From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 9 11:32:24 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A49016A41F for ; Mon, 9 Jan 2006 11:32:24 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from wojtek@tensor.3miasto.net) Received: from chylonia.3miasto.net (chylonia.3miasto.net [213.192.74.6]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6111343D46 for ; Mon, 9 Jan 2006 11:32:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from wojtek@tensor.3miasto.net) Received: from chylonia.3miasto.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by chylonia.3miasto.net (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k09BW8wt013321; Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:32:08 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from wojtek@tensor.3miasto.net) Received: from localhost (wojtek@localhost) by chylonia.3miasto.net (8.13.4/8.13.4/Submit) with ESMTP id k09BW3Z0013314; Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:32:07 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from wojtek@tensor.3miasto.net) X-Authentication-Warning: chylonia.3miasto.net: wojtek owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:32:02 +0100 (CET) From: Wojciech Puchar X-X-Sender: wojtek@chylonia.3miasto.net To: "Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC" In-Reply-To: <4ADE8A8F-858B-4092-958B-88C6DA832729@shire.net> Message-ID: <20060109122752.D12901@chylonia.3miasto.net> References: <4ADE8A8F-858B-4092-958B-88C6DA832729@shire.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: Free BSD Questions list Subject: Re: speccing an NFS server -- smp good or bad? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 11:32:24 -0000 > For a FBSD (or Solaris 10) based server that is only acting as an NFS server > and nothing else, is there any advantage to using an SMP machine? Any no. one CPU is powerful enough. pentium 200 class machine does have no problems working as NFS server for 100Mbit/s LAN at full speed, assuming disk is able to cope with. > disadvantage? > > Does CPU speed play any great factor (ie, use a 1.8ghz opteron instead of a > 2.2ghz opteron for example)? no. with slowest available AMD64 CPU it will still be much overpowered. consider using that machine for other tasks too. but you will need motherboard with something better than 33Mhz 32-bit PCI and lots of ATA/SATA ports, or extra controllers plugged if you like this server to really be able to do 1000Mbit/s speed. > card. I assume lots of RAM for the OS to use to cache would be desirable and > GB ethernet. > all depends of the type of workload. in case of mostly large file streamed big cache won't help much. in case mostly small subset of files will be used, big cache may be a benefit.