Re: [gentoo-user]Computer build, was PCIe x1 or PCIe x4 SATA controller card

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 6:01 AM Frank Steinmetzger <Warp_7@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Gamer boards tend to skimp on ports, because those people generally care
> mostly for their GPU (plus design and RGB).

Well, that, and the CPU only has so many PCIe lanes and adding ports
beyond that requires a switch.  Also, if they have two 16x slots to
allow for dual graphics cards those eat up quite a few of the lanes
(even if one isn't actually 16x).

>
> Here, Linus is showcasing an 8-drives storage machine in a Fractal Define R4:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpJViwtct5g
> And here a system with 18 drives 🤪 in a Fractal Define 7XL:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAy9N1vX76o

I think a lot of the consumer cases have been moving away from
accommodating hard drives and making more room for gigantic GPUs.

All that said, I have largely abandoned the crusade of trying to
squeeze a dozen hard drives into one host, in favor of distributed
filesystems.  If you're only putting a few drives per host and having
more hosts then it becomes pretty easy to find hardware that works.

Finally, for any system that will be running 24x7 I'd suggest
optimizing for power use per unit of computation (which is a hard
figure to find), and idle power use (unless you actually do something
that keeps the server busy 24x7).  Usually newer processors will do
better here.  The up-front costs of a CPU are likely to be dwarfed by
the cost of powering it.  ARM is of course advantageous if you don't
need too much horsepower or RAM.  Unfortunately ARM boards with lots
of RAM are crazy-expensive so it isn't a great option if you need more
than a few GB.

There has been interest in using mini PCs from corporate used sales as
servers, and I'm thinking about building storage around a solution
like this.  The drives would need to be external of course, but USB3
is plenty fast for hard drives.  However, it is hard to find easy to
lookup metrics on power use and stats like USB3/etc - most filters on
used product sale sites just have filters for RAM and maybe CPU.  You
do need to be careful as some of those systems could have high power
draw or lack USB3 or even gigabit LAN, making them unsuitable for 24x7
storage.  The price and form factor can be very attractive though, and
power use still tends to be low since large companies do think about
those costs.

--
Rich





--
Rich