Questions tagged [hardware]

Computer hardware is the collection of physical elements that comprise a computer system.

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466 votes
7 answers
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Something is burning in the server room; how can I quickly identify what it is?

The other day, we notice a terrible burning smell coming out of the server room. Long story short, it ended up being one of the battery modules that was burning up in the UPS unit, but it took a good ...
Chad Harrison's user avatar
162 votes
5 answers
33k views

Are SSD drives as reliable as mechanical drives (2013)?

SSD drives have been around for several years now. But the issue of reliability still comes up. I guess this is a follow up from this question posted 4 years ago, and last updated in 2011. It's now ...
hookenz's user avatar
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149 votes
12 answers
40k views

Should servers be turned off at night?

There is a server that is used from 4:30 am in the morning until ~ 22:00. Should it be turned off? I think that it is a server and that it won't have a problem to stay on, but serious professors are ...
GorillaApe's user avatar
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74 votes
13 answers
51k views

SSD or HDD for server

Issue I have read many discussions about storage, and whether SSDs or classic HDDs are better. I am quite confused. HDDs are still quite preferred, but why? Which is better for active storage? For ...
genderbee's user avatar
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72 votes
17 answers
21k views

Does orientation affect hard drive lifespan?

Are there any studies or evidence which show that mounting a hard drive horizontally is better than vertically for the lifespan of the device? Or upside down, or any direction for that matter.
Bob's user avatar
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63 votes
10 answers
6k views

How to extinguish a small fire in a server rack to minimize damage to surrounding equipment?

Suppose I have a rack with several servers and other stuff. One of servers overheats severely and either starts smoking or catches fire while there's a serviceman nearby. If anything similar happens ...
sharptooth's user avatar
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61 votes
8 answers
6k views

Moving Servers Within The Same Building

Here's my scenario: I'm a developer that inherited (unbeknownst to me) three servers located within my office. I also inherited the job of being the admin of the servers with a distinct lack of server ...
Gareth's user avatar
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58 votes
12 answers
9k views

What should I pay attention to when I'm buying a network switch?

Since I'm not a hardware expert, I don't know what features make a network switch a good network switch. What should I pay attention, when I'm comparing the different models from different vendors?
splattne's user avatar
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56 votes
14 answers
2k views

Is UPS worthwhile for non-production equipment? [closed]

Over the years, I've had to throw away a quite a few bits of computing equipment (and the like): Several ADSL routers with odd symptoms (losing wireless connections, losing wired connections, DHCP ...
Jon Skeet's user avatar
  • 4,957
56 votes
4 answers
225k views

DIMMs: Single vs. Double vs. Quad Rank

What difference does the 'Rank' of DIMMs make to server memory? For example, when looking at server configurations I see the following being offered for the same server: 2GB (1x2GB) Single Rank PC3-...
MikeyB's user avatar
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55 votes
6 answers
13k views

Why do we still use power supplies on datacenter servers?

Computers mainly need three voltages to work : +12V, +5V and +3,3V, all of them are DC. Why can't we just have a few (for redundancy) big power supply providing these three voltages to the entire ...
user avatar
54 votes
8 answers
4k views

How is fire spread in server rooms and datacenters?

Every now and then I read that a severe fire has happened in some datacenter, lots of equipment has been damaged and customers have gone offline. Now I wonder what is there to support and spread fire? ...
sharptooth's user avatar
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48 votes
7 answers
15k views

Probability of Blade Chassis Failure

In my organisation we are thinking about buying blade servers - instead of rack servers. Of course technology vendors also make them sound very nice. A concern, that I read very often in different ...
ChrisZZ's user avatar
  • 737
45 votes
1 answer
51k views

HP ProLiant DL360 G7 hangs at "Power and Thermal Calibration" screen

I have a new HP ProLiant DL360 G7 system that is exhibiting a difficult-to-reproduce issue. The server randomly hangs at the "Power and Thermal Calibration in Progress..." screen during the POST ...
ewwhite's user avatar
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44 votes
12 answers
18k views

Where did "Wait 30 seconds before turning it back on" come from?

I guess these are the kinds of things I think about on the weekend... When I was growing up (not that long ago) my parents always taught us to wait 30 seconds after shutting down the computer before ...
Brandon's user avatar
  • 2,817
44 votes
13 answers
83k views

Physically Identify the failed hard drive

So, let's say your server had 6 healthy hard drives. A drive fails (will not mount/detect, drops out of raid with errors) or is failing (SMART getting worse, etc). You need to swap out the bad drive....
privatehuff's user avatar
  • 1,109
43 votes
3 answers
89k views

What is the command to flash a NIC link light?

I remember using a command line tool to flash a NIC's link light to identify it. I can't remember for the life of me what it was.
rjmoggach's user avatar
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42 votes
13 answers
276k views

How to find out details about hardware on the Linux machine?

