Using Atom for server?

paean said:
I've not seen a machine that won't start without a monitor. Is it possible you removed your keyboard and mouse when you removed the monitor? Check your BIOS to see if you have option to bypass errors when there's no keyboard or mouse.
Click to expand...

I don't have anything connected to it, because that's how it'll end up. I went through the BIOS and couldn't find settings for halt on error, but I did make few changes for other things and all is well. I think it was user error (impatience?), but I've rebooted it a few times since and all is great!

chess said:
... I got my Intel D510MO board, case, and ram and put it all together. After lots of hassle, I finally got 8-RELEASE installed (i386). The problem I was having is that no matter what I tried, I could not get anything to boot from a USB CD/DVD drive. I tried FreeBSD first, then Debian (stable and testing), then various others. I tried both i386 and amd64/x86_64 versions. The boot would appear to start, but then I'd all kinds of weird disk errors. I tried swapping out the hard drive, changing SATA cables, switching around BIOS settings, updating the BIOS ... nothing worked.

Finally, I found a post in the Intel forums from a user with similar issues who discovered that this board had trouble booting from USB CD/DVD drives. He used a USB stick to install instead.

So, I grabbed the FreeBSD 8 memstick, dd'd it onto a USB stick, and voila, perfect boot and install.

Hopefully, this helps someone else who may be pulling their hair out
Click to expand...

What mobo did you get? I guess I was lucky in that I had 0 issues with getting FBSD to boot. But then again that's why I opted for a sata drive, I didn't want to have any problems (learned from past experience) and $20 or $25 that I pay for an extra drive is worth it.
 
GhettoBSD said:
What mobo did you get? I guess I was lucky in that I had 0 issues with getting FBSD to boot. But then again that's why I opted for a sata drive, I didn't want to have any problems (learned from past experience) and $20 or $25 that I pay for an extra drive is worth it.
Click to expand...

I got the Intel BOXD510MO, which is the same board discussed in that Intel forums thread I linked to previously.

Now that FreeBSD is installed, this board is working beautifully, and is much, much quicker than I thought it would be. My experience with an Atom-based eeepc was that the single core Atom was pretty slow, but this new D510 CPU is fantastic, for what it is. Never thought I would see a tiny, fanless server like this. I have a couple of jails going on this box, one with nginx and one an ftp server (neither with high loads) and the machine is working great. Buildworld took about 2-2.5 hours as previously reported with 2GB RAM.
 
I just got my Supermicro X7SPA-H to replace my previous Atom system which had a ZFS mirror configuration that was severely bottlenecked by a PCI SIL3124 controller card.

Code: 
Atom 330 / 2gb ram / Intel D945GCLF + PCI SIL3124

              -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- --Random--
              -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- --Seeks---
Machine    MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU /sec %CPU
         8192 21041 53.5 22644 19.4 13724 12.8 25321 48.5 43110 14.0 143.2 3.3

dd if=/dev/zero of=/root/test1 bs=1M count=4096
4096+0 records in
4096+0 records out
4294967296 bytes transferred in 143.878615 secs (29851325 bytes/sec) (28,4 mb/s)

Since then, I switched the exact same disks to a different system:
Atom D510 / 4gb ram / Supermicro X7SPA-H / ICH9R controller (native).
Here are the updated results:
Code: 
              -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- --Random--
              -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- --Seeks---
Machine    MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU  /sec %CPU
         8192 30057 68.7 50965 36.4 27236 21.3 33317 58.0 53051 14.3 172.4  3.2

dd if=/dev/zero of=/root/test1 bs=1M count=4096
4096+0 records in
4096+0 records out
4294967296 bytes transferred in 54.977978 secs (78121594 bytes/sec) (74,5 mb/s)

Write performance now seems to have increased by a factor of 2 to 3 and is now definately in line with the expected performance of the disks in question (cheap 2TB WD20EADS with 32mb cache). Users of highend systems might no doubt laugh at a 78mb/s throughput, but mind you: these are disks that cost 170eur per a 2tb disk, so you only need 340eur to get 2 of them for a mirror, while getting 2 x 2tb RE4 discs would've costed ~640eur.

The throughput will also improve later on when I expand (stripe) the storage pool with a second and a third mirror pair :)
 
The performance seems to have less to do with the CPU and more with the SATA controller, on my Atom 330:

Code: 
[~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/test1 bs=1M count=4096
4096+0 records in
4096+0 records out
4294967296 bytes transferred in 71.472958 secs (60092200 bytes/sec) (57.3 MB/s)

Disks used? Two 250GB 2.5" WD drives with ataraid ...
 
