[Arm-netbook] A10 server dreamboard

[Henrik Nordström]

tis 2012-05-29 klockan 15:24 +0300 skrev Tsvetan Usunov - OLIMEX Ltd:


> I've had interesting chat with Alejandro on the irc  about possible
> use of A10 as fanless server unit.

A10 would in theory do quite nicely as micro-server. But there is some
major drawbacks when applying A10 to a long term product such as server

a) No mainline kernel support. Each new kernel release requires
significant effort.

b) It's SATA support is kind of secondary and not very well tested, with
some worrying reports about instability and corruption. Don't quite have
trust in it yet.

c) It does NOT support SATA port multipliers which limits storage
expansion capability considerably.

> I'm interested to hear your opinion as you obviously know better this
> from customer/software developer point of view. Do you think A10 can
> handle server jobs?

Yes, if the SATA issues gets resolved.

> What do you think will be most useful (speak as performance not price)
> for ARM embedded server with A10?
> ok, ETHERNET is must, I guess HDMI and many USB ports etc are not
> necessary in this case although they are build in and will not rise
> the BOM significant

For server usage HDMI is not neccesary, but as many USB you can fit is
absolutely needed (i.e. OTG + 2xHOST). And if it also has HDMI then same
device can be a multi-purpose device which is a big win.

> cheap LiPo 1.4Ah backup battery for stand alone operation few hours
> without main power supply instead to use costly UPS?

Maybe. Having the option to connect battery is always nice. Esp if it
can provide 5V output for a while to allow clean shutdown even with some
disk attached. But not required.

> RAM amount 1-2GB?
> FLASH amount 4-8GB enough?

1GB ram is sufficient for an A10 class device. Actually for server usage
512 is sufficient as you don't need GPU/VPU/Framebuffer/2D Graphics
engine so you can have a full 512 available. But 1GB is most likely
optimal.

> size factor? what is the best concept to mount in rack? 

rack mounting a device like this? Naa..  building a 1U rack mountable
box with a bunch of them maybe :)

Reasonably small board. And which can fit into standard available casing
I think. I.e. like the VIA APC 8750.

> advantage is clear, such server will have 4-5W power consumption i.e.
> less electricity bill, and quiet as no fans

fans may still be needed depending on what you add besides the CPU
board.

there is already several products in this category. But most have far
too little RAM to be interesting for real server usage.

Regards
Henrik