Teraserver

1
Teraserver

• Darrel Sharpe
• Matt Todd
• Rob Neff
• Mentor Dr. Palaniappan

2
About the Terraserver

• A network server with 1000 gigabytes of storage
  space
• Designed for the MU-CECS Multimedia Lab
• Will run Kolam imaging software
• Will deliver appropriate bandwidth to authorized
  network users for fast loading of large images

3
Teraserver Goals

• Cost under 5000
• One terabyte of storage
• Reliable
• Versatile
• Fast

4
Components Overview

• System Chassis
• Motherboard and CPU
• Network Cards
• Raid Controllers
• Hard Drives

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Storage Chassis
6
Motherboard and CPU

• Dual vs. Quad CPU Motherboards
• Intel vs. AMD
• Pentium III vs. the Athlon XP

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Tyan AMD Dual-CPU Motherboard
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A Gigabit Ethernet Card
9
Benchmarking Methods

• SandraSoft
• A software package for benchmarking hardware
  performance
• SETI_at_Home packets
• 3D Mark 2001, 3D Mark 2000, Quake 3 demo,
  NetBench from ZDNet

10
Storage Memory

• Two storage options
• SCSI-small computer system interface
• EIDE-Enhanced Intelligent Drive Electronics
• 2 Problems
• SCSI
• Fast, sustained transfer rates 160Mbyte/sec
• 181GBs 1300
• 1TB 7800
• EIDE
• Poor performance with multiple drives
• CPU Intensive
• Primary Controller
• Maximum 2 Drives in UltraDMA100 mode
• Max Burst 100MBytes/s sustained 40MBytes/s
• Secondary controller made for CD-ROMs

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Raid Controllers

• Redundant Array of Independent Disks
• A Few Different Modes of Raid
• Raid-0 striping
• Raid-1 mirroring
• Raid-3 striping with parity drive
• Raid-5 large striping with rotating parity
• 80 sustained performance increase
• 75MB/s now instead of 40MB/s
• Note 32-bit PCI Bus Transfer Rate132MB/s

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The Two Best Raid Options
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Hard Drive
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SuperTrak66 Raid Controller
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Constraints

• A terabyte of available disk space
• Cost around 5000
• Able to be mounted by client MacOS, Windows, and
  UNIX
• There is no constraint on the type of OS as long
  as the external clients are able to mount the
  file share.

16
Performance Requirements

• Deliver image data to workstations and other
  connected devices to allow for seamless scrolling
  of the viewed image through the Kolam software.
• Prove the servers reliability by staying up for
  months at a time.

17
Cost/Resource Analysis
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Alternative Designs

• Mixes of Hardware Components
• Varied prices and not currently released but
  desirable components
• Server only
• Removes high-end graphics adapter
• Workstation / Server combo
• Workstation only
• Removes need for dual CPU, massive net planning

19
Scheduling

• Design Teraserver in Nov-Dec 2001
• Keep in mind changes in Price and new Options
• Order parts in December 2001
• Begin Construction in January
• Have a bootable OS by February 1st
• Begin Testing and Tuning the system the following
  week
• Present product on May 1st