General guidelines for server specifications 2016.
Consultation is required for specialized servers to make sure the correct hardware is purchased. Send a request to MFCF.
Please read the MFCF SLA for research computing.
*NOTE: all these specifications are customizable according to your needs and budget.
| Model | Dell R430 (entry) | Dell 630 (mid range) | Mac Pro (entry) | Mac Pro (advanced) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $3920 + tx | $10,591.00 + tx | $3979.00 + tx | $9739.99 + tx |
| Processing unit (CPU) |
Intel Xeon E5-2640v3 2.6GHz 20M cache 2 sockets |
Intel Xeon E5-2687v3 3.1GHz 25M cache 2 sockets |
Intel Xeon E5 3.7GHz 10M cache 40GB/s bandwidth |
Intel Xeon E5 2.7GHz 30M cache |
| Cores (number of processors per CPU) | 4-8 | 10-16 | 4 | 12 |
| Physical hardware | Rackmount in MFCF server room | Rackmount in MFCF server room | Desktop | Desktop |
| Operating system | Windows or Linux | Windows or Linux | Mac OS X | Mac OS X |
|
Memory |
16GB RDIMM DDR4 ECC 12 DIMM slots to allow for expansion of memory |
16GB RDIMM DDR4 ECC |
16GB DDR3 ECC, up to 60GB/s bandwidth |
32GB DDR3 ECC, up to 60GB/s bandwidth |
| Hard drive (storage) | 1TB SATA x2 | 400 GB SSD SATA x2 | 512GB PCIe based flash controller SSD 1200MB/s | 1TB PCIe based flash controller SSD 1200MB/s |
| Graphics | Dual GPU architecture, AMD FirePro | Dual GPU architecture, AMD FirePro | ||
| RAID | RAID 1 (mirrored), embedded SATA controller | RAID 1 (mirrored), embedded SATA controller | No RAID – 20Gb/s bandwidth to an external device with Thunderbolt 2 | No RAID – 20Gb/s bandwidth to an external device with Thunderbolt 2 |
| Power supply | Hot swap power supply | Hot swap power supply | ||
| Warranty | 3-year warranty | 3-year warranty | AppleCare Protection plan + $219.00 (extend to 3 yrs) | AppleCare Protection plan + $219.00 (extend to 3 yrs) |
| Functionality | Peak 2-socket performance for high performance computing and infrastructure expansion |
Highest functionality for multi-threaded applications Supports up to 24 SSDs, allows for virtualization, large-scale and analytical processing |
Thunderbolt 2 ports with up to 20Gb/s, connect up to three 4k monitors, GPU computing power with OpenCL, cooled with thermal core | Thunderbolt 2 ports with up to 20Gb/s, connect up to three 4k monitors, GPU computing power with OpenCL, cooled with thermal core |
Questions for client at consultation:
- What is your budget?
- Will MFCF be supporting the server? Automatic if rackmount and in the server room.
- What are you using the server for? Database? Web? Application? Numerical computation?
- What sort of computing will you be doing? Mathematical? Statistical? Graphics? Parallel computing using MPI or OpenMP?
- What operating system would you like installed? Linux? Windows? Mac servers will run OS X.
- Does ease of use of the Operating System (OS) matter?
- Do you have legacy software that may influence your choice of OS?
- Are graphics a consideration?
- For storage, what is more important: speed or space? (Choose Solid State Drive(SSD) for speed or SATA HDD for space. SSD is double the price of HDD.
- Will you need expandable memory?
- Will you require redundancy for storage?
- Extended warranty is recommended.
- Dell servers will be housed in the machine room.
Technology terms:
Processing
CPU - central processing unit. There is one CPU per socket. A CPU can have multiple cores.
Core - a processor. There can be more than one core on a single CPU chip.
cache - relatively small amount of high-speed dedicated memory closely coupled to the CPU for faster access to frequently-used data
GHz - a CPU with higher frequency (gigahertz) executes more instructions per second
GPU - graphics processing unit; with some operating systems allows for massive parallelization
Memory
DDR – double data rate
SDRAM – synchronous dynamic random access memory (higher speed is better for databases, lower speed is sufficient for storage
ECC – error correcting code memory – helps protect the integrity of the data stored in RAM
RDIMM – registered dual in-line memory module
Storage
SSD – solid state drive. Advantages: no spinning parts (lasts longer), low latency, durable, uses flash memory to improve performance, cooler and quieter. Disadvantages: expensive, not as high-capacity as HDD.
HDD - hard disk drive. Advantages: inexpensive, higher capacity than SSD. Disadvantages: may be noisy, longer boot up times, wear out faster than SSD. Choose a higher RPM HDD for faster performance.
SAS (Serial attached SCSI) - for heavy applications such as database servers
SATA (Serial ATA) - slower spinning, more space for storage compared to SAS
Redundancy
RAID – redundant array of independent disks; implies that if one disk fails data is not automatically lost