While on newegg, I saw Syba PCI-X cards that work on PCI-X 100MHz,
64-bit, so you can get about 250MB/s per disk, since according to
wikipedia, PCI-X @ 133MHz gives about 1064MB/s.
So you get 8 ports from this card. Look for others under "port multiplier."
I've dealt with IBM xSeries boxes. The normal tower chassis can house
8 disks only. I don't know how you're gonna squeeze more disks into
it!
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:14 PM, Drew<drew.kay@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> If you're looking at port multipliers, you need to find PCI-Express
>> modules if you want them to be fast. The PCI ones are gonna be very
>> slow when you have more than 2 disks per card.
>
> The existing server we're planning to re-purpose for this is an IBM
> xSeries with two free PCI-X/100 slots and dual PCIe/x4 slots.
>
>> You might want to checkout Supermicro's offerings as well.
>
> I'd love to be able to upgrade the servers but the bean counters won't
> authorize new servers until the existing kit have been fully amortized
> and/or we're overloading the existing units. Given the main ESXi host
> is a 8 core IBM x445 that's about 60% loaded and I have 3 years worth
> of amortization left I can't add new servers.
>
> Storage is another matter, we're pushing to about 80% of our current
> 400GB capacity and with our OEM suppliers (we sell commercial trucks)
> advising us to expect more of our documentation and training going
> electronic, I'm looking at shelves worth of manuals and training
> material being made electronic over the next few years and given our
> data transmission costs are much higher (~$10/GB) then local storage,
> we're looking at local storage.
>
> We've considered upgrading our SCSI drives but the per GB cost
> difference of SATA vs SCSI drives just isn't worth it. We pay about
> $1-$2/GB for SCSI vs $0.25-$0.50/GB for server grade SATA.
>
>
> --
> Drew
>
> "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
> --Marie Curie
>
--
Majed B.
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