The "beast" is in the cage
Hello again guys, lots of changes last week. I finally got the time to post about it, so let's begin.
As you may know(if you read my previous post) I was waiting for a server, a HP DL580 g7 to be more specific(picture above). It has arrived 3 days ago. The setup was a bit tricky, but it works now. I will detail a bit the obstacles I had to face(skip the next paragraph if not interested).
I don't know if it is normal, or mine has something, but it usually takes about a minute before I get any video signal. After I figured that out(by accident while going to the bathroom) there came the second obstacle. Due to unknown alien intervention, my bootable USB drive decided to miss some part of the network driver(I think). Everything worked just fine, browser all good, except updater and software manager. No connection, failed to update. After 10 minutes, I decided to stop wasting time and made another Ubuntu USB drive. Everything worked like a charm. The interface is a bit laggy due to poor integrated graphics card(I bet it was not designed to run Ubuntu DE on it).
It got the nickname after blowing away the RAC of the other servers. Below you can see what I mean.
The HP DL360e is working for about a week and the R610 for about 2 weeks, while the DL580 has almost 3 days of activity.
The magnitude got a real kick after that. I was not expecting it to be that significant.
Besides that, I also got a proper server rack. I even put the logo on it. Starting to look professional(almost). Here is the beauty.
That was 2 days ago. Meanwhile I managed to clean up and arrange the servers better(still some cable management to be done, but is much better). Here is the inside now:
Still more work to do, first have to take care of the thermal issue. As you can see in the image above, there is a thermometer clock(screwdriver for scale). The first on the left is the temperature at the clock, the second is from a remote sensor mounted in the back about 1.7m high(and yes, is almost 1:00AM here). Will post again an update next week with RACs of the servers.
As always, thanks for reading and happy crunching.
Pretty cool! How much electricity do those servers consume?
Between 1100 and 1200Wh. DL580 is using about 700Wh, Dl360e about 200Wh, and R610 about 250Wh. The power usage fluctuate a bit due to temperature and usage, but is around that value. In the future I plan to make a DIY metered PDU. To be able to monitor the power usage of every server. I plan on using it to also detect issues in workflow by monitoring the power usage.
Oh, that's quiet a lot... I thought about looking out for used servers as well, but I cant affort that amount of additional electricity unfortunately. Well, and I also do not have the space 😅
Well, best bet is to go with newer ones. For example:
Dell R610 (equivalent gen 7) has 2x 4 ocre/8threads CPU and uses 250Wh
HP DL360 gen 8 has 2x 8 core/16 threads CPU and uses 200Wh
HP DL580 gen 7 has 4x 8 core/16 threads CPU and uses 700Wh
As you can see, the gen8 HP has double the core count as Dell and a power usage lower than it.
About the space, there are many ways. If you want just one or 2 servers, you do not need a rack. There are wall mounted supports and it can be wall mounted.
Very nice!
Thank you. Yes it is. I am very happy with the results.