[Lustre-discuss] How's this config for our Lustre setup?

[Kek]

Hi All
 
We're a research lab new to Lustre and are purchasing a small HPC cluster.  We wish to seek your comments and help on sizing the hardware.
So far we plan to have the following:
- 1 Head node, 2 x 6 core intel X5670, 32GB RAM, 2 x 300 GB SAS 10krpm HDDs
- 1 MDS+MDT node, 2 x 6 core intel X5670, 24GB RAM, 2 x 500GB SATA 7.2krpm HDDs
- 2 Storage nodes (OSS collocated with OST), each with: 2 x 4 core intel E5620, 24GB RAM, 14 x 600GB SAS 15krpm HDDs (raw 8.4TB)
- 12 compute nodes, each with 2 x 6 core intel X5670.
- Infiniband QDR connectivity
 
- Average file size: 20MB
- Usage pattern: running parallel (MPI) models like WRF (weather model), POM (hydrodynamics model) etc
 
Questions:
- Is the above hardware config all right?
- What is the impact of putting the 2nd (failover) MDS+MDT on the Head Node?
- Is Lustre easy to maintain?
- Is Lustre reasonably stable and problem free?
 
THanks for any tips or suggestions.
 
regards
-chk
Physical Oceanography research Lab