-i.e - how to get a full list of hardware components in command line (on a machine with no window system) Thank you.
Evgeny's user avatar
  • 599
42 votes
8 answers
8k views

Server Room Temperature Control

We have a makeshift server room that contains a rack with half a dozen servers and some network equipment. The room is cooled by a dual-hose portable a/c unit that is vented into the attic. At this ...
Brandon's user avatar
  • 531
42 votes
6 answers
122k views

Does a 500 watt power supply always use 500 watts of electricity? [closed]

Does a 500 watt power supply always pull 500 watts? Or does it depend on the load being placed on the computer? It's a n00b hardware question. I'm trying to figure out how much it costs to run my ...
Jim's user avatar
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40 votes
4 answers
25k views

What is the use case of a SD slot on motherboard?

My HP Proliant ML110 G7 has a full-size SD slot on the motherboard. What is its use case? The PDF manual mentions it on page 10: item 17 just to show its placement, but nothing more. In a later ...
FarO's user avatar
  • 485
39 votes
7 answers
65k views

ZFS best practices with hardware RAID

If one happens to have some server-grade hardware at ones disposal, is it ever advisable to run ZFS on top of a hardware-based RAID1 or some such? Should one turn off the hardware-based RAID, and run ...
cnst's user avatar
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39 votes
18 answers
945 views

Poor internal database - replace it or chuck hardware at it?

So - we have an internal company database, the usual kind of stuff: manages clients, phone calls, sales deals and client agreements/schemes. It's an Access 2000 front-end, and an SQL Server 2000 ...
tomfanning's user avatar
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38 votes
2 answers
9k views

What risks are there with mixing SSD models in RAID?

Aside from one type of disk bottlenecking the other, are there any other problems with mixing SSD models in RAID? My problem is, I need to upgrade the storage in a server with 4x Samsung 845DC EVO ...
IsAGuest's user avatar
  • 947
36 votes
2 answers
8k views

HP plan to restrict access to ProLiant server firmware - consequences?

I've been a longtime advocate for HP ProLiant servers in my system environments. The platform has been the basis of my infrastructure designs across several industries for the past 12 years. The ...
ewwhite's user avatar
  • 198k
34 votes
8 answers
7k views

Is it necessary to burn-in RAM for server-class hardware?

Considering the fact that many server-class systems are equipped with ECC RAM, is it necessary or useful to burn-in the memory DIMMs prior to their deployment? I've encountered an environment where ...
ewwhite's user avatar
  • 198k
33 votes
10 answers
23k views

Reliability of ssd drives

The main advantage of SSD drives is better performance. I am interested in their reliability. Are SSD drives more reliable then normal hard drives? Some people say they must be because they have no ...
Dani van der Meer's user avatar
32 votes
4 answers
52k views

What happens when the USB key or SD card I've installed VMware ESXi on fails?

An SD (SDHC) card installed in an HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server running VMware ESXi just failed :( I encountered some ominous looking messages on the vCenter console and in the HP ProLiant ILO event ...
ewwhite's user avatar
  • 198k
30 votes
2 answers
16k views

Why are enterprise SAS disk enclosures seemingly so expensive?

I will begin by stating that I do not believe this is a duplicate of Why is Enterprise Storage so expensive?. My question is specifically about SAS drive enclosures, and justifying their expense. ...
Sam Elstob's user avatar
30 votes
7 answers
21k views

What are the performance differences between Raid 0,1,5,6,10

I have heard/read different performance stories on the various raid flavors. I am curious what the agreed upon best answer is.
James Moore's user avatar
  • 1,247
29 votes
9 answers
11k views

Consumer (or prosumer) SSD's vs. fast HDD in a server environment

What are the pro's and con's of consumer SSDs vs. fast 10-15k spinning drives in a server environment? We cannot use enterprise SSDs in our case as they are prohibitively expensive. Here's some notes ...
David Budiac's user avatar
28 votes
5 answers
10k views

Do I need to RAID Fusion-io cards?

Can I run reliably with a single Fusion-io card installed in a server, or do I need to deploy two cards in a software RAID setup? Fusion-io isn't very clear (almost misleading) on the topic when ...
ewwhite's user avatar
  • 198k
28 votes
5 answers
179k views

What is the difference between a HBA card and a RAID card?

I thought I knew the difference between HBA and RAID. In my mind, HBA is offloading from the main motherboard/CPU and is simply JBOD... usually has an external SAS ports, whilst a RAID card does the ...
William Hilsum's user avatar
27 votes
4 answers
2k views

What to look for in a datacentre ethernet switch

This is a Canonical Question about choosing a network switch for a datacentre When shopping for a networking switch that's going to be going into the top of a datacentre rack, what specific things ...
Mark Henderson's user avatar
27 votes
6 answers
133k views

Can I detect hardware RAID information from inside Linux?

