Proposed server purchase for GitLab.com

This post details GitLab's proposal for purchasing servers to host GitLab.com, moving away from the cloud to bare metal for performance and cost reasons. It outlines the thinking behind chassis selection (SuperMicro 2U Twin2), server counts for various roles (storage, application, database, etc.), CPU choices (Intel Xeon E5-2600v4 series), disk strategy (8TB Seagate HDDs with SSD caching via Bcache), and memory requirements (128GB ECC per node for general use, 1TB for database servers). It also discusses network considerations (10Gbps RJ45) and power/hosting plans. Key questions are posed regarding chassis alternatives, Dell equivalents, disk configurations (JBOD, Bcache), SSD fitment, drive reliability, boot methods (PXE vs. local), SSD series choice, and SSD/Ceph journal co-location.