Data processing station / server

[Mr.SMT]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm diving a bit deeper than my knowledge in "enterprise" hardware.

We need a data processing server for our research lab. Academia is always in a limbo between true enterprise and consumer hardware. If we get a very expensive server, it would be a bit overkill for our use and we're always budget constrained. If we try consumer hardware, it's a bit unfit for our needs. I need your help to find a good middle ground here.

 

We want a machine to run analysis scripts on our data. We currently run those scripts on dell workstations with xeon gold 6138 with 64GB RAM. We need around 180GB of RAM for processing on 32 threads, for now we limit the threads count to 4-8 and rely heavily on windows' good memory management to run those scripts without crashing. Also, the Xeon gold 6138 is like a f***ing truck, very very slow but can lift some heavy weight, but we can't fully use this power because of memory constrains. If I rund the analysis on my machine at home (13900k + 64GB RAM) with the same threads count as at work, the scripts finish in about a third of the time. It would be great if we can find a CPU with similar performance to the i9 but with support for something like 256GB RAM. DDR5 or DDR4 won't differ much I think.

 

Budget (including currency): 5-10k euro

Country: Germany

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Proprietary software

Other details: 

- The CPU has to be from Intel, because of proprietary software requirements. 

- Preferably 256 GB RAM 

- Room for 6 SATA drives for bulk storage.

- No GPU for now, because I have to figure out our requirements. But it would be great if it has enough PCIe lanes to support 4 or so tensor chips if later needed.

 

 

[TubsAlwaysWins]

22 minutes ago, Mr.SMT said:

Hi everyone,

 

I'm diving a bit deeper than my knowledge in "enterprise" hardware.

We need a data processing server for our research lab. Academia is always in a limbo between true enterprise and consumer hardware. If we get a very expensive server, it would be a bit overkill for our use and we're always budget constrained. If we try consumer hardware, it's a bit unfit for our needs. I need your help to find a good middle ground here.

 

We want a machine to run analysis scripts on our data. We currently run those scripts on dell workstations with xeon gold 6138 with 64GB RAM. We need around 180GB of RAM for processing on 32 threads, for now we limit the threads count to 4-8 and rely heavily on windows' good memory management to run those scripts without crashing. Also, the Xeon gold 6138 is like a f***ing truck, very very slow but can lift some heavy weight, but we can't fully use this power because of memory constrains. If I rund the analysis on my machine at home (13900k + 64GB RAM) with the same threads count as at work, the scripts finish in about a third of the time. It would be great if we can find a CPU with similar performance to the i9 but with support for something like 256GB RAM. DDR5 or DDR4 won't differ much I think.

 

Budget (including currency): 5-10k euro

Country: Germany

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Proprietary software

Other details: 

- The CPU has to be from Intel, because of proprietary software requirements. 

- Preferably 256 GB RAM 

- Room for 6 SATA drives for bulk storage.

- No GPU for now, because I have to figure out our requirements. But it would be great if it has enough PCIe lanes to support 4 or so tensor chips if later needed.

 

 

I cant specifically name anything but Id look at used or refurbished server units. You usually get dual Xeons, loads of room for RAM, and as many drive bays as you want. The drive bays will probably use SAS but SATA drives will work in them. 

Plus ECC RAM if thats a thing you care about.