From owner-freebsd-questions  Thu Apr 13  5:53:35 2000
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From: Michael Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org>
Message-Id: <200004131253.IAA13389@blackhelicopters.org>
Subject: Re: high volume mail server hardware suggestions
In-Reply-To: <000b01bfa4cb$62fa4b30$c71930d0@hoorj> from Michael Dungan at "Apr 12, 2000  6: 6:43 pm"
To: mpd@bluetie.net (Michael Dungan)
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 08:53:30 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
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Memory is *far* more important than processor power.

At one point, I had a Pentium 200 with a gig of RAM and a 10-gig RAID
array handling mail for 30,000 users.  CPU never went over 10%, memory
usage varied but was always pretty high.  (At the time, this was
pretty kick-ass hardware. ;) This was under 3.1, the so-called
"notoriously unstable" version of FreeBSD.

The only reason you would need dual or quad processors is if you're
running NT, or doing some serious number-crunching.  Mail is hard on
the disk, and soaks up memory, but isn't CPU-intensive.

==ml

> So you would say that memory is more important than proc power? My boss
> wants to know whether we should purchase dual or quad proc boxen. (We would
> be purchasing more dual boxen if we went this route.) Are they any online
> case studies on this? I'm no e-mail admin, but I'm the one stuck setting
> this all up.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> > My suggestions (keeping in mind that other people will disagree with me):
> >
> > 1) SCSI, hardware RAID
> > 2) /usr/ports/mail/postfix
> > 3) lots and lots and lots of memory
> >
> > You can handle tens of thousands of users with this setup.
> >
> > > Does anyone have any suggestions for hardware for running high volume
> e-mail
> > > servers with FreeBSD? Should I use a few "large" servers, or several
> smaller
> > > ones?
> > >
> > > thanks,
> > >
> > > Mike
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
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> > >
> 



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