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ARM Servers - Discussion & Interest
I was curious to see if anyone here had experience with the ARM architecture. We have been playing around with hardware for a little while and have gone live a few days ago with very affordable ARM servers.
I'm wondering what sort of interest there is for ARM or how many people have realistically looked into this!
Thanks!
Comments
The Raspberry Pi seems to be fairly popular.
Yeah, it all started with the Raspberry Pi, but those are extremely low end and most people seem to be interested in using it for personal ventures such as an HTPC versus a full blown out server.
Have you used it?
The ARM servers we have are quad core 1.7 Ghz with 2 GB of RAM on them. Significantly more powerful than the Raspberry Pi.
I would be interested in them as a toy. I don't know what realistic use I would have.
These? http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.php
@Damian - Well, what do you use servers/VPS' for today?
For servers, I sell people services on them.
For VPS, I use them for DNS nodes, for monitoring nodes, and for geographic services that I sell to other people because we aren't in those locations.
You should be able to run about 90%+ of the same stuff. DNS, LAMP, etc.
We successfully LAMP with DNS with absolutely no issues. Most, if not all of the common packages have been ported over on the Debian/Ubuntu side of things.
We were also able to compile and run the WHT Unix Bench, interesting stuff to say the least!
HP, Dell, etc have been venturing out into ARM and you should see it become mainstream in the next 1 - 3 years.
http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/moonshot/index.aspx
http://www.dell.com/Learn/us/en/555/campaigns/project-copper?c=us&l=en&s=biz
Indeed, I should be able to run 100% of the same stuff I do now, but I don't really see the point. That's my point.
Interesting that you linked Moonshot, since Moonshot uses Atoms and, when it was announced, effectively ended HP's interest in ARM. Dell is still going, so hopefully they won't be as swayed by Intel.
Well the point is cost, you have the advantage of not sharing resources, but at a much lower price point than a typical dedicated server.
What sort of price point would you expect for a fully dedicated machine? Just remember to factor in space, bandwidth, support, and other costs.
$10
Based on that pricing it seems that Kimsufi is completely ripping people off on KS 2G servers. Dedicated servers have additional costs that you don't see with a virtual server (Setup, Maintenance, Spare Parts, PDUs, Managed Switches).
Why bother with Atoms when Intels/AMDs (eg kimsufi) are available at similar prices?
As for VPSes I don't see how ARM can be cheaper or more powerful than it's x86 counterpart
@MrRadic
aren't you from that company which recently sent out an E-Mail to their customers offering these quad core ARMs with some 250 GB HDD for $39 per month?
It depends. Just post the offer and if people buy it - it's good.
I doubt many or any people here have had previous commercial experience with rented ARM servers.
I would probably pay about $15-20 if it had decent disk space.
If you were offering these things with a 3Tb disk each at a reasonable price, I would probably get a ton of them
@Surge so what's your definition of reasonable price for a 3TB disk?
€18-22/month excl. taxes for 3TB enterprise disk. then it's paid for the provider after 5-6months.
@superpilesos which enterprise 3TB disk costs 110-130 EUR? Where?
edit: it's possible, but with desktop HDD, enterprise 3TB is much more expensive.
@rds100 My point is that ARM itself is only there to drive the disk, so it can be a really wimpy one so as to add as little cost to the disk cost as possible. So lets say single-core ARM, 1Gb mem + 3Tb disk (consumer, not enterprise) at $20-30/mo with 6-month contract. Or maybe 2x3Tb at twice the cost.
Edit: I would even consider just buying the hardware and paying colocation, but at ARM colocation pricing.
@Surge yes, that could work out more or less.
edit: it's possible, but with desktop HDD, enterprise 3TB is much more expensive.
wrong drive. That's for WD RED, which I'm using in a few servers now without problems. RE version would require the price to be ~€34-37 but I'm using RE4 drives in my home computer and don't notice any difference, and WD RED have TLER too. apparently they are a little slower but not something i have noticed
@MrRadic: can you provide a cat /proc/cpuinfo of these?
Yes, with WD RED or seagate "video" SV35 it's possible and makes sense.
We have both WD Red and SV35's in use in not-VPS servers and quite like them. No complaints there.
@superpilesos infact you already know where to get that deal ;-)
What do you mean?
By the way, desktop drives seagate ST1000DM003 are good and cheap too. I am using them for a streaming client and they are performing without issues.
There can be a problem with software which uses a system call not available with armel.
An example is pdns-recursor in Debian, available in x86, amd64 etc but not in armel.
MK808 1GB RAM Dual Core RK3066 ($42 1 unit, much less in big quantities) + Ethernet adapter ($5) = Ultra cheap server with almost zero power needs.
If you sell that for $4/month, you will have a client.
These Re from ReliableSite who aren't very reliable.