Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - Printable Version
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Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - shrek - 11-26-2019
It took me a while but I managed to get IRIX 6.5.22 reinstalled on it. I have a couple questions about hardware and general maintenance of the system. Could any harm come from leaving it on all the time? I don't think it would be an issue as long as I keep it an open area where it can achieve sufficient airflow. My other question is what's the largest number of disks I can put in this system and what's the maximum capacity of each disk? And since these workstations use older SCSI disks that are relative low capacity by today's standards is there any way I could buy an adapter and put an SSD in my Octane? Not so much for performance but for longevity, noise and heat reduction, and more storage. I'm guessing that partition sizes will be limited by the older XFS versions and possibly the boot firmware not wanting to boot from large disks or partitions. Would just making multiple partitions on one disk work?
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - Irinikus - 11-26-2019
You can install 3 drives internally, if you have three drive sleds. I stand corrected, but you can install 3, 300GB 80-pin 15K RPM SCSI drives internally.
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - jan-jaap - 11-26-2019
(11-26-2019, 09:10 AM)shrek Wrote: Could any harm come from leaving it on all the time?
No, it was designed for that. But anything you leave running 24/7 will wear out in the end. My Origin 350 has run 24/7 since I got it in 2011 I believe. Whether you want to leave a 20 year old device running unsupervised in the first place is up to you.
(11-26-2019, 09:10 AM)shrek Wrote: My other question is what's the largest number of disks I can put in this system and what's the maximum capacity of each disk?
The system has space for 3 internal disks. There's a maximum LUN size of 2TB. Actual SCSI disks wit SCA connectors max out at ~ 300GB.
(11-26-2019, 09:10 AM)shrek Wrote: is there any way I could buy an adapter and put an SSD in my Octane? Not so much for performance but for longevity, noise and heat reduction, and more storage.
Well, you'd need a SCSI-to-SATA bridge, one of those Acard devices, except the asking price these days seems to hover around $1000. I think an Octane consumes around 250W so I don't think the ~ 10W consumption of a hard disk will make much of a dent. I'd get myself a late 15K disk with FD bearings , e.g. a Seagate 15K.4. Their noise level is comparable to a SATA disk, except the seeking noises are a little more aggressive.
(11-26-2019, 09:10 AM)shrek Wrote: I'm guessing that partition sizes will be limited by the older XFS versions and possibly the boot firmware not wanting to boot from large disks or partitions. Would just making multiple partitions on one disk work?
No, the only limit is that a single disk (LUN) cannot exceed 2TB. In my Origin 350 I have an LSI SATA adapter with an XVM stripe of two 2TB disks resulting in 4TB scratch space. I could attach many TBs of SAN storage, as long as the SAN serves it up in 2TB chunks, and you assemble them in a single volume using XLV or XVM.
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - shrek - 11-26-2019
Good to know that I can go up to 2TB. That would be more than enough for my needs. Also a shame that the SATA adapters alone are going to cost nearly twice as much as I paid for the Octane itself. So in the end I guess I'll be forced to stick with mechanical SCSI disks and see if I can find a couple over 100GB on ebay or something. Probably won't be leaving it on either if I can't use it for serious storage.
Krokodil, what IRIX version are you running on yours that you're encountering freezing on, and how long does it take for this to happen? If it's not hardware related it could be a bug that was fixed in later versions or possibly even a regression not seen in older versions. I'm going to leave my Octane running overnight with my user account logged in and I'll report back if it does anything odd.
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - vishnu - 11-26-2019
Krokodil, is the box really frozen or just the user interface? Can you telnet or ssh in and kill xsgi?
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - shrek - 11-27-2019
I've had my account logged in for the last 8+ hours sitting idle and it's completely fine here. No freezing or anything out of the norm.
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - Raion - 11-27-2019
Glad you enjoy your Octane2!
if you need any help, by any means feel free to ping me.
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - shrek - 11-27-2019
I would bet good money that it's the faulty hardware, Krokodil.
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - Raion - 11-27-2019
Move that DIMM around, and it'll move with it.
RE: Just got my Octane2 in the mail. - vishnu - 11-27-2019
Probably because the bad memory location in the DIMM is never accessed when sitting at the login prompt. The error-correcting code memory in the DIMM logs an error, *when it can,* when it can't it freezes the machine.