Servers Australia are offering free web hosting for life, to all Australian businesses. Go to our Facebook Free Web Hosting Page, ‘Like us’ then signup to receive your free web hosting. Please note this is available for businesses only and a limit of one per customer applies. Offer ends on 29/02/2012.

We are also having a $40 per Mbit on all IP Transit Services Sale. This service can be used for Dedicated Servers, Co-location or directly by interconnecting at one of our POP’s in Global Switch, Equinix SY1, Equinix SY2, Equinix SY3 or the Servers Australia DC. Available to new customers for 12 month (minimum) signups, available till 14/03/12.

We are also offering triple RAM on i3 server and E3-1225, Double RAM on E3-1245 Server. See our dedicated servers page here for a breakdown on the server details. Offer ends 29/02/12.

Details on all our current special offers are available on Servers Australia Special Offers page here.

SSD RAID 10 IOPS Testing – H700 Perc RAID Card Testing R710

Recently we’ve been playing with H700 RAID cards with SSD’s. We have had some issues which will be outlined in future follow up posts with SSD’s & H700 Compatibilities.

6 x 256GB Crucial M4 Firmware 0309 all confirmed in a RAID 10 array.
Testing tool : Fio 1.38 64bit

Fio is quite easy to configure and setup in all major linux distribution. We are testing it on Debian which is quite easy to install J  From CLI (command line interface) just run the following commands:

This will update the Package Index. The APT package index is essentially a database of available packages from the repositories defined in the /etc/apt/sources.list file.

To update the local package index with the latest changes made in repositories,
root@server:/# Apt-get update

This command will then install FIO from the remote repositories & any dependencies
root@server:/# Apt-get install fio

We then want to create the actual configuration file which will have all the variables for this test , because we are utilising SSD’s it’s a good idea to setup the configuration file with the following settings

The easiest way to create the configuration file is like this:
root@server:/# nano random.fio

Then you want to paste the following in:

[random]
rw=randread
size=1g
directory=/iops
iodepth=403
direct=1
blocksize=4k
numjobs=16
nrfiles=1
group_reporting
ioengine=sync
loops=1

The second last step is to create a folder where all the working/testing will take place in , in our case we created /iops in the following way:
root@server:/# mkdir /iops

The final step is the actual test J  just run the application with the configuration file name trailing
root@server:/# fio random.fio

And your output should be something like this. I have highlights the main performance outputs for you in red to compare your results! So we got roughly 19,000IOPS @ 4K Reads J Quite fast if you ask me

random: (g=0): rw=randread, bs=4K-4K/4K-4K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=403
…
random: (g=0): rw=randread, bs=4K-4K/4K-4K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=403
Starting 8 processes
random: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 1024MB)
random: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 1024MB)
random: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 1024MB)
random: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 1024MB)
Jobs: 2 (f=2): [_r__r___] [97.3% done] [34022K/0K /s] [8306/0 iops] [eta 00m:03s
Jobs: 2 (f=2): [_r__r___] [98.2% done] [25875K/0K /s] [6317/0 iops] [eta 00m:02s
Jobs: 2 (f=2): [_r__r___] [100.0% done] [25381K/0K /s] [6196/0 iops] [eta 00m:00
random: (groupid=0, jobs=8): err= 0: pid=3884
read : io=8192MB, bw=75793KB/s, iops=18948, runt=110678msec
clat (usec): min=82, max=39244, avg=282.17, stdev=70.87
bw (KB/s) : min=  336, max=20720, per=18.60%, avg=14099.28, stdev=930.13
cpu          : usr=2.51%, sys=32.11%, ctx=2077702, majf=0, minf=588
IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
issued r/w: total=2097152/0, short=0/0
lat (usec): 100=0.02%, 250=7.38%, 500=81.68%, 750=10.65%, 1000=0.14%
lat (msec): 2=0.10%, 4=0.01%, 10=0.01%, 20=0.01%, 50=0.01%
Run status group 0 (all jobs):
READ: io=8192MB, aggrb=75792KB/s, minb=77611KB/s, maxb=77611KB/s, mint=110678 msec, maxt=110678msec
Disk stats (read/write):
dm-0: ios=2097110/1826990, merge=0/0, ticks=606753/2981152, in_queue=3673756, util=84.49%, aggrios=0/0, aggrmerge=0/0, aggrticks=0/0, aggrin_queue=0, aggrutil=0.00%
sda: ios=0/0, merge=0/0, ticks=0/0, in_queue=0, util=-nan%

