On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 05:02:38PM -0800, Marc Tooley wrote:
> 
> I'm picking up a nice machine for other testing purposes. It'll be 
> midrange:
> 
> Tyan Thunder K8W (S2885)
> LSI MegaRAID SATA 300-8X 8PT
> 8 x 250GB Maxtor SATA2/16MB/etc (for the MegaRAID)
> 1 x 250GB SATA2 for multibooted OSes
> 8 GB DDR400, ECC Registered RAM
> 2 x AMD Opteron 246
> 
> 
> ... and basically, I'm wondering whether there's anyone else running 
> NetBSD on similar hardware with a useful degree of success?

This configuration is similar to that of a number of TNF servers.  It
should work well.

You might want to consider that the MegaRAID supports a battery backup
module for its cache.  In my experience these are usually well worth
purchasing even if one thinks the system will never be used except when
connected to a UPS -- you never know when someone will trip over the
power cord.

> One specific: am I going to need to build a specialised kernel to prep 
> for the 8GB RAM? I seem to recall that sometimes memory above 2GB 
> requires:
> 
> REALBASEMEM
> REALEXTMEM
> 
> ... does it still?

Not as far as I'm aware.  What makes you think this?

One thing to consider may be that if you have the 8GB RAM as 8 1GB
modules, you will want to reduce the memory bus clock to 333MHz (if
the BIOS doesn't do so for you automatically).  Current Opteron
memory controllers can't reliably drive four 400MHz modules at once.

Thor