Obsolence vs modernity

[pdenommee]

I have noted that obsolete Intel Xeon E5-2670 Sandy Bridge-EP 2.6GHz are currently less expensive at $173 then Xeon E3 v6.

The old guy as 8 core and 16 thread and at this price, getting 2 of them is feasible. The new kid on the block has 4 cores and 8 threads except for low end models without hyperthreading.

The obsolete one is restricted to DDR3 ECC and the other can use DDR4 ECC.

The outdated CPU has a TDP of 115W, the recent one a TDP of 95W.

The E5 has 30M of cache and the E3 has 8M of cache.

E5 passmark 12,232 and E3-1245 passmark 10,445 , those benchmark results clearly shows that Intel did improve its CPU, 4 modern cores are almost as good as 8 obsolete cores.

The dominating factor in the price of this server is the $1,000 that the 4 hard drives and the reserve drive would cost. By comparison, the difference between $287 and $173 is almost petty cash.

Are there any significant reasons to prefer one over the other for a FreeNAS build?

 

[Chris Moore]

You can even step back a generation and get plenty of performance for FreeNAS. The reason to go with the old guy, the price of memory.
I don't know how high you want to spec a system, but you can buy an entire system for less than the cost of a few components (and RAM) for one of these brand new systems.
Want examples? I have made many recommendations lately and some folks have even bought them.

This right here is a great example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro...-2-6ghz-8-Core-128gb-24-Bay-JBOD/292399861990

 

[tvsjr]

The E5-2670 is still a *very* capable processor. That's what powers my FreeNAS and 3-node vSphere 6.5 cluster. Despite a fairly heavy load from VMware, SMB, etc., it's actually overkill... I could easily pull a chip and still have plenty of headroom (although I need to keep both in to address all of the memory currently installed). My current load average is 0.11, 0.14, 0.09.

Another advantage is RAM quantity. On an X9DRi board, you can put 192GB (24x8GB) in it using parts from eBay for sub-$500.

 

[Chris Moore]

Another advantage is RAM quantity. On an X9DRi board, you can put 192GB (24x8GB) in it using parts from eBay for sub-$500.

From the Supermicro website: https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRi-F.cfm

• 16x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots
  
• Up to 1TB DDR3 ECC LRDIMM
  
• Up to 512GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM
  
• Up to 128GB DDR3 ECC/non-ECC UDIMM

 

[tvsjr]

From the Supermicro website: https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRi-F.cfm

• 16x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots
  
• Up to 1TB DDR3 ECC LRDIMM
  
• Up to 512GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM
  
• Up to 128GB DDR3 ECC/non-ECC UDIMM

Mine's an X9DRi-LN4F+. http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRi-LN4F_.cfm

• 24x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots
• Up to 1.5TB DDR3 ECC LRDIMM
• Up to 768GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM
• Up to 128GB DDR3 ECC/non-ECC UDIMM

 

[Chris Moore]

Mine's an X9DRi-LN4F+

Still, that is a lot of memory and the Registered ECC DDR3 memory is very cheap on eBay. I bought 32GB on regular ECC udimm memory for $160 and free shipping today. I don't think the DDR4 memory is selling that cheap.

 

[jgreco]

I have noted that obsolete Intel Xeon E5-2670 Sandy Bridge-EP 2.6GHz are currently less expensive at $173 then Xeon E3 v6.

The E5-2670's are data center pulls from some massive data center that had some custom hardware, maybe OCP stuff.

Since Sandy Bridge, the Intel CPU's have mostly been slight evolutionary changes between versions, with the notable exception of the E3 bump to 64GB and the whole Spectre/Meltdown thing. A Sandy Bridge E3-1230 CPU benchmarks at 7907 while the new E3-1230v6 comes in at 10212 so you might be going "that seven year old part is only 77% as fast" but this disregards that the speed jumped from 3.2 to 3.5GHz, so in a head-to-head at the same clock speed, that old CPU is 85% of today's CPU. It's not obsolete. It's just well tested. The E5-2670's have sold for as little as $65. Newer CPU's will be somewhat more efficient, but there was a massive jump between Nehalem and Sandy, and so I don't suggest going older than Sandy.

