@coliver said in VM host: dual CPU vs single CPU - same CPU performance rating:

How often are people adding CPUs to servers? Is that something that generally happens? Of course @JaredBusch was faster then I was.

Probably very seldom. But if you want to upgrade the memory you might have to install the second CPU just to get access to the rest of the memory slots. So if a dual CPU system have 16 memory slots you can only populate 8 of them if you only have one CPU.

This is a test system using older refurbished hardware so it might be more likely for me to add things as I go.

MD is a device driver so it assembles several devices into one.

For instance /dev/sda and /dev/sdb into /dev/md0.

It has no clue about what kind of file system or anything like that it's running. It works on the block level, just like hardware raid.

You would not get a volume until you have a partition somewhere that you format with a file system.

Thanks guys.

I decided to go with the single 10-core CPU in this case as it would leave open the possibility of adding another CPU and set of memory if needed.

No licensing to consider in this particular case.

@scottalanmiller said in Why is the Third World Running Windows?:

@kelly said in Why is the Third World Running Windows?:

. The largest reason for this is because the articles out there on the internet are focused on a Windows majority. If I do a search for best "whatever" without adding Linux to my search (which most users would not know to do) I'll get Windows options mostly with a sprinkling of MacOS.

Totally true, except that application acquisition isn't a normal thing in third world markets. That's a very first world approach to computing today. We think of using the computer as a platform for acquiring new apps. But Chromebooks have shown that that's not needed most of the time, no apps available at all. In the 3rd world, essentially no one is out getting video games, looking for specialty apps, etc. And if they are, they are stumped because they don't control their Windows version and patches, so have MORE issues getting things working on Windows than on Linux because updates and versioning is so problematic.

Windows seems reasonable from an American context, because we are used to controlling versions. Once you can't do that and you are forced to use "whatever you have", getting working Windows apps is quite hard.

Aren't they just running pirate versions of everything, just like China?

I mean third world doesn't mean that everyone is living in huts and making their living collecting fruits and weaving baskets.

I assume they are running software like Autocad, SolidWorks, Illustrator, Indesign etc. That's why a real operating system is needed. Can't do much engineering work without it and a lot of the third world is a lot about building up the country - basically going through the industrial revolution.

@scottalanmiller said in VM host: dual CPU vs single CPU - same CPU performance rating:

Example...

1x Eight Core CPU vs 2x Four Core CPU

All with the same clock speed?

Yeah, something along that line.

I usually use passmarks cpu benchmarks to roughly compare performance. In these tests dual CPUs never give the twice the performance of the same single CPU.

But for instance in my case 2 x E5-2630V2 (2x6 cores @ 2.5GHz) shows up as having about the same benchmark performance (single thread and multi thread) as 1 x E5-2670V2 (10 cores @ 2.5Ghz).

Comparing typical TDP: 2x6 cores is 2x80W=160W while 1x10 core is 115W.

I'm setting up a VM host and I was wondering if there are any advantages having two CPUs versus one if they have about the same number of cores and passmark cpu rating?

Right now I'm only setting up an older system for test so the question is a bit hypothetical at this point.

What type of businesses are we talking about?
There are a lot of areas where Windows is the only game in town.

Good to know about WoeUSB.

If you have windows available, rufus is an easy tool to make bootable USB drives.
Doesn't need to be installed and it's fast.
https://rufus.akeo.ie/

But in all honesty it's very easy to make a bootable windows installer USB drive manually. Just make a primary bootable FAT32 partition on the USB drive and copy the files from the ISO onto it. Done.

You can copy more files onto the drive, for instance drivers or other software. If you do that, it makes sense to make a dd image of the entire thing when you're done. That way you can easily write a new USB drive with your custom files on it.

@scottalanmiller said in Fedora Install Issues on Dell PowerEdge R740:

I don't think any server CPUs have integrated graphics.

Xeon E3-1200 series with 5 at the end have integrated graphics, for instance E3-1285V6.

@travisdh1 In the past installers just used the VESA modes which works on just about anything. So even if it's old (or too new) it "should" still work.

If the installer tries to load proper drivers however, but fails, you might run into an installation problem. Has to be some kind of bug though.

@scottalanmiller

Blowing compressed air through the fan could help with the cooling.

I've seen some motherboards where the graphics adapter sits on a separate card because the same machine is sold in different configurations. Hit ebay for used graphics cards.

I tried installing Fedora 28 on an old HP server a couple of weeks ago and the installer hanged itself in the same spot. I never tried text mode install with that one. Funny thing is that the latest Centos 7 behaved the same but Xenserver (xcp-ng 7.4) was a trouble-free installation. Debian 9.5 also worked (I always use the text installer by default).

It sounds far fetched but could the installation problem be graphics adapter related (with the Dell server)?

@travisdh1

@travisdh1 said in Backup Systems without on-site external storage:

@pete-s said in Backup Systems without on-site external storage:

@eddiejennings
I have similar scenario and my idea to get local backup was to have drives on the host that are passed through to one VM which just works as a file server for those drives - software raid.

If the entire machine goes bye bye it would be a matter physically removing the drives in the bays and mounting them on another server. This would be possible because the files are located on a real file system (no LVM) and not inside a VM. Since it's software raid it is 100% portable to another machine with other hardware.

So is it a VM our isn't it?

No LVM just complicates managing that storage, why would you think that it's good not to have it?

