Router Spec, March 2013 - Colo - riseup collective - groups

Case and mainboard use Supermicro’s “Universal I/O” spec, which lets you have 3 I/O cards on a 1U server (2 full height, 1 low profile). This way we can add 2 4-port gig cards to get the port count we need.

Case options:

4 disk SC111LT-330U $207.50
8 disk SC113TQ-330UB(no product page, similar to this 500W version) $297.50

mainboard: X9SPU-F $204.95

CPU Options:

1220LV2 2 core (4 thread) 3.5MB cache 17W $219.65
1265LV2 4 core (8 thread) 9MB cache 45W $323.75

I/O Risers:

Supermicro RSC-R1UU-UE16 – 1 UIO, 1 PCI-E(x16), Passive $23.50(interpro)
Supermicro RSC-R1UU-E8R+ – 1U Riser Card – Right Slot – 1 PCIe x8 LP $18.50(interpro)

network card:

2x Intel E1G44HTBLK Server Adapter I340-T4, PCI-E 2.1 x4, $253(newegg) $299(interpro)
( AOC-UG-i4 $198.50 each → $397 NOTE uses UIO so only one can go in the machine and is more expensive and less flexible so we’re not using it )

RAM options, DDR3-1660 ECC/Reg:

2x 4gb $43.95 → $87.90
2x 8gb $71.50 → $143

heatsink: SNK-P0046P $19.25

disk: 2x Intel 520 60gb SSDs $106.50 → $213 (or something bigger ~$400)

Potential Totals:
Lowest config: 4 disk case, 2 core cpu, 8gb ram, small SSDs: $1349.25
Highest config: 8 disk case, 4 core cpu, 16gb ram, larger SSDs: $1785.45

Trade offs:

Having more disk slots gives us more flexibility for adding or resuing the case later, at a cost of $90
Having 4 cores instead of 2 gives us more capacity and flexibility for reuse, at a cost of $104 and 45W cpu instead of 17W cpu (although the 45W will run at lower power if not in use)
Having 16gb instead of 8gb RAM isn’t needed now, but will allow us to keep the hardware longer for other uses, at a cost of $55 (and uses a few more watts of power).
Having large SSDs isn’t needed now, but allows us to keep them longer, at a cost of ~$200


taggart 2013-03-04	Right now the cogent fiber goes into a procurve switch and then into nuthatch, but if we wanted we could add a fiber card to the new router and connect it directly. This would save a little power and me one less thing to fail, but maybe complicates things? If we ever setup a dual router config we’d probably still need an interconnect device in from of them (but maybe not the current one).


Micah 2013-03-05	I’d vote for the highest RAM, fastest CPU smallest disk configuration: 4 disk SC111LT-330U 1265LV2 4 core (8 thread) 9MB cache 45W 2 AOC-UG-i4 2×8gb I’d say we dont want to have that much storage on the machine, I’d even say we don’t need a raid mirror because we are going to do a fail-over machine set.


taggart 2013-03-05	I think having multiple disks is useful for the “need to run badblocks on the disk” case, but I think we can use the smaller/cheaper disks. The main thing using disk space will be the approx cache I think.


taggart 2013-03-08	I decided to use what micah said above. For SSDs we’ll use Intel 520 60gb drives. It turned out the Supermicro Quad NIC could only use their proprietary UIO slot, of which there is only one, so I figured out an Intel Quad port NIC and it wound up being cheaper anyway yay! Interpro helped me figure out the right riser cards to get, added. We’ll have one slot free to add a fiber NIC (or more copper ports) later if needed.