PC hardware advice required

[timwilky]

I am trying to spec a special workstation. I was intending to use the Dell T5600 range

Twin E5-2687W Xeon 3.1GHz
64GB Ram
3GB Quadro K4000
256 GB SSD
2*900GB SAS


But my issue when i read the specs is the onboard controller only supports 3GB throughput. so is there any point in using the 10,000 rpm SAS drives over cheap scsi?

Perhaps a little improvement on disc latency/seek. But throughput is compromised by this on board controller. At over 7 grand I should be expecting a monster.

The system is to be used for initial testing of a hydrodynamic simulation. We have a beast to do the real work.

[timwilky]

To answer my own question, if I choose the right option it comes with a perc h310 that does support 6GB.

[Bibio]

the higher the spin speed the quicker the read and seek speed. want it to fly then 2x 10k with striped raid should see your 6gb throughput. HDD's are the slowest part of any computer.

[timwilky]

yes, I was confused reading the warning that the onboard controller was 3GB throughput. So opting for high speed drives seemed a waste with an identified bottleneck. But if it comes with the PERC H310 so no issue.

[DarrenSV650S]

64gb of ram, that's nuts! What will it be used for?

[timwilky]

To run a program call Fluidity for a student on placement. This workstation is a baby for this type of job. We already have a 128 core system that our engineers use.

But it scales right up to being capable of running on

. Now that is a beast.

[keith_d]

Nice configuration. I assume you'll be using the 256Gb SSD for swap space since you've only got 64Gb of RAM

But on a more serious note, depending on the size of your models you might be better off with a couple more SSDs instead of using SAS drives. For small block read/write operations the SSD will make any physical drive look slow. The only downside is that they have limited endurance so be prepared to replace them in about 3 years.

If you're doing more sequential access like writing results sets, then the higher cost of SSDs doesn't make sense, but you'll probably need to defrag/re-format the SAS drives from time to get maximum sequential performance.

Just my (rather geeky) thoughts,

Keith.

P.S. Three SSD drives will probably saturate the PCI-e lanes to the onboard SATA controller, so consider adding an additional 8-lane SATA interface if you can find one.