Some updated benchmarks below, this is Atom D510 / Supermicro X75SPA-H / 4Gb Ram with 2 x slow 2tb WD Green (WD20EADS) disks with 32mb cache in a ZFS mirror:
Code: 
bonnie -s 8192

              -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- --Random--
              -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- --Seeks---
Machine    MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU  /sec %CPU
         8192 29065 68.9 52027 39.8 39636 33.3 54057 95.4 105335 34.6 174.1 7.9
DD write:
Code: 
dd if=/dev/zero of=test1 bs=1M count=8192
8589934592 bytes transferred in 111.300481 secs (77177875 bytes/sec) (73,6mb/s)
DD read:
Code: 
dd if=/dev/urandom of=test2 bs=1M count=8192
dd if=test2 of=/dev/zero bs=1M
8589934592 bytes transferred in 76.031399 secs (112978779 bytes/sec) (107,74mb/s)
 
ckester said:
Today I ran make buildworld for 8.0-STABLE. The total runtime for the build was two hours and 52 minutes. A little longer than my estimate, but still not too bad.

This was on a D510MO motherboard with 1GB of RAM. Your mileage might vary, depending on the speed of your hard drive, the amount of RAM, and the system load. (I was listening to podcasts in Amarok while the build was runnning.)
Click to expand...

This time can be substantially improved by adding RAM and taking advantage of the second core and hyperthreading.

Since the previous run, I upgraded the RAM to 3GB.
I also added WITHOUT_GAMES=yes to /etc/src.conf.

Today I ran make -j 4 buildworld on the same machine, and it finished in 1 hour and 17 minutes.
System load was very light, no music playing this time.
 
Code: 
mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /tmp
(or in etc/fstab)

Using tmpfs speed ups compiling a lot, especially while using lots of memory. But beware, this is an experimental feature. Another speed-up would be ccache, see vermaden's howto.
 
Question for those running the BOXD510MO or similar. I noticed that it has a mini-pci express slot. Is that something you could put an SSD in to boot from? I would love one of these with a cheap SSD boot drive for a super low power, low moving parts server. I couldn't find any documentation that said whether you could boot from that slot or not.
 
Sylgeist said:
Question for those running the BOXD510MO or similar. I noticed that it has a mini-pci express slot. Is that something you could put an SSD in to boot from? I would love one of these with a cheap SSD boot drive for a super low power, low moving parts server. I couldn't find any documentation that said whether you could boot from that slot or not.
Click to expand...

Yes should be possible, I'm using a Wifi-adaptor in it. But I don't know if it is possible to boot from this slot, I didn't see any option in the BIOS. Apart from that, the BIOS is a major pain in the backside, never saw such a buggy peace of code. Be sure to update to the latest files to get bugfixes for USB-boot etc.

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/highlights/dsktpboards/d510mo
 
Sylgeist said:
Question for those running the BOXD510MO or similar. I noticed that it has a mini-pci express slot. Is that something you could put an SSD in to boot from? I would love one of these with a cheap SSD boot drive for a super low power, low moving parts server. I couldn't find any documentation that said whether you could boot from that slot or not.
Click to expand...

I think I saw it mention it being able to be used with an SSD, but needing an attachment/riser or something. But I could also be confusing it with a different mobo. Take a look at the manual and it should mention it somewhere.
 
Thanks Oliverh, I just found that after I posted! Looks like a no go without the Intel USB SSD module. Oh well, I'm going to get one of these boards anyway after hearing from others on the thread.
 
Let me know if this should go in a different thread, but I wanted to post my experience setting up my D510 with ZFS and GPT just in case others run into the same issue. Apparently this motherboard will not recognize a pure GPT scheme on the hard drive. I spent many hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.

I used these guides:
http://web.mr-happy.com/hackstuff/FreeBSD-ZFS.php
http://blogs.freebsdish.org/lulf/2008/12/16/setting-up-a-zfs-only-system/

and of course a few in the how-to section.

I was able to get all the ZFS config done and base install, but it would never boot off the hard drive. After searching around I was able to use fdisk to set the GPT partition active, (flags=80) I believe, and now it's working great!
 
I am using the EEE from ebay as very cheap computing.
I try and keep to the SSD ones as there is no hard drive, but not many about using the Atom.
One advantage is that most ebay buyers want big HDD, so small SSD seem to be a premium.
So a change in tactics, now trying the eee 701s, as they come in at rediculous prices.
I would like to use a motor bike battery hooked to a small wind turbine to get the no electric needed option.
 
a129878 said:
I am using the EEE from ebay as very cheap computing.
I try and keep to the SSD ones as there is no hard drive, but not many about using the Atom.
One advantage is that most ebay buyers want big HDD, so small SSD seem to be a premium.
So a change in tactics, now trying the eee 701s, as they come in at rediculous prices.
I would like to use a motor bike battery hooked to a small wind turbine to get the no electric needed option.
Click to expand...

Just a guess but I'm sure a fairly small solar panel could keep that battery charged. But then again, that is in Sunny California.

When I worked in a garbage can, we ran Palm Pilots attached to a small printer (for reports and receipts/checks). They had a pretty cool set up: 1 palm pilot connected to it's dock, that plugged into am inverter, plugged into a car battery, hooked up to a solar panel. I wouldn't run out of juice because of the battery and the panel was more than enough for the battery. Even during very cloudy periods (a pair of weeks at most) I would be ok, no problem.

I just found out recently that P3 makes a LOT of cool things (the Kill A Watt people). They have a weather station that also includes a wind meter! Might help you out.

Let us know how it turns out.
 
