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From: "Jacob Suter" <jsuter@intrastar.net>
To: "dennis" <dennis@etinc.com>
Cc: <isp@freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: Bandwidth..
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 14:09:27 -0600
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> >The 386 handled 7,500 hits/day (one of my users decided to put up a porn
> >site) for about a week without too much trouble.  I'd never want to try
to
> >make it do it again though :-)
> 
> I think that <6 hits per minute is not a major task for any processor...
> surely you cant be implying that you need a pentium for that kind of
volume?

Oh geez no..  I put my current web server (AMD 5x86/133 w/ 32 megs ram) to
the test..  16,000 hits in 12 hours and it wasn't even really stressed.

> The problem here probably has more to do with your $9. ISA IDE
> controller than it does the '386 vs Pentium. A  (slow) '486 with a PCI
IDE
> controller not only has more processor power, but also much higher
> bus throughput to the disk. 

Yeah...  When I put the 386 into web server duty I had already purchased a
nice fast ISA IDE controller (I was using this machine as my workstation
before).  The 386 was a VAST improvement over the 486DX4-120 running NT
that I was using before.  The web pages were at least 3x faster to load off
the 386 running FreeBSD and apache...  I instantly fell in love with unix
and within a month I had learned enough to dump NT completly (the real
reason for the dumping of NT was NT decided that I (administrator)
shouldn't log in - I told billy where to cram his operating system at that
point)

> I dont think that anyone would recommend a '386 for anything nowadays
> (with '486-100s with on-board PCI IDE at about $100.)....I was talking
> much more about the '486 or 100Mhz Pentium vs the higher end
> stuff than obsoleted equipment like '386.

Any kind of quality 486 system (even an SX/25) would work well for a web
server on a 128K link pretty much no matter what kind of content
(10-zillion little icons to 40 meg graphics), even on a pretty cheazy
system ($9 hard drive controller).  

TTYL
JS


> Dennis