13 ms·

Planning for Servers in 2022 and Beyond

67 points by vanburen 5y ago

dijit 5y ago
Something I didn't quite realise with the rise of "The Cloud"; many businesses aren't reselling their 3-5 year old Servers. That notion only just hit me with the title, and I'm a little sad about it to be honest.
- siftyy 5y ago
  While this is certainly true, facebook, google, Microsoft, and a bunch of other hyperscale cloud providers still regularly dump hardware on ebay for great prices.
  - rejectedandsad 5y ago
    As many of them start migrating to more bespoke proprietary solutions I doubt this is going to continue.
    - rb2k_ 5y ago
      A lot of these providers are part of the Open Compute project [0] that Facebook created in 2011 and all the hardware is open source. At least for FB, all the new hardware is part of that. [0] https://www.opencompute.org/ https://www.opencompute.org/
  - _448 5y ago
    Do they? I was working for a big US tech company in the UK. They regularly use to give servers and computers for decommissioning/dismantling. Once I asked if I could get those servers and computers to give it to schools and students who could not afford to buy one. I was told that it is not legal to give company computer away. There are restrictions on giving company computers in the open market, even if it is free.
    - mistrial9 5y ago
      this is entirely a matter of policy and not "illegal" source: used computers trade in California
      - pbalau 5y ago
        Is a matter of policy and the reason for this policy is to avoid being sued. Afaik, in uk, schools and the likes need to get warranties for everything "donated" in an effort to not become an e-waste dumping ground.
        GekkePrutser 5y ago
        Same in Ireland. Even if we gave employees their own old laptop to keep, we were told this would possibly put the company on the hook for warranty claims. Instead what they did with the old non-leased hardware was that they said we had to bring it back when we were done with transferring our old stuff over (wink wink). But of course this model is not possible with a completely different party.
    - wmf 5y ago
      Hyperscalers sell decommissioned equipment; they don't give it away for free.
ksec 5y ago
Cant wait for all of those to arrive. We have a sort of stagnation in the past 4-5 years and only only just started moving again. Network, Storage and Compute. For consumer I really hope we will get 5GBASE-T. Even if it is just one port on the Router would be better than 1Gbps port.
- jonatron 5y ago
  Fiber is easy if you buy fiber patch cables, and just coil up the excess. Copper just has limitations, I wouldn't be surprised if there's no real progress in copper networking in the next few years.
  - lxchase 5y ago
    I believe some prefer Copper despite length limitations or interference, because it’s less power and heat compared to fiber and the receiver to translate the light.
    - wmf 5y ago
      2.5G/5G/10GBaseT is probably higher-power than fiber.
  - sleepydog 5y ago
    I've been considering getting fiber to connect two switches on opposite ends of my apartment. The distance is short enough that I could use a slim Ethernet cable, but even the slim ones are pretty noticeable. Fiber cables can be incredibly thin. I did research, and the problem I found was that there is very little availability for fiber cables of alternative colors. Most of the cables I found that were the right type and thickness I wanted, I could only find in bright yellow that would stick out. There are a few products like invisilight that are incredibly thin and almost clear which would be ideal. However, they're only sold in bulk to businesses so I could only find some on ebay. It felt too adventurous for me to pull the trigger. Currently 5Ghz wifi is sufficient, but its bad enough that I refrain from doing anything that consumes a lot of bandwidth, like torrenting.
candiddevmike 5y ago
Really looking forward to reasonably priced ARM servers with modular/beefy RAM. I don't get the trend of everyone running RPi clusters with the tiny amount of RAM they have, how do you use that for anything serious?
- moondev 5y ago
  https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/honeycomb-workstation/ https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/h...
  - candiddevmike 5y ago
    Nice, but that's still too expensive in my opinion for what you're getting. Sure it's 16 cores, but the speed of those cores isn't great. I'm not sure what the right price point is, but you're either at $40-80 for 2-4 core 4GB RAM or $500+ for tons of cores. My ideal build is $100-200, 4-8 cores, bring your own RAM, mainline Linux support, and a preflashed u-boot SPI so my partitioning and install is BIOS/UEFI like.
pdimitar 5y ago
That's super interesting, enjoyed reading it. I am pondering of getting a good future-proof server Soon™ but I have my doubts about how cheap (or awfully expensive) this is going to be so I will likely settle for a refurbished Xeon E5 workstation (since I'd like less noise and the ability to cram it full of HDDs/SSDs). I wonder if the coming of this new-age SSDs will herald a price drop in the classic 2.5" SSDs? I don't believe so because they will be viable for a long time in the future still but I am curious to hear other people's perspective? What do you guys and girls think?
- jlawer 5y ago
  Markets like web hosting will eat any discounted 2.5” enterprise SSDs. Don’t even mention stuff like chia. There is such a large market for 2.5” storage that I don’t think we are going to have a large discounted sell off, unlike say DDR4 ECC DIMMs
- ksec 5y ago
  I really really wish I am wrong, but nothing in the current NAND industry roadmap ( known knowns ) and future technology improvement ( known unknowns ) suggest NAND's cost /bit will get substantially cheaper. Cheapest 2.5" 2TB SSD currently goes for about ~$180. Even something like sub $100 will be hard to achieve before 2026. Barring over supply of NAND which causes price to drop to irregular level. Speed on the other hand seems to be limited by controller and interconnect. We should see a PCI-E 6.0 SSD capable of ~30GB/s and I wont be surprised if PCI-E 7.0 are already shipping by 2026. Most price projection on SSD vs HDD cost uses TCO ( Total Cost of ownership ), which includes power and workload generally speaking flavours SSD. I dont know about others but I only care about cost / GB.
unixhero 5y ago
Great writeup.

