Re: New hardware thoughts

>> Yes I am looking at either the 2950 or the 6850. I think the only
>> think that the 6850 really offers me over the 2950 is more
>> expandability in the spare processor, and additional memory
> I see (in first mail) you plan to use bsd 6.1 on dell2950.
> --- flame on
> Off topic for postgresql performance , but i'd like to warn you
> neither perc5i crap nor network adapter got proper support for bsd
> 6.1 stable ( dell2950 box )
> dmesg -a | grep bce
> bce0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
> inet6 fe80::213:72ff:fe61:2ef6%bce1 prefixlen 64 tentative
> scopeid 0x2
> bce0: link state changed to UP
> bce0: /usr/src/sys/dev/bce/if_bce.c(5032): Watchdog timeout
> occurred, resetting!
> bce0: link state changed to DOWN
> bce0: link state changed to UP
> uname -a
> FreeBSD xxx 6.1-STABLE FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE #0: xxx:/usr/obj/usr/
> src/sys/customkenelcompiled-30-Aug-2006 i386
> Problem with (latest?) raid perc is that only one logical volume is
> supported.
> You may find some bits of info on freebsd mailing lists.
> At least for n/w card problem i see no solution until now.
> 3 month old history: due to buggy firmware on maxtor disks sold by
> dell 2 servers from our server farm having raid5 crashed and data
> on raid array was lost.
> We were lucky to have proper replication solution.
> If you decide to choose 2950, you have to use linux instead of bsd
> 6.1 . Also buy 2 boxes instead of 1 and set up slony replication
> for redundancy.
> go dell , go to hell.
> --- flame off
>
> good luck!

Thanks Alvis, its good to hear this sort of problem before one
commits to a purchase decision!

I guess it makes the HP's Joshua mentioned in a reply more promising.
Are there any other suppliers I should be looking at do you think.
I'm keen on FreeBSD to be honest rather than Linux (I don't want to
start any holy wars on this as its not the place) as then its the
same as all my other servers, so support / sysadmin is easier if they
are all the same.

How about the Fujitsu Siemens Sun Clones? I have not really looked at
them but have heard the odd good thing about them.

Ben