 

[pdenommee]

Still, that is a lot of memory and the Registered ECC DDR3 memory is very cheap on eBay. I bought 32GB on regular ECC udimm memory for $160 and free shipping today. I don't think the DDR4 memory is selling that cheap.

It depends where you buy it, as can be seen here https://www.frontierpc.com/componen...y-module-mem-dr380l-hl05-er18-1040845500.html .

One of those motherboard is extended ATX. Before I learned of the E5 price, I have already selected a microATX enclosure. Fortunately, I did not ordered it.

This motherboard is out of stock almost everywhere. This is an issue for future growth, in case of failure, for how long can we expect that replacement motherboards and memory will still be available?

I am building a new server from new parts. The parts can be older, but they have to be new.

 

[Chris Moore]

This motherboard is out of stock almost everywhere. This is an issue for future growth, in case of failure, for how long can we expect that replacement motherboards and memory will still be available?

I am building a new server from new parts. The parts can be older, but they have to be new.

If you insist on new, you are burning money. Sorry, there is no answer for that. Recycle, reuse and save.
There are so many of these out there that you will be able to buy them used for another three years easy.

 

[danb35]

The E5-2670's have sold for as little as $65.

My memory says I got my pair for just a touch less than that, but the prices are definitely up from where they were. Even so, a heck of a deal for the performance.

 

[jgreco]

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of perfectly good used gear that gets recycled onto eBay and then replaced with gear that is only marginally better. The corporate lease cycle is hilarious as *****. It isn't unusual to save 80% off the cost of new gear.

 

[Chris Moore]

It depends where you buy it, as can be seen here https://www.frontierpc.com/componen...y-module-mem-dr380l-hl05-er18-1040845500.html .

I just bought four of those memory modules on eBay for the price of ONE from that site. Buying new is a failure from the start.

 

[tahoward]

I was considering new hardware as well until I found a couple used E5-2667 V2 processors for $260 a pop. Those were what? $2000 new four years ago??
@jgreco Yup about 85% off!

IMO would not go with anything any newer unless PCID w/ INVPCID is needed to help mitigate performance impact on services sensitive to recent Meltdown patches.

DDR4 memory is ludicrous expensive at about $180-200 per 16GB module new. PC3 12800 16GB Registered ECC modules go about $90-95 a pop new.

 

[pdenommee]

I have a problem that most of you do not have, it is called the border. St-Damien is in the province of Quebec, in Canada. I can find on ebay 3Gb DDR3 for $32.99 with $32.75 shipping. I could drive to the border for probably less then that, I could easily get into USA, as I did Wednesday, for personal shopping, but sever memory is extremely likely to be declared a commercial import. For commercial importations, you need a Federal Business Number.

I did my research and I found that Canada Border Services Agency usually consider commercial the importation of high valued industrial computer (read intel Xeon). Because I holds a Computer Science degree and a Quebec Business Registration number, any attempt to convince them that I have no commercial intent is likely to get me arrested for Felony Lying to a Federal agent. I run my business form my home office, so with the server in my home, it is pretty obvious that it will, at least partially, be used for business purpose.

Tomorrow, I will call the Feds to know if I can get the required number that would greatly ease my life. I have little hope, because with this number, you exempt all provincial taxes on commercial imports and pay only Federal taxes. One applicant I know has been asked how many millions of exportation per year he was planning.

 

[tvsjr]

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of perfectly good used gear that gets recycled onto eBay and then replaced with gear that is only marginally better. The corporate lease cycle is hilarious as *****. It isn't unusual to save 80% off the cost of new gear.

Remember, it has nothing to do with the technology. It has everything to do with capex vs. opex and all the weird machinations that the propellerhead beancounters come up with. It's even sadder when you're dealing with government stuff... I watched several 96-core, 1TB+ RAM servers get ground into a fine powder when their work was done. :(

 

[jgreco]

I just bought four of those memory modules on eBay for the price of ONE from that site. Buying new is a failure from the start.