67 points by vanburen 5y ago

Something I didn't quite realise with the rise of "The Cloud"; many businesses aren't reselling their 3-5 year old Servers. That notion only just hit me with the title, and I'm a little sad about it to be honest.

siftyy 5y ago
While this is certainly true, facebook, google, Microsoft, and a bunch of other hyperscale cloud providers still regularly dump hardware on ebay for great prices.
- rejectedandsad 5y ago
  As many of them start migrating to more bespoke proprietary solutions I doubt this is going to continue.
  - rb2k_ 5y ago
    A lot of these providers are part of the Open Compute project [0] that Facebook created in 2011 and all the hardware is open source. At least for FB, all the new hardware is part of that. [0] https://www.opencompute.org/ https://www.opencompute.org/
- _448 5y ago
  Do they? I was working for a big US tech company in the UK. They regularly use to give servers and computers for decommissioning/dismantling. Once I asked if I could get those servers and computers to give it to schools and students who could not afford to buy one. I was told that it is not legal to give company computer away. There are restrictions on giving company computers in the open market, even if it is free.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    this is entirely a matter of policy and not "illegal" source: used computers trade in California
    - pbalau 5y ago
      Is a matter of policy and the reason for this policy is to avoid being sued. Afaik, in uk, schools and the likes need to get warranties for everything "donated" in an effort to not become an e-waste dumping ground.
      - GekkePrutser 5y ago
        Same in Ireland. Even if we gave employees their own old laptop to keep, we were told this would possibly put the company on the hook for warranty claims. Instead what they did with the old non-leased hardware was that they said we had to bring it back when we were done with transferring our old stuff over (wink wink). But of course this model is not possible with a completely different party.
  - wmf 5y ago
    Hyperscalers sell decommissioned equipment; they don't give it away for free.

ksec 5y ago

Cant wait for all of those to arrive. We have a sort of stagnation in the past 4-5 years and only only just started moving again. Network, Storage and Compute. For consumer I really hope we will get 5GBASE-T. Even if it is just one port on the Router would be better than 1Gbps port.

jonatron 5y ago
Fiber is easy if you buy fiber patch cables, and just coil up the excess. Copper just has limitations, I wouldn't be surprised if there's no real progress in copper networking in the next few years.
- lxchase 5y ago
  I believe some prefer Copper despite length limitations or interference, because it’s less power and heat compared to fiber and the receiver to translate the light.
  - wmf 5y ago
    2.5G/5G/10GBaseT is probably higher-power than fiber.
- sleepydog 5y ago
  I've been considering getting fiber to connect two switches on opposite ends of my apartment. The distance is short enough that I could use a slim Ethernet cable, but even the slim ones are pretty noticeable. Fiber cables can be incredibly thin. I did research, and the problem I found was that there is very little availability for fiber cables of alternative colors. Most of the cables I found that were the right type and thickness I wanted, I could only find in bright yellow that would stick out. There are a few products like invisilight that are incredibly thin and almost clear which would be ideal. However, they're only sold in bulk to businesses so I could only find some on ebay. It felt too adventurous for me to pull the trigger. Currently 5Ghz wifi is sufficient, but its bad enough that I refrain from doing anything that consumes a lot of bandwidth, like torrenting.

candiddevmike 5y ago

Really looking forward to reasonably priced ARM servers with modular/beefy RAM. I don't get the trend of everyone running RPi clusters with the tiny amount of RAM they have, how do you use that for anything serious?

moondev 5y ago
https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/honeycomb-workstation/ https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/h...
- candiddevmike 5y ago
  Nice, but that's still too expensive in my opinion for what you're getting. Sure it's 16 cores, but the speed of those cores isn't great. I'm not sure what the right price point is, but you're either at $40-80 for 2-4 core 4GB RAM or $500+ for tons of cores. My ideal build is $100-200, 4-8 cores, bring your own RAM, mainline Linux support, and a preflashed u-boot SPI so my partitioning and install is BIOS/UEFI like.

pdimitar 5y ago

That's super interesting, enjoyed reading it. I am pondering of getting a good future-proof server Soon™ but I have my doubts about how cheap (or awfully expensive) this is going to be so I will likely settle for a refurbished Xeon E5 workstation (since I'd like less noise and the ability to cram it full of HDDs/SSDs). I wonder if the coming of this new-age SSDs will herald a price drop in the classic 2.5" SSDs? I don't believe so because they will be viable for a long time in the future still but I am curious to hear other people's perspective? What do you guys and girls think?

jlawer 5y ago
Markets like web hosting will eat any discounted 2.5” enterprise SSDs. Don’t even mention stuff like chia. There is such a large market for 2.5” storage that I don’t think we are going to have a large discounted sell off, unlike say DDR4 ECC DIMMs
ksec 5y ago
I really really wish I am wrong, but nothing in the current NAND industry roadmap ( known knowns ) and future technology improvement ( known unknowns ) suggest NAND's cost /bit will get substantially cheaper. Cheapest 2.5" 2TB SSD currently goes for about ~$180. Even something like sub $100 will be hard to achieve before 2026. Barring over supply of NAND which causes price to drop to irregular level. Speed on the other hand seems to be limited by controller and interconnect. We should see a PCI-E 6.0 SSD capable of ~30GB/s and I wont be surprised if PCI-E 7.0 are already shipping by 2026. Most price projection on SSD vs HDD cost uses TCO ( Total Cost of ownership ), which includes power and workload generally speaking flavours SSD. I dont know about others but I only care about cost / GB.

unixhero 5y ago

Great writeup.