File Servers

Spitfire

Motherboard

• The motherboard in spitfire is a consumer ASUS P5NT Deluxe, featuring a Core2Quad CPU at 2.66GHz. 8GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400, CL 5-5-5-18) is installed, filling all RAM slots. There are three PCI-E slots: 1st PCI-Ex16 has 3Ware RAID controller; 2nd PCI-Ex16 has Intel quad-NIC; 3rd PCI-Ex16 has HP SCSI controller. At initial deployment (June 2008), motherboard/RAID refuse to talk about MBR/1st-stage boot; workaround is to grub-install to a USB thumb-drive.
• Asus P5NT Deluxe Manual

Chenbro 4U Chassis

The Chenbro RM414 features triple/redundant power supplies, and 16 front-accessible, latching hard-drive bays - drives slide in on caddies, and the drives themselves plug directly onto the SATA backplane.

• Chenbro RM414 4U rackmount chassis manual
• 4-Port SAS/SATA2 Backplane User's Manual

3Ware RAID

• True hardware-RAID, with 16 SATA ports. These are physically bundled into four cables-of-four (multilane), which connect to the chassis backplane. This chassis backplane accepts plug-in hard-drives, without the need to connect individual cables.
• 3Ware 9650SE RAID Controller Installation Guide

SCSI Controller

• External SCSI is included for the sole purpose of connecting an external LTO3 tape-drive - backups.
• HP SCSI SC11SE PCI-E Adapter

Networking

• An Intel four-GigE-ports adapter is used, which features a lot of dedicated hardware to offload the main CPU. We then "bond" (link aggregation) all four ports into a single, virtual 4GB/s port (the other end of the connection - data switch - must also be LAG-enabled)
• Intel Pro/1000 EXPI9404PTL Quad-NIC Brief

Hurricane

Motherboard

• The motherboard in hurricane is a consumer ASUS P5NT Deluxe, featuring a Core2Quad CPU at 2.66GHz. 8GB DDR2-800 (PC2-6400, CL 5-5-5-18) is installed, filling all RAM slots. There are three PCI-E slots: 1st PCI-Ex16 has 3Ware RAID controller; 2nd PCI-Ex16 has Intel quad-NIC; 3rd PCI-Ex16 has HP SCSI controller. At initial deployment (June 2008), motherboard/RAID refuse to talk about MBR/1st-stage boot; workaround is to grub-install to a USB thumb-drive.
• Asus P5NT Deluxe Manual

Chenbro 4U Chassis

The Chenbro RM414 features triple/redundant power supplies, and 16 front-accessible, latching hard-drive bays - drives slide in on caddies, and the drives themselves plug directly onto the SATA backplane.

• Chenbro RM414 4U rackmount chassis manual
• 4-Port SAS/SATA2 Backplane User's Manual

3Ware RAID

• True hardware-RAID, with 16 SATA ports. These are physically bundled into four cables-of-four (multilane), which connect to the chassis backplane. This chassis backplane accepts plug-in hard-drives, without the need to connect individual cables.
• 3Ware 9650SE RAID Controller Installation Guide

SCSI Controller

• External SCSI is included for the sole purpose of connecting an external LTO3 tape-drive - backups.
• HP SCSI SC11SE PCI-E Adapter

Networking

• An Intel four-GigE-ports adapter is used, which features a lot of dedicated hardware to offload the main CPU. We then "bond" (link aggregation) all four ports into a single, virtual 4GB/s port (the other end of the connection - data switch - must also be LAG-enabled)
• Intel Pro/1000 EXPI9404PTL Quad-NIC Brief

Musashi

Motherboard

• The motherboard in musashi is a Tyan S3022, configured with two Xeon 2.66GHz CPU's. All RAM slots are currently full: 4 pieces of 1GB ECC PC3200 (although it only required PC2100, this lower-spec memory is no longer available (June 2007)).
• Each (of two) PCI-X 64-bit slots has a single-port NIC. No slots are available.
• Tyan S3022 Manaul

Yamato

Motherboard

• The motherboard in yamato is a Tyan S2721, configured with two Xeon 2.66GHz CPU's. Four (of six) RAM slots are currently filled: 4 pieces of 1GB ECC PC3200 (although it only required PC2100, this lower-spec memory is no longer available (June 2007)).
• Each (of two) PCI-X 64-bit slots has a single-port NIC.
• The single PCI 32-bit slot has a 3Ware 7006-2 RAID controller. No slots are available.
• Tyan S2721 Manual