D510 power consumption

On the topic of power consumption, I have a D510 motherboard with 2 x SATA drives which runs at 49Watts. But I've just plonked it all in a very old PC case, where I think the power supply (case) itself is using more power than any other component.
 
Atom D510 based file server

I just finished putting together a tower to use as a file server:

Intel BOXD510MO
Wintec AMPX 2 GB DDR2 800
Asus DRW-24B1ST DVD RW
SAMSUNG HD103SJ 1 TB HD
ANTEC NEO ECO 400C 400W PSU
Cooler Master RC-692-KKN3 CM690 II mid tower (with 6 internal 3.5" bays, 1 internal 5.25" and 3 external 5.25" and supports mini-itx mobos)
Adonis ADST114 4 port SATA PCI card

I was about to install Ubuntu Server when a friend told me to try FreeBSD because the ZFS file system is very good. Was ZFS used as the FS for the performance numbers posted? Any performance numbers using RAIDZ? Is it realistic for a newbie Linux user to jump ship and try FreeBSD and ZFS (using RAIDZ)?
Thanks!
 
The main question is whether your chosen PCI SATA controller is supported by FreeBSD. My brief Googling didn't reveal which chipset that controller is based on. Also, the PCI bus won't provide anywhere near enough bandwidth for four disks being accessed simultaneously.

To get best performance, it's usually advisable to use the on-motherboard SATA ports, but that board only has two. They're fine for a mirrored pool, which is what I have on mine.

Some of the other mini-ITX board vendors pair the Atom CPU with one of the older Intel ICH chipsets, providing more on-board SATA ports. You might want to consider one of those instead.


As for numbers, I built a fileserver last year based on an Intel desktop board with six onboard SATA-300 ports. I attached two 640GB disks for the mirrored OS pool, and four 1.5TB disks for the raidz content pool. Under FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE, I was getting around 150MB/sec read and write speeds to the raidz pool with no additional tuning. The ZFS version in 8.1-RELEASE is newer and probably better performing.


If you're new to Linux then it's not too late to see the light and switch to FreeBSD instead :) You may even find it a bit more intuitive and "tidy" for lack of a better term. Documentation is excellent, as is community support (these forums for example).
 
jem said:
The main question is whether your chosen PCI SATA controller is supported by FreeBSD. My brief Googling didn't reveal which chipset that controller is based on. Also, the PCI bus won't provide anywhere near enough bandwidth for four disks being accessed simultaneously.

To get best performance, it's usually advisable to use the on-motherboard SATA ports, but that board only has two. They're fine for a mirrored pool, which is what I have on mine.

Some of the other mini-ITX board vendors pair the Atom CPU with one of the older Intel ICH chipsets, providing more on-board SATA ports. You might want to consider one of those instead.
Click to expand...

These boards have 6 and 4 ports: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM/

Also dual nics + IPMI + up to 4 gigs of ram.

This quarter, they are suppose to release a D525 board. Same as above, but 1.8Ghz CPU and DDR3. That is what I've been patiently holding out for.

As far as Linux/FreeBSD - I would say they have about the same learning curve; if you can learn one, you can learn the other. In terms of performance, I also think they were better pretty in line with each other; specially for a small home server like this. As long as you can stream video and copy files over in a reasonable time; that should be good enough. 5 or even 10% performance gain on one OS or the other probably won't be that noticeable for light loads.

I'd look more at easy of maintenance, software availability, driver support, etc (again, probably about the same) and things like that.
 
jem said:
The main question is whether your chosen PCI SATA controller is supported by FreeBSD. My brief Googling didn't reveal which chipset that controller is based on. Also, the PCI bus won't provide anywhere near enough bandwidth for four disks being accessed simultaneously.
Click to expand...

I think the main bottleneck is going to be the GigE port. I read that you can get up to 80MB/sec sustained read/write.

To get best performance, it's usually advisable to use the on-motherboard SATA ports, but that board only has two. They're fine for a mirrored pool, which is what I have on mine.
Click to expand...

That is how I want to start and then grow as needed. That is why ZFS looks attractive (or LVM over RAID in Linux).

Some of the other mini-ITX board vendors pair the Atom CPU with one of the older Intel ICH chipsets, providing more on-board SATA ports. You might want to consider one of those instead.
Click to expand...

I would also consider a laptop CPU, they are getting good at low power idle mode (and throttling operating freq based on workload).


...As for numbers, I built a fileserver last year based on an Intel desktop board with six onboard SATA-300 ports. I attached two 640GB disks for the mirrored OS pool, and four 1.5TB disks for the raidz content pool. Under FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE, I was getting around 150MB/sec read and write speeds to the raidz pool with no additional tuning. The ZFS version in 8.1-RELEASE is newer and probably better performing.
Click to expand...

That's great performance. You must be using more than one GigE port...


If you're new to Linux then it's not too late to see the light and switch to FreeBSD instead :) You may even find it a bit more intuitive and "tidy" for lack of a better term. Documentation is excellent, as is community support (these forums for example).
Click to expand...

I noticed. Thanks for your prompt answer! :)
 
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