Yes, you can move those drives to another hardware box, but unless we're talking about a white box or bad NAS, the system almost always outlasts the drives themselves.

With LVM, you could plug in USB storage, mirror the entire thing, and carry the USB drive off with minimal fuss.

A backup is a backup and you need to be able to restore it on another machine. Otherwise it's not a backup.

An USB drive hanging of a colo rackserver isn't what I call a backup.

What I'm talking about is backup to disk array that only contain backup files and if the need arises easily can be mounted and restored on another server. If you don't have a hardware problem there will not be any need to remove the drives.

I don't know what purpose LVM would serve on a one partition disk array but if it makes you feel warm and cozy go ahead.

@eddiejennings
I have similar scenario and my idea to get local backup was to have drives on the host that are passed through to one VM which just works as a file server for those drives - software raid.

If the entire machine goes bye bye it would be a matter physically removing the drives in the bays and mounting them on another server. This would be possible because the files are located on a real file system (no LVM) and not inside a VM. Since it's software raid it is 100% portable to another machine with other hardware.

@scottalanmiller said in ARM Desktop I Finally Want:

@travisdh1 said in ARM Desktop I Finally Want:

@obsolesce said in ARM Desktop I Finally Want:

How is it different than a Pi?

More memory it's the biggest difference. A pi3 can actually run a desktop, whereas versions 1 and 2 just didn't quite have enough memory to run a desktop well. Even pi3 with 1gb of ram can't be used as an everyday desktop because it runs out of memory so quickly. So something with 4gb of ram suddenly becomes something that could be used as a daily driver.

Memory is big, but processor is, too. This is the OP-1, super high end desktop processor that Google ordered from RockChip. It's used in the top low power Chromebooks. Extremely powerful.

"Super high end desktop"? I hope that was irony. If you'd try it you would be really disappointed. They are much slower than any of the standard desktop cpu from Intel. A far cry from anything called high end desktop.

Compared here for instance to intel celeron j3455 - a low end laptop cpu.
https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/10/26/linux-benchmarks-intel-j3455-apollo-lake-vs-z3735f-bay-trail-vs-rk3399-and-other-arm-platforms/

Keep in mind that intel j3455 NUC is a $130 barebone.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102183

Add $30 for 4GB of memory and you're at the same price as the board you mentioned but with 2-3 times the performance of the rockchip. The J3455 is an older NUC so it can only take 8GB RAM.

Newer ones like the I5-7260U NUC I picked up today can take up to 32GB RAM. It's almost 3 times faster than the J3455 but it's $350 so not a fair comparison.

It's just not powerful enough.

It's in the chromebook / tablet category of CPUs so it lacks a lot of power compared to Intel mobile processors used in real laptops and similar.

An Intel NUC with an i3 CPU will be a MUCH better desktop for just a little more money.

@scottalanmiller said in How Can You Block or Disable "People Also Search For" in Google Results:

It's that new thing that seems like malware, but apparently is intentional, for Google. It's an animated pop up that comes up AFTER your search is done and you are ready to click and link and changes what is under your mouse. It makes the search hard to use and often causes me to go to some link that obviously I have no interest in. I can't think of any circumstance where this should exist, but it causes every search to be slower and the site to just be annoying.

I've searched but failed to find a way to disable this. Seems purely designed to waste resources and annoy users.

Google is not your friend. Duckduckgo is what google search once was - lean and no-nonsense. I prefer duckduckgo's search result over google as well.

@jaredbusch said in Need some PHP help for this script:

What you're building looks a little like what you have in 3CX. They also show ip address, mac address and the user name and some other minor stuff. As options besides reload (called reprovision) and reboot, they also "firmware update" and also a direct link to the phones webserver.
Maybe some of that would make sense to add to your php script?

PS. Checking the input from the form is relatively easy. Make sure the form tag in the generated html uses post <form method="post"> . Then when you receive the values into the php script you can do print_r($_POST); and you'll see how everything looks. Then it's just a matter of going through the $_POST array and picking out the extensions you selected.

It's the name of the checkboxes in html that will appear in the $_POST array. So when the html table is generated use the extension number as name for the checkboxes, for instance ext_101, ext_102 etc.

@stacksofplates said in Best way to backup big data...:

We use Exagrids and tape. Though for only 45TB you could just build a box and Colo it. RHEL/CentOS now have VDO support so you get dedupe and compression on those volumes.

A supermicro box with 24 8TB drives is around $13K. That's around 90TB in RAID 10. I don't know pricing for smaller because we build with those. But it shouldn't be too expensive to build your own and ship to it off-site.

If it's large files likes raw video then compression and deduplication is unfortunately of very limited use.

We just use a standard supermicro 4U server with 24x3.5" drive bays. Running software RAID-6 with very modest hardware specs we have 250MB/s sustained write and 700MB/s read. More than enough to saturate a dual gigabit network link.

Two RAID-6 arrays with twelve 3.5" 10TB enterprise drives in each will give you around 200TB of storage. Or perhaps three RAID-6 arrays with 8 drives in each giving you about 180TB.

The most money in this type of config will be in the drives themselves. 10TB Seagate Exos X10 are about $330 each so 24 drives is $8K.

@emad-r
Thanks but it couldn't get the Enterprise ISO file, only the Enterprise Evaluation. I don't think the Evaluation version can be turned into the regular Enterprise version.