If you can benefit from free web hosting, a free server, savings on data storage or would like to get your hands on a free iPad 2, Servers Australia could be your best friend this Christmas!

Servers Australia are rewarding our Facebook friends by giving away free web hosting to friends with an ABN. Our free web hosting includes 500MB Disk Space, 5 GB Data Transfer, cPanel Control Panel and more. Visit Servers Australia Facebook page to sign up for your free web hosting today.

It’s no secret that successful businesses and enterprises perform best with fast, secure and reliable servers. Add to your current server network or get your very first server for free and enter the draw to win a dedicated server here.

If you’re looking to expand your business and need more data space, we’re cutting your costs. Servers Australia are dismissing the setup fee for all new Equinix SYD3 Colocation customers until 20/12/12. You’ve one more week to jump on this special offer, saving you up to $199. See our website for more information.

We are giving away iPad 2 tablets! Servers Australia are giving away, one-for-one iPad 2′s with every E3-1245 starter series server or higher on a 24 month contract. That means if you buy 10 servers you get 10 iPad 2′s! See our servers series here.

Unlike Santa, we’re giving away these deals whether you’ve been naughty or nice -but we hope it’s the latter!

We are offering double bandwidth and double ram to new customer purchases of the ‘Starter Series’ of our Dedicated Servers range. With speed and reliability, our ‘Starter Series’ servers are top choice for entry-level mail server, application server, database or web servers. See Servers Australia website for complete details on our ‘Starter Series’.

Also, as part of our Equinix SYD3 Launch Promotion, we are giving away 50GB free data per 1RU, saving up to $55.00 per RU. Backed by state-of-the-art security, network connectivity and redundant power, Equinix is the ideal location for your colocated equipment. See Servers Australia website for details on our ‘Equinix Colocation’. (Available to new colocation customers only.)

These special offers expire on the 10^th November, so be quick to take advantage of these deals. Call us on 1300 788 862 or email sales@serversaustralia.com.au.

It’s been a busy month at Servers Australia. Following the launch of Equinix Inc. ‘SY3’ in Sydney last week, we are now the proud owners of 12 x 32 Amp racks and are offering our new SY3 space from today onwards! Contact us for more information.

This month we are also pleased to announce our upgraded Intel starter series now with Xeon processes! These processors are impressively fast allowing for greater entry-level mail servers, application servers, databases or web servers! To see more go to our website.

Adding to these fab announcements we also have a special offer. We are giving away a ‘free.com.au’ domain name for all new Business Web Hosting accounts! Our Award winning Business Web Hosting includes:

• - Unlimited FTP Accounts
• - Unlimited E-mail Accounts
• - Phone Support
• -Daily account backups

All this and more for only $19.95 per month. Call us 1300 788 862 or email sales@serversaustralia.com.au. Offer ends 31^st August.

We are pleased to announce a new updated server range for our Starter Series. Based off your feedback we have increased our base ram and included three different options for storage including RAID 1, SSD and 1TB of Storage so now you can tailor your server even more for no extra charge!

And to help promote these new servers we are going to include some great limited time upgrades of DOUBLE RAM, and TRIPLE TRAFFIC.

Also be sure to keep an eye out on our blog and facebook as we will shortly be announcing new revised plans for our Professional and Enterprise series.

Last but not least we have been getting a lot of requests from people asking if we offer completely custom server builds. Well yes, we do and always have but to make it easier for you to request quotes we have added a new custom quote form to our website, which is in addition to our server configurator. You can visit the page by clicking here.

