S5E19: "RAM it in Hardware"

Posted 2020-11-08 23:59
Modified 2020-11-10 11:51
Comments 0

In this episode, we delve deeper on the topic of hardware for servers – specifically, Jthan features a lengthy look into ECC RAM.

I apologize if my audio seems a bit off in this one; I lost my local recording so we had to rely on Mumble’s recording!

• Just the Tip
• Notes
• 15 Clams
• Errata
• Music

Just the Tip

• Paden talks about how not to perform a software/platform/etc. migration.

Notes

Starts at 25m34s.

I was drinking a Guinness Draught. Paden was drinking Grey Goose vodka and orange juice. Jthan was drinking MIchelob Ultra.

• ECC (“Error-Correcting Code”) RAM
  • ECC RAM with ZFS is a mixed bag – it has some tradeoffs.
    • ECC RAM is a bit slower.
  • “Segfaults instead of kernel panics”, for an abstract way of looking at it.
  • They also log hardware errors in the MCE (“Machine Check Exception”) log.

• Power supplies (38m33s)
  • How many PSUs?
    • For availability, Jthan thinks you should get at least a single failover (2x total) PSU chassis/board.
  • For boxes with high power consumption, keep in mind the failover factor needed!

• Disks (Hard drives) (42m44s)
  • Jthan recommends enterprise disks because they last longer.
  • If you’re using platter disks, remember about vibrational sensitivity (and the vibration the disks themselves generate as well)!
  • Jthan whores about ZFS again and then promptly forgets to talk about it. He really wanted to talk about error recovery control.
  • He also cautions about how spin-up/spin-down affects warranty and guaranteed lifetime of disks.

15 Clams

In this segment, Jthan shares with you a little slice of life. The title is a reference to this video. (2m16s in)

Starts at 59m10s.

Jthan tells us about the datacenter watercooled in a pond.

And by that he means make sure you have backups and a restore procedure. Also make sure you have a failover plan or procedure for your secondary/failover backup server if it fails.

Errata

• This is the poll we were referring to in the intro. Relax, we recorded this before the election even started.
• Dook in Peace. Charlie Buckets (the ferret). You were a good boy. :(
  • I was wrong, he was actually pretty young. It’s not unheard of for them to die around 4 years old from cancer or other medical conditions, but he was still fairly young (~7 years is roughly the upper limit if they develop cancer. “Old” would be 13 if natural causes/old age.). He died of a heart attack. He was 3.5 and had degenerative cardiomyopathy.
  • You can find photos of him here: 1, 2, 3, 4
  • Still miss ya, bud.
• I reference the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (which Jthan hasn’t seen because he doesn’t watch good movies apparently).
  • Let us know which one of the Sysadministrivia hosts are each character in this scene (spoiler alert).
  • But also it’s from the mid-60’s and not the 70’s, oops.
• ZFS was written originally by three people.
  • Jthan said he was thinking of Matt Ahrens, specifically this quote from him.
• Regarding platter drives and vibrational sensitivity, this will forever be one of my favourite videos.
• Member loken in our Discord has pointed out to us the following. Thanks, loken!
  • There are non-Xeon Intel processors that support ECC.
  • Supermicro (and possibly others) have boards that require ECC RAM to be used!

Music

Author r00t^2
Categories Season Five