Make sure you test your eBay memory modules extensively. Even buying from a "reputable" seller on eBay, I think we've seen a substantially higher percentage of failure. There may be a reason people are selling them. I have a preference for buying new if the price delta is modest.

 

[jgreco]

I was considering new hardware as well until I found a couple used E5-2667 V2 processors for $260 a pop. Those were what? $2000 new four years ago??
@jgreco Yup about 85% off!

IMO would not go with anything any newer unless PCID w/ INVPCID is needed to help mitigate performance impact on services sensitive to recent Meltdown patches.

DDR4 memory is ludicrous expensive at about $180-200 per 16GB module new. PC3 12800 16GB Registered ECC modules go about $90-95 a pop new.

Yeah, we just bought DDR4 new for a customer hypervisor and that was about the price range IIRC. Even if you need PCID/meltdown you may still be better off just buying a much more capable system for the same amount of money and enjoy the extra capacity.

 

[jgreco]

Remember, it has nothing to do with the technology. It has everything to do with capex vs. opex and all the weird machinations that the propellerhead beancounters come up with.

Well I understand all that, as I run businesses, but my analysis is that leasing gear and trying to cause it to fall under opex by way of leasing only really makes sense if you really don't have the money up front or if you're sure that you're going to want the server gone at the end of the three years. In both cases, you pay the price premium to run your workloads on what is someone else's gear.

Going capex and writing it off as a sec 179 has gotten better over the years as Congress has used continuing 179/raising the 179 limit repeatedly as a way to encourage small business investment (reduce tax revenue?) But even without 179, 5 year depreciation is pretty reasonable. The 179 thing only works for small businesses. The thinking for bigger companies seems to be that they got a bit spanked during the 90's and 00's with the rapid growth of computing power, and that they'd prefer the shorter commitment, but that they just haven't noticed that has mostly failed to be compelling in the last ~8-10 years.

It probably helps to understand that I'm a little weird. I don't really believe in debt, and while it is sometimes a necessary evil, I prefer not to be in it. I view being in various constant states of debt (leases, lines of credit, etc) to be bad. If one of my businesses needs a line of credit, I prefer to find a way to fund that myself and not let the banks profit. Many Americans seem to have been trained to spend as much money as they can, leaving them unable to cover a sudden $500 expense, or even be able to pay for retirement. And I don't get that. Years ago when I worked as an assistant manager at a grocery store, there was a little bit of parking lot lore, possibly had some actual basis in an actual event somewhere at some time, went something like this:

An old lady in a massive old Cadillac was working her way towards a parking spot when a young man in a sports car zipped around her and grabbed the spot. The man jumps out and she opens her window, scolding him, and he says, "Sorry, fast car, too slow!" and proceeds towards the store. Suddenly, he hears a giant crash. He turns around, sees the lady has rammed his car, and has pulled back. Horrified, he watches her put it into drive and ram his car again. He asks, "What are you doing?!" Lady responds, "Not sorry, rich old lady, don't care."

Between that and the depressing number of pleasant elderly folks who were obviously shopping on a shoestring grocery budget, I decided that I would prefer to be in the position of that old lady.

So that's a really long way to get to my point, which is that not only do we as a society seem to have failed individual people, by convincing many of them that they have to "spend it all", and to go into debt to do it, but also it seems like there are similar attitudes pervasive in business as well. This might make a little more sense for a business, where there are no retirement prospects, and so if it fails, it's just dead, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to leverage every potential bit of financial possibility to see if you can eke out a little extra bit of income.

It's even sadder when you're dealing with government stuff... I watched several 96-core, 1TB+ RAM servers get ground into a fine powder when their work was done. :(

Yeah, there's a certain amount of deliberate waste there.

 

[Linkman]

[OT: Your parking lot anecdote sounds strikingly similar to a scene from "Fried Green Tomatoes", at least the movie version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101921/quotes ]

 

[Chris Moore]

Yeah, there's a certain amount of deliberate waste there.

Thankfully, when we declassify systems here, all we have to do is destroy the data storage (drives) and the remainder of the system can be auctioned off. Unfortunately, by the time it is auctioned off, it is usually so old that nobody should be using it. We have items that have been awaiting excess for over a year and are still sitting in the warehouse.