We have a position open for a system and network admin Working from the coast you will enjoy a relaxed life style and fun environment. If you are traveling from Sydney you will get no traffic As you are always going the opposite way of the traffic. If you are on the coast then you get a nice job without having to travel to Sydney!!

Here are the skills we are looking for:

Basic Skills;

1. Vyatta Routing
2. Traffic management

Required Skills:

1. Linux – mainly CentOS & Debian
2. Cisco – basic switch and routing skills
3. Radius
4. Networking
5. TCP/IP
6. Linux Security and Management
7. Testing, troubleshooting and working out issues fast
8. Configuring services such as Apache,PHP, MySQL, IPtables, cPanel
9. Configuration of backups and backup management
10. Customer service
11. People Skills
12. Communication Skills
13. Flexible
14. Ability to work in a relaxed environment
15. Ability to have fun!

If you’re interested contact us here along with your resume: jobs@serversaustralia.com.au

Here are some benchmarks to show the differences between SATA3 hard drives and solid state hard drives for dedicated server applications.

The first benchmark is for web server performance the second benchmark is for database performance.

SATA3 Web Server Performance:

Source: http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_momentus_750gb_review_st9750420as

SSD Web Server Performance:

Source: http://www.storagereview.com/kingston_ssdnow_v_review_snvp325s2

Summary:
SSD Performance: From 1600 I/O to 4700 I/O
SATA3 Performance: From 60 I/O to 170 I/O

This benchmark is for database performance.
SATA3 Database Performance:

Source: http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_momentus_750gb_review_st9750420as

SSD Database Performance:

Source: http://www.storagereview.com/kingston_ssdnow_v_review_snvp325s2

Summary:
SSD Performance: From 1350 I/O to 3350 I/O
SATA3 Performance: From 60 I/O to 170 I/O

For the first 100 people we are going to offer FREE business web hosting accounts.

To get it all you need to do is have an ABN.  We do check ABN’s so please don’t list anyone else’s ABN as you won’t get the free account.

Please also note that to be fair we are only offering one per person. Go to our special offers page on our website for more details. Please note we will be removing the details on our special offers page once the offer ends.

We’re offering 1 Dedicated Server for $1 for a YEAR. We are offering our FASTEST dedicated server. 19.8 Ghz of power for $1. We are also offering a second FREE Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) our fastest 8 Core VDS!

$1 Dedicated Server Competition

3.3GHz (6 Cores) 300GB Data

• Phenom II 1100T 3.3GHZ 6core
• 8GB DDR3 Memory
• 1TB SATA3 Hard Drive
• 300GB Bandwidth Transfer
• 1 IP Address

$1 (per year)

This is the same server that we sell here for $397/month. And you can get it for $1 for the YEAR when it costs well over $4500 per year.

How do you get this $1 Dedicated Server?
We are going to run a competition and select one person on February 21st at 11am, Sydney time.


Ways to Win:
1) Like us on facebook.
2) Like our post on facebook.
3) Follow us on twitter.
4) Retweet our tweet on twitter.


The more ways you enter the more chances you have to win. We count each way as a chance in the draw. So if you do all 4, that’s 4 chances in the draw!

Draw Date:
We will draw this on the 21st of February at 11am Sydney time. The winner will be chosen at random from the people who do any of the 4 ways to win.

Free Virtual Dedicated Server Competition:

8 Cores 2048MB RAM

• 8 CPU Cores
• 2048MB RAM
• 50GB Storage
• 200GB Bandwidth
• 40GB FTP Backup
• 1 IP Addresses

FREE

Along side the $1 dedicated server we are going to offer a FREE Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) in a second competition.

How do you get this Free Virtual Dedicated Server?
We are going to run a second competition for the people who liked us on Facebook and select one person on February 21st at 11am, Sydney time.

Ways to Win:
1) Like us on facebook.
1) Enter your name and email into the draw page

Draw Date:
Again on the 21st of February at 11am Sydney time we will select at random one of the people who entered in their email.

We like feedback so comment below, on facebook or on twitter!