@qasdfdsaq they have a Sandy Bridge E5 desktop tower with an X89 (?) mobo they could've used instead, but the guy who owns it got voted down in favor of buying this 4U Dell PowerEdge R900 beast
and I was like... you chose not to use EPT, and you want Windows VMs on a system with that high memory latency in a HVM virtual machine?!
even if the passmark is worse on the single proc E5-v1, I'd gladly take that over 24 Core 2 era cores for VM workloads.
plus that box is free because they own it
now they're going to draw, like, a kilowatt (under load) from the outlet for a bazillion inefficient HDDs and inefficient 130 W TDP CPUs for something you could do with an i7-6700K and a couple 850 EVOs.
@djsmiley2k mainly as a file server, but also for Windows desktops in a VM (presumably run on KVM since the host OS is going to be some form of modern Linux, per the guy setting it up)
These CPUs that, when you combine all 24 CPU cores -- 6 per CPU -- is only about 15-20% faster in total Passmark score than an i7-6700K. And the single thread perf, memory bandwidth, bus speed, etc. is all horrifically worse.
Those folks just don't understand that the TCO of this old hardware is vastly higher than a new server with a far more efficient processor and a few SSDs, even after you factor in the cost of the new hardware.
Furthermore, the new processor has much better hardware virtualization functionality, including EPT and VT-D.
IT stupidity as usual.
They're throwing money down the drain.
If this is in a continuously-cooled environment (e.g. datacenter, where the HVAC system is running nonstop), then they're wasting thousands a year when a new server might well pay for itself in 1-2 years with lower operating costs—and pay them back for the next several years thereafter.
someone I know had a roomful of college roommates take a "vote" to decide what to do to build an awesome home infrastructure in a rack in their basement; they spent $1100 USD; and got a $400 Core 2 era Quad Xeon server with 128GB DDR2 and a few eSATA enclosures with 8 x WD Velociraptor 160GB and 2 x 2 TB desktop drives.
@bwDraco you're 100% correct, except that this is for a bunch of "enthusiasts" (gamers, people who probably pirate media off of bittorrent) living in a shared domicile together.
I'm pretty sure they could get a decent Ivy Bridge or newer server for not much more money, a server that would cost them much less money in the long run.
@allquicatic Ah I missed the E5 bit... saw X89 (desktop chipset) so assumed SB-E. IIRC you need a Cxxx Server chipset to enable ECC on Xeons, though SB-EP does fit in SB-E sockets and works with the right BIOS
yuuuuuuup all those things Oh yeah! windows 8 uses less ram than windows 7! LIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Finally installed windows 7 to complete the test. they use roughly the same amount of RAM (Windows 7 pro x86 is using 320MB and windows 8 enterprise x86 was using about 330MB give or take 10.)
these are unpatched though. I'm sure the patches add a bunch
@allquicatic Probably about 10w idle. I should check, though I know a modern low-power 5400RPM drive still uses 3-5w idle and 7200RPM uses approx 50% more
@allquicatic Come to think of it, sticking four Galaxy Note 7's in a box probably has more CPU power than what they got
@allquicatic When I was in my shared domicile of several geeky/techy gamers and "people who probably pirate media off of bittorrent" that's when I built my current purpose-built server
Come to think of it, sticking four Galaxy Note 7's in a box probably not only has more CPU power than what they got but can also be put into "Boost" mode and produce way more heat too!
(My implication earlier being that the only "safe" way to utilize all that waste stock of Note 7's is sticking them into a solid steel cage)
My plan is to eventually upgrade to a dual-socket Skylake-or-later-EP system with 2x4-8 cores.
I really have no actual need for a dual-socket system, I just have an overkill power supply that supports it and I have no other way to actually make full use of it
An 8-core Xeon E5 would probably be enough for me, but I kinda like the possibility of upgrading later. Also if I ever get FTTP I'll be able to ditch the rented server and move everything locally, so I want to have the scalability to absorb a few more duties.
@allquicatic Eh, shame.
Though Ebay does put a lot of pressure on sellers to accept returns when they otherwise wouldn't.
Also it's ridiculously easy to make fraudulent returns at the seller's cost, as Ebay practically always sides with the buyer.
@allquicatic I've had customers return products as "Faulty" when they were working fine. Ebay didn't give a damn, and charged me for both outward and return shipping.
But yeah, I'd never really contemplated the need for packing my desktop into a suitcase when I built my full-ATX-XXL watercooled tower
@allquicatic Ah nice, 4x16GB sticks then?
Even that'd be pretty expensive mind you
I went with 32GB (4x8) with my 6700K system, and during the time I had it never came close to running out of RAM, even with Aquasuite running gigantic 3-4GB per day memory leaks
Well I lie, once when Aquasuite's memory leak hit 20GB I did notice the slowdown, which is what made me notice the memory leak
@allquicatic Yeah uATX seems like a really good compromise between full-size stuff, and the ridiculously limited mITX.
That said for a basic gaming system, mITX isn't terrible. I mean I lose things like the sound card and RAID card and 10GbE/TB card but neither of those are really crucial in a modern system with 1-2 disks and onboard everything
I've done considerable research and I'm strongly favoring the Nighthawk but is there something better for the money? We need to be able to support a 100 Mbps Internet connection.
Granted, the marginally faster CPU doesn't really offset the considerably larger RAM on the Turris, or the added hardware flexibility but I'd still expect the Linksys to have better support in the long run
@Bob Ah yes. That's basically just any car charger :-P
Basically I have to carry 3 chargers when I travel, 19v 3A for my laptop, 6-port USB smart charger, and a separate giant wall wart just for my USB hard drive
Going from 3 down to 2 would be nice, saves space, saves plugs, allows me to switch to all flat euro plugs
I think Seagate has a 8TB desktop drive in a USB-C enclosure that has a built in Li-Ion cell for spin-up peaks
@Bob yeah, and would be much smaller/lighter too. I probably don't need 8TB but most of my media is in 1080p to 4K and I can't be arsed down converting it
I should probably set up a script on my server to do it though, since 4K at 20-30Mbps is not only annoyingly difficult to decode, it's also utterly pointless overkill for a laptop with a 720p screen
Heh, when I had a permanent desk I had a NAS server
Speaking of, the only reason I went with an 8TB desktop drive to begin with is cause I could just pull a spare out of my server and didn't have to go out and buy anything
All I want is just unlimited storage in a tiny form factor that weighs nothing and uses barely any power. Is that too much to ask?
Ok, I have done it. I feel only the folks who were able to view the question before the link broke will have the context needed to know what the article was called.
if possible find similar adapters to what is being referred to, on like amazon (which seems to hold onto old junk for longer) and point it there instead.
@Burgi wow, you are amazing. I will definitely remember that site next time, why does google not keep archives that well? Should I edit again to point to this or is that not a good idea?
