TopHatProductions115 · @TopHatPrdxns115
25th Jun 2019 from TwitLonger
Why Project Personal Datacentre Needs to be Reorginised - ASAP
Okay - here's the deal. Plan 3 for Project Personal Datacentre is probably a bust, due to one major flaw - the way HP/HPE decided to implement support for graphics accelerators. Instead of allowing for use of off-the-shelf PCI-e x16 and MXM expansion cards, they decided to make a custom form factor that utilises MXM, but does not allow for easy adapting over to such. Here are a few of the sources I picked this up from:
- https://hardforum.com/threads/can-you-use-hp-mezzanine-cards-on-pci-e.1576593/#post-1037786652
- http://bladesmadesimple.com/2016/09/gpus-and-blade-servers-a-good-idea/
While there appears to be a solution mentioned in the first source:
- http://www.dyneng.com/pciexpress.html
There is no guarantee that this will work for the AIBs that I intend to use (primarily Graphics and Audio adapters), or that I will be able to figure out how to use them in a timely fashion (assuming that they aren't PnP). As such, I've decided to move away from the HPE BladeSystem c7000 (and by extension, most of HP's solutions), and will be researching motherboards instead. Here are the requirements:
- CPU Sockets: 2
- Socket Type: LGA2011
- chipset(s): Intel C606, C608, or C612
- SATA ports: 6 or more
- RAM slots: 8 or more
- PCI-e x16 slots: at least 3
- PCI-e x8/x4: at least 2
- Built-in Video: not required, but is welcome
- Built-in Audio: not required, but is welcome
- Built-in NIC: Ethernet 1Gbps or better - 2 ports would be nice
- NOTE: USB 3 and other niceties are fine
a decent BIOS/EFI would be great
decent spacing between PCI-e slots is a God-send
NUMA anyone? :P
Here are some good candidate examples:
- GIGABYTE MD70-HB1 (LGA2011, E-ATX)
- SUPERMICRO MBD-X9DR3-F-O (LGA2011, SSI EEB)
- SUPERMICRO MBD-X10DAX-O (LGA2011, E-ATX)
Here are some that are DOA (Ded on Arrival):
- SUPERMICRO MBD-X10DAL-I-O (LGA2011, ATX)
- SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SRA-O (LGA2011, ATX)
- anything where either the slots have terrible spacing, or the chipset is below C606
Here's a few nice videos to watch - completely unrelated...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ISeiuq84ws
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-bYiqXjrm8