Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 01:59:53 -0500 From: "Andrew C. Hornback" <hornback@wireco.net> To: "Danny Pansters" <danny@ricin.com> Cc: <questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: FreeBSD server Message-ID: <026301c0aac2$0a7745a0$0f00000a@eagle> In-Reply-To: <01030915130600.12281@ricin.localnet>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of
> Danny Pansters
> Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 9:13 AM
> To: Kondie
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: FreeBSD server
>
> How about a 500MHz or so processor with 256 or 512 Megs of
> RAM... much
> more logical than a 1000MHz/128MB combination which is
> rediculously out
> of balance IMHO.
I'm in agreement here. A server needs to keep a lot of things in
memory as opposed to paging them out to the drive... it increases
response times dramatically. The only times, in my opinion, that you
server needs a "mega processor" is if you're going to be doing back
office work on it (i.e. database serving and things of that nature).
Processor speed really depends on what applications you're running.
But, a must for any good server, in my mind, is high speed I/O. The
longer it takes for data to get from the server's drive to your
workstation, the less productive you can be.
> Also, I'd consider having two disks so you can backup
> semi-continuously
> if you like or mirror the data (=raid1, my thought would be
> you'd like
> to mirror /var on a unix emailserver). People don't like
> losing their
> email should your disk crash. Even SCSI disk aren't that expensive
> anymore. Personally, I have a strong preference for Seagate disks.
> Anyway, remember what you're going to do is all about I/O, not
> processor power. If you ask me, 50000 emails a day could even be
> handled on a relatively old Pentium desktop box. Don't be
> cheap on your
> network controller(s). Get 3Com or something.
When it comes to server hardware, don't be cheap on anything. A
system is only as strong as it's weakest link. When it comes to
drives, Seagate is good, but I'm preferential to IBM... (having a shop
full of working PS/2 hardware from nearly 15 years ago is a testament
to how well IBM stuff is built) In the realm of networking equipment,
it's SMC all the time, every time.
Given the scenario of 50,000 e-mails a day, I did some brief
calculations. If you assume that each message is 3k in length, and
that 1% of the e-mails has a 1 Meg attachment, you end up with a total
daily bandwidth load of nearly 650 Megs. If this is sent in an evenly
distributed load over 24 hours, you end up with an average of 75kB/sec
going into the machine, which could certainly be handled by nearly any
platform that FreeBSD is capable of being installed on, if that is the
machine's only purpose.
> I can't comment on Compaq because I don't use them (oops
> that implies
> something already ;-) No seriously, I know that their
> consumer products
> are crap but their servers are likely to be a very
> different story.
Their consumer products do have questionable quality (as seen by all
of the AMD based boxes that they had to buy back because of multiple
failures back in 99), but their professional/corporate grade hardware
is impeccable. I have a couple of machines back in the shop that were
originally DeskPro 386-20 MHz machines that were upgraded with a
motherboard replacement to low end Pentium status, the rest of the
internals remain, and they run as solidly now as they did the day they
were made.
When it comes to servers, I am thoroughly impressed with Compaq. As
chronicled here on the list, I am currently working with a ProLiant
1500 machine (dual Pentium 133, 64 Megs, using the Compaq SMART2/P
RAID controller with the onboard SCSI setup) It runs like a top,
faster than my PII-450... There are still a few issues with nit-picky
things, but on a whole, it's a joy to work with ('course, I'm biased
since I love working with server hardware anyway, it's much better
built than your average desktop system)
> I
> know they have a good reputation and that some of their public test
> server boxes run fBSD. I've only worked with a Compaq
> server once and
> had to install Linux on it at work... had some hardware
> problems then
> notably with the keyboard(!)
I hear that. I made the mistake of getting an international version
of the Compaq keyboard for this machine, and it didn't like it one
bit. Stick a commodity PS/2 keyboard on it, and all was well again.
> Don't be surprised. Bulky motherboards with all sorts of integrated
> on-board stuff can be like that. I'm currently setting up a
> server box
> based on an AOpen DX34plus board. fBSD floppy/cd would not boot at
> first, I had to turn off the USB controller in its BIOS,
> default jumper
> settings for processor type turned out to be wrongly
> documented, ...
> stuff like that just happens I reckon. In your case, why
> not build your
> own box starting with a nice AOpen oer Asus mother board?
I would think a better solution would be purchasing an "Old Reliable"
server, doing a little reconditioning and going from there. When you
start using commodity hardware to build a server, you are destined to
run into problems.
Also, from personal experience, AOpen has been questionable... Asus
is a good motherboard manufacturer. I trust them, Tyan and
SuperMicro, personally.
All in all, there are many ways to build a server, many theories on
component selection, etc. I generally go with what I have experience
working with.
--- Andy
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