Dual Xeon 5130 or Dual Xeon E5420

[helloha]

Up until recently had a system with dual Xeon E5420 CPU's. (quad core)
http://ark.intel.com/products/33927/Int ... 33-MHz-FSB

But I had got a new motherboard that came with dual 5130's. (dual core)
http://ark.intel.com/products/27216/Int ... 33-MHz-FSB

It appears that the 5130 kicks out a lot less heat. On idle temps are 30-35°C. During read/write they go to 40-42°C.

The E5420 was idle 40°C, under load 50-55°C.

I am wondering if the stepping up to the dual quad core E5420 setup will increase performance? I am running FB-DIMM's and they get insanely hot. Since the system is in a 2U case I don't want it to get even hotter an nosier then it already is. Especially since both CPU's are passively cooled.

The E5420 has a 12MB cache as opposed to the 4MB of the 5130 so that might give better performance?

Cheers!
K.

[b0ssman]

it depends on what you are doing.

if you are doing normal samba sharing the cpu load should not be that high and since it isnt multithreaded you wont see much of a benefit.

if you dont like the temperatures you could always move the board into a different case.

[helloha]

Well the NAS is connected over LACP with 3 Gigiabit lines.

If I write to the NAS from one client at about 80 MB/s the CPU system usage hovers at 35-55%.

When I read 20 MB/s from a different station at the same time I get hiccups in my sequential reads.

Even when they should be cached in my L2ARK....

Code: Select all

pool: TSW-POOL
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub canceled on Mon Aug 11 11:37:05 2014
config:

	NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	TSW-POOL    ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz1-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    da0     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    da1     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    da2     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    da3     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada0    ONLINE       0     0     0
	  raidz1-1  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    da4     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    da5     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    da6     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    da7     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    ada1    ONLINE       0     0     0
	cache
	  ada2      ONLINE       0     0     0

[b0ssman]

that is the same problem you have compared to a single drive.

you can read around 100mbyte/sec from a current gen drive. but you can not read at 80mb/sec and write with 20mb/sec.
the head has to move between the position where it is reading to the position where it is writing. this will decrease both the read and the write.
in a raid configuration you have the same problem. just that your headroom is a bit higher.