the task.
So we went shopping!
The requirements were simple: Pack enough horsepower into a 1u (that’s geek speak for really small) chassis to fix the problem and provide scalability for the future….. without breaking the bank.
We looked into HP, Gateway, Dell and Custom Built solutions, comparing the price and feature sets available at each level. In the end, the brand new Dell 1950 chassis was exactly what we were looking for.
Given Dell’s crazy pricing schemes and freebies, we were able to secure a Xeon, Dual Core, Dual Processor, HyperThreaded, 3.0ghz box with dual 146gb 10k rpm drives across a Perc 5/i controller without going over budget. If you know servers, then you get the picture. If you don’t know servers, then suffice it to say that this box is Honkin!
Gratuitous Server Shots:
We put Wolverine into service this morning without too much trouble. Knock on wood…. when you get guide data tonight, it should be from the new box.
What’s next?
Well, on top of a processor shortage for the guide data, we also need a little bit of extra drive space to house a few things.
Juggernaut will be born next week. Evil Laugh.
Keep in mind, the drives shown in the picture will only fill 1/4 of the hot swap bays of the new machine. Another Evil Laugh.
Here’s a teaser of some of it’s parts (yes, those are 500gb drives):
