Thank you for your input and bear with me while I attempt to answer your posts:
InquiringMind wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:28 am
Just that you seem to have spent quite some time confirming the points made above - that the SATA connection of your SSD is not an issue, that your CPU is the bottleneck and that L1 cache is not worth enabling unless you can dedicate significant memory to it.
Agreed!
InquiringMind wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:28 am
I do wonder why you are still relying on LAN benchmarks when there are plenty of good hard disk ones like
CrystalDiskMark (free, simple quick test) or
HDTune (trialware, more thorough testing). Using these means avoiding network bottlenecks - which, if they exist on your system, can be dealt with separately.
Well, first: I am NOT running the test over the network, you are mistaken. I have mentioned this earlier......that I am running this test on the server itself.
Second, my ultimate goal is high network throughput. The other tools (and I am well aware of them) don't do over the network testing (also). Using the same tool on my workstation and on the server itself, gives me an apples-apples type of test.
InquiringMind wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:28 am
Frankly, using an Atom in a server to lower power consumption is insane - you are only saving a few tens of watts compared to a low-end Xeon and giving up an awful lot of computing power - Atoms should only be considered where power usage is critical, like in a battery operated system. If you want to save power on a 24/7 system, make sure the monitor powers down after a period of inactivity (that's 70-150W for a flat screen, depending on size and backlight type) and that you are running the lowest-spec graphics card you can get away with (high-end ones are real power-hogs). Assuming that your system sees constant or near-constant use, ensure that the HDDs are set to *not* power down (starting them up will take 10-20W each) and consider replacing them with SSDs.
Is PrimoCache for you? I'd suggest balancing your system first.
Well, the reason for using Atom is simply low power consumption. I am wary of high electricity bills. I did not chose to put an Atom on it, SuperMicro makes plenty of Atom motherboards (Atom is soldered onto the mobo)...There is a real reason why a well known dedicated server company makes Atom based boards. There is a market for it....I am one of those people
This server costs me around 6 dollars a month / 74 dollars a year. I built it well over a decade back....so that has cost me $740
Just for contrast, the workstation I built around the same time ago, used around 300 watts. That would have cost me $315 per year / 3150 dollars!
So i chose to take the seemingly insane route to get the Atom instead
(yes, a current generation machine will suck up much less power...but I will have to spend around 500-800 bucks to get a new mobo+CPU+ram etc. Maybe it is worth it, maybe not....a ROI analysis needs to be done
This low power machine has served well, because all I ask of it is to serve my photos and videos on the home network.....which is very light use. The machine runs headless, no monitor attached. It has IPMI for remote management. Also RDP is there, once Windows OS has booted up.
I have a 14TB HDD array in it, using 5 NAS HDDs
Using SSDs for that size of array would be very expensive...but yes, they will consume lower power
So there you have it........yes you are correct, my config for the server is crappy.
But there is a valid reason for it to be so crappy..........and it works for me.
However, if I want more ooomph from it.......more network throughput....I need to upgrade its hardware.