Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 21:33:03 -0700 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: "Mr G.D. Tyson" <Dave.Tyson@liverpool.ac.uk> Cc: port-i386@netbsd.org, freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: O/S Support for large [512Mb] PC systems Message-ID: <199806220433.VAA03531@antipodes.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 19 Jun 1998 11:15:56 BST." <Pine.SOL.3.96.980619111236.14607A-100000@uxa.liv.ac.uk>
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> We need to assemble and put into service a couple of large machines > to act as a web cache (using the squid software). Before going any further, you may wish to consider the solutions offered by NetApp (http://www.netapp.com), as well as the Vixie Enterprises Web Gateway Interceptor, available from Mirror Image (http://www.mirror-image.com). Bear in mind that I'm wearing a FreeBSD hat. > The choice is either SUN systems running slowaris or large PC's > running either NetBSD or FreeBSD. The management are inclined to the > former, but may be willing to entertain the latter if I can convince > them it will work, hence need I need a bit of feedback from people > who run PC's with large amounts of memory and SCSI disk. > > My first stab at a system would use a Pentium II board with 512Mb > Memory and a 333Mhz processor. The system would boot from the on-board > EIDE controller via a 2Gb system disk. The cache area would be two > strings of 4 fast wide 9Gb SCSI II disks plugged into an Adaptek 3940 > ultra controller. We would probably use an Intel Express 10/100 Ethernet > adaptor (or two) as the network connection. There are a number of poor design decision here. - The PII is not suitable for large server systems, as it will only cache the first 512MB of memory. - The 3940 is a poor choice as a cache controller; you would be better off with either a DPT RAID controller card, or an external SCSI:SCSI RAID (eg. a CMD unit). The latter is generally a better idea. - Booting (and thus putting your root filesystem and probably swap) on an IDE disk creates an unnecessary bottleneck. Use another SCSI disk, preferably on its own controller. > 2) Will 512Mb of memory break anything ? (I know I will have to tell the > kernel the true memory size) It is the usable limit for the PII processor. For your application, a P6/200 may be better. It's dubious as to whether you will be able to saturate such a processor unless you try *really* hard. FreeBSD is pretty good about automating memory detection (and is getting better). > 3) Has anyone any experience of a machine with this sort of configuration ? Yes. More verbosely, FreeBSD systems are frequently used in similar, and larger, configurations. For example, ftp.cdrom.com is a P6/200 with 1GB of memory and 224GB of disk. It's currently averaging an output of about 44Mb/s on a 24-hour basis. Various other examples have already been given; suffice to say that you're not going to be taxing it much. 8) > 4) Has anyone used any of the Supermicro boards e.g. P6DBS with the builtin > Adaptec Dual Channel UWSCSI ? or got suggestions for other suitable > motherboards (preferably ones with will take up to 1Gb RAM) I should > point out that 'the management' would REALLY like to use a commercially > available box rather than me build one out of bits ! It is pointless putting more than 512MB of memory in a PII board, as previously mentioned. If you're really serious about a monster system, you would be able to get FreeBSD up on the Axil Northbridge NX-801 (http://www.axil.com/) with a little help from one of the folks at Axil. Other large server systems worth considering (and less expensive) are the Compaq Proliant and IBM NetFinity systems. Some basic rules: - If you want more than 512MB of memory, you need to use Pentium Pro processors. (This may change with new PII models; I'm a few months out of date. Be very certain to check this carefully.) - If you want more than one processor, you will want to go with one of the FreeBSD-current snapshots. For 2- and 4- processor systems, there are plenty of testimonials indicating success. Beyond this you may require some assistance, depending on your hardware. --==_Exmh_-11441617640 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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