From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Dec 4 21:43:36 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mail8.new.rr.com (mkc-162-176.kc.rr.com [24.94.162.176]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40FD537B417 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 21:43:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from babylon.polands.org ([65.28.197.21]) by mail8.new.rr.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.537.53); Tue, 4 Dec 2001 23:43:33 -0600 Received: (from djp@localhost) by babylon.polands.org (8.11.6/8.11.5) id fB55hPw58116 for questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 23:43:25 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from djp) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 23:43:25 -0600 From: Doug Poland To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Affect of CPU/Bus speed on disk performance Message-ID: <20011204234325.A58051@polands.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.23i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hi, I'm building a file server for a small windows network (Win2K clients) whose only purpose in life will be to serve up samba file requests. The NIC's involved are all Intel Pro 10/100B/100+ using a SMC 10/100 switche. Given that, I'd like general guidance on how CPU/Bus speed will affect access on the samba server. For simplicty sake, let's say I've got a single 9.1GB, 7200RPM SCSI drive on the server with an Adaptec 2940UW host adapter in a Pentium 133MHz box. Would this CPU/bus be the bottleneck? If I wanted better performance, would it be better to buy a 10,000 or 15,000 RPM drive or move up in processor speed? Or maybe in this configuration the 100Mbit network is the bottleneck? My feeling is that even a modest CPU will spend most of it's time waiting for the fastest disk. So if I'm on a limited budget, the most bang for the buck would be to buy the fastest disks I can, and RAID them. If I need better performance, what would be the next component to upgrade? Gigabit NICs and switch? New MOBO/CPU? Many thanks for your thoughts and advice. -- Regards, Doug To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message