01.28.07
Server Upgrade Time
Seems like it was around this time last year that I was talking about upgrading the Linux server to a dual Athlon XP machine. Well, things didn’t work out exactly as planned. Unfortunately, it seems making hardware do what it’s not supposed to do isn’t the best strategy if you need a totally stable system. Almost as soon as I got the system up and running, there would be random crashes, freezes, and strange error messages. Sometimes a simple reboot would fix things but at other times, the system would just freeze again immediately and repeatedly. Worst of all, the crashes would often result in a rebuild of the RAID array. Any drive failure during a rebuild and it’s (to quote Burke from the movie Aliens) Adios Muchachos.
So, it’s out with the old and in with the new. Well, not quite. The old is still in while the new is still being built and configured. The new system is set up as a bench build and if you’re wondering what a bench build is, allow me to direct you to the image below.
It’s literally a computer built on top of a bench, or in this case, a desk. For the most part, just put the motherboard on a static bag (to make sure it’s not grounded) and hook up all your components. Of course, this is a temporary setup and you really should put everything in a computer case. Like a human, it is possible to walk around with your internal organs hanging out, but you don’t see anyone doing that (for very long).
Let’s take a quick look at the what and why, as in what are the parts you’re looking at and why did I pick those.
- Processor - AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ - This is the low end of the AMD dual-core (meaning there are 2 CPUs on one “chip”) line. At this price point, AMD is still price/performance king. As an extra bonus, the X2 lineup comes with virtualization support, more on that later.
- Motherboard - Abit NF-M2 - This motherboard uses the Nvidia nForce 6150 chipset. A non-gaming system doesn’t have a need for a high end video card and even a discrete video card adds extra cost to the system, so the integrated video in perfect. It’s also got all the modern amenities you’d expect including a DVI connector, SATA connectors, and PCI-E slots. My only complaint is the motherboard only comes in mATX form factor. I would have preferred the extra flexibility of having a full ATX motherboard.
- RAM - 2×512 MB Corsair DDR2-800 - It’s important to match the speed of your RAM to the speed of the rest of your system. In this case, it’s 800MHz or DDR2-800. The next question is how much to get? 512 MB is usually enough in this case, but I went with 1 GB for hopefully a bit of future-proofing. The next question is one stick or two? Cost wise, the 2 options are about the same. If you use 2 sticks, you get to enable dual-channel access (for slightly increased performance) at the cost of using an extra RAM slot.
- Hard Drive - Seagate 7200.10 250GB - Initially I was thinking to just get the cheapest SATA hard drive, but looking at the prices, $80 for 250 GB (vs. $50 for an 80 GB) is pretty much a no brainer. Seagate offers a 5-year warranty on all of its hard drives, most other manufacturers only offer 3, nice to have a little extra piece of mind.
- Power Supply - Seasonic S12-430 - It’s a sad reality that you pretty much have to upgrade your power supply every time you upgrade your system. Manufacturers these days are releasing ever more power hungry devices that also require new and exotic connectors. It’s getting bad enough that you’re starting to see power supplies output power measured in the kilowatts. Ok, enough ranting. Seasonic has a reputation of make very quiet, reliable, and efficient power supplies (these are all very good things). The 430 W unit seems like a bit of overkill for the system specs, but a little extra room in case of future upgrades never hurt.
The rest of the parts will be carried over from the old system. Now I’m looking for a case to house this new computer. Although the current Inwin Q2000 case is nice, I have to take the whole damn thing apart every time I want to change something. Well, that’s all for the hardware. Next is the delicate process of moving data from one system to another. This includes physically moving the RAID array, and while I have any idea how it’ll work in theory, theory has a funny way of being very different from real life. In addition, I need to make sure that all of the old services get reinstalled on the new machine. But that’s going to have to wait for another day.