DoC Private Cloud: Commodity Storage Servers

CSG are investigating the hardware that could be used to realise the DoC cloud. This page describes various commodity hardware options for storage nodes.

Under this category, we require servers with many disk-slots. We chose a 2.5in disk form-factor over a 3.5in one since we prefer more spindles rather than raw capacity. In addition, RAID re-build speeds will be faster with smaller-capacity 2.5in disks. The current maximum capacity of Enterprise 2.5in drives, however, is 1TB.

We considered HP, Dell, IBM and Oracle (Sun).

HP

HP ProLiant DL380p Gen 8 Server Quote from ProLinx (ICT's server supplier): £10,208.00.

• 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2650 2.00GHz, eight-core CPUs.
• Sixteen 2.5in drive-bay slots (populated with 1TB SAS 7200RPM hard-disks).
• 64GB DDR3 @ 1600MHz ECC RAM.

Dell

Dell PowerEdge R720xd Quote from Dell: £7,173.99.

• 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2640 six-core 2.5Ghz CPUs
• Twenty-four 2.5in drive-bay slots (populated with 1TB SAS 7200RPM hard-disks).
• Two rear 2.5in drive-bay slots (populated with 146GB SAS 15000RPM hard-disks).
• 64GB DDR3 @ 1600MHz ECC RAM.
• 2 x 10GbE NICs.

Alternatively, it costs £5,965.00 for the same configuration with twelve 3.5in drive-bay slots populated with 2TB SAS 7200RPM hard-disks.

IBM

IBM System x3650 M4 Quote from QAssociates: £10,188.70.

• 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2640 six-core 2.5Ghz CPUs.
• fourteen 2.5in 1TB SAS 7200RPM hard-disks.
• two 146GB SAS 15000RPM hard-disks.
• 64GB DDR3 @ 1600MHz ECC RAM.
• 2 x 10GbE NICs.

SUN/ORACLE

Sun Fire X4270 M3 Server No quote; known to be quite expensive. Can be configured like the Dell PowerEdge R720xd.