When I'm inside of Linux, I can get the following information from lsblk (irrelevant drives removed from output): NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sda 8:0 0 298G 0 disk sdb 8:...
IQAndreas's user avatar
  • 1,580
26 votes
11 answers
20k views

Is anyone else using OpenBSD as a router in the enterprise? What hardware are you running it on? [closed]

We have an OpenBSD router at each of our locations, currently running on generic "homebrew" PC hardware in a 4U server case. Due to reliability concerns and space considerations we're looking at ...
Kamil Kisiel's user avatar
  • 12.3k
26 votes
2 answers
64k views

How exactly does a SAS SFF-8087 breakout cable work? + RAID/connection questions

Please let me know if my question does not makes any sense as I am not sure if I am interpreting it correctly from my thoughts due to my lack of technical knowledge on this. If I am using a ...
Damainman's user avatar
  • 1,055
26 votes
1 answer
113k views

What's the bandwidth and form factor for PCIe x1 x4 x8 and x16?

What speed, number of pins (physical size) are PCIe x1 x4 x8 and x16? Normally I would google to find a photo showing the various types of PCI Express cards and their max bandwidth. Now that ...
username's user avatar
  • 4,785
25 votes
13 answers
4k views

Anti-static wrist straps: are they worth it?

Do you use an antistatic wrist strap when working on hardware? Do they really work? Have you ever fried some hardware that would have been saved if you had been wearing one? I know some people who ...
Charles Roper's user avatar
24 votes
13 answers
3k views

High Failure Rate of Large Drives?

I recently deployed a server with 5x 1TB drives (I won't mention their brand, but it was one of the big two). I was initially warned against getting large capacity drives, as a friend advised me that ...
Mark Henderson's user avatar
23 votes
5 answers
7k views

SSD head / cylinder / cluster details

A customer of ours makes industrial robots that run on very old, but stable, hardware and software. The only bottleneck has always been the hard drive in these moving machines. Due to constant ...
Knelis's user avatar
  • 333
23 votes
1 answer
22k views

Hosting a ZFS server as a virtual guest

I'm still new to ZFS. I've been using Nexenta but I'm thinking of switching to OpenIndiana or Solaris 11 Express. Right now, I'm at a point of considering virtualizing the ZFS server as a guest within ...
osij2is's user avatar
  • 3,885
23 votes
2 answers
3k views

Protecting Servers from Dust

I have a single server rack (31 of the 42U occupied) in a small (about 10'x10') basement room in a building that is seeing some light renovation... nothing huge, but some non-load-bearing-walls going ...
Joel Coel's user avatar
  • 13k
23 votes
3 answers
184k views

What is the difference between RDIMM vs UDIMM

I don't quite understand the differences between the two besides the obvious price differences. What does each offer over the other?
Tablemaker's user avatar
  • 1,159
22 votes
6 answers
936 views

How to prepare computers for donation

We are decommissioning around 40 Dell desktops. We would like to donate them but drives need to be wiped. What's the best approach to wipe them all as efficiently as possible? Is it standard practice ...
Sandy's user avatar
  • 656
22 votes
3 answers
3k views

What is this wiring panel and what are these Ethernet "ports?"

In my office's building there is a stone-age LAN rack with some Ethernet ports I've never seen before. I need to find the name of this ports, if they have one, and then buy some cables or adapters. ...
Alessandro Cappello's user avatar
22 votes
3 answers
4k views

Can "enterprise" drives be safely replaced by near/midline in some situations?

When specifying servers, like (I would assume) many engineers who aren't experts in storage, I'll generally play it safe (and perhaps be a slave to marketing) by standardising on a minimum of 10k SAS ...
dbr's user avatar
  • 1,862
22 votes
7 answers
9k views

Do you continue to use your end-of-life server/network equipment?

So you spend lots of money on nice servers, storage arrays, or network equipment and it works wonderfully for you for years. But after 3-6 years your vendor no longer offers maintenance for the ...
21 votes
5 answers
53k views

How to make my HP server boot faster?

I have an HP ProLiant DL370 G6 server that I am using as a workstation. It takes 60 seconds during reboot and cold boot before screens post with a discrete Radeon HD6xxx GPU. What can I do to make ...
GregC's user avatar
  • 889
20 votes
6 answers
38k views

Should I be concerned about a high SMART Hardware_ECC_Recovered value?

I got such a message in /var/log/messages: Jun 25 06:29:27 server.ru smartd[4477]: Device: /dev/sda, SMART Usage Attribute: 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered changed from 46 to 47 #smartctl -a /dev/sda: ...
lexsys's user avatar
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