Swapping CPU's in Linux - Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS - anything to worry?

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OBasel

Active Member
Dec 28, 2010
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I have a bunch of servers that we are going to swap from Core i3's to Xeon E3's. We did a test swap and RHEL booted without issue. We are getting more cores so it isn't an issue where the current applications are going to have fewer resources.

Here's my question: is there anything I need to worry about in Ubuntu, RHEL or CentOS? I know swapping boot drives from one chassis to the next never works easy because of changing NIC MAC addresses. What about CPUs? I wouldn't think there's anything to worry about but wanted to see if anyone here found an issue.
 

Patriot

Moderator
Apr 18, 2011
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Nope, no issues. I imagine some self spun distros might have issues if you switched generations... but the main ones should be fine.
 
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Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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I also think you can move V1 -> V2 with the mainline distros and be fine. I do this all the time. The main thing is that you are not taking away features/ resources just adding.
 

xnoodle

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Jan 4, 2011
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If you compiled anything that optimized with custom flags, that could pose a problem, but probably not, as the e3 feature set probably includes everything your i3's had.

The only other problem I can think of is running into CPU errata with your workload.

Both of these are fringe cases.
 
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T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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I have a bunch of servers that we are going to swap from Core i3's to Xeon E3's. We did a test swap and RHEL booted without issue. We are getting more cores so it isn't an issue where the current applications are going to have fewer resources.

Here's my question: is there anything I need to worry about in Ubuntu, RHEL or CentOS? I know swapping boot drives from one chassis to the next never works easy because of changing NIC MAC addresses. What about CPUs? I wouldn't think there's anything to worry about but wanted to see if anyone here found an issue.
What versions of those OS and which ones are giving you that trouble?
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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What versions of those OS and which ones are giving you that trouble?
I think he means you usually cannot just pull a disk from one server to another because you usually get different interface names and MAC addresses.
 
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T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Gotcha!

fwiw; I've been swapping win7, linux mint, and some other distros on various SSDs between supermicro based systems with 0 problems.
 
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