From owner-freebsd-isp Mon Dec 30 14:00:16 1996 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id OAA23810 for isp-outgoing; Mon, 30 Dec 1996 14:00:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from agora.rdrop.com (root@agora.rdrop.com [199.2.210.241]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id NAA23730 for ; Mon, 30 Dec 1996 13:58:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from i-gw.dalsys.com by agora.rdrop.com with smtp (Smail3.1.29.1 #17) id m0vepjG-0008vTC; Mon, 30 Dec 96 13:58 PST Received: (from smap@localhost) by i-gw.dalsys.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) id PAA20971; Mon, 30 Dec 1996 15:54:57 -0600 Received: from future.dsc.dalsys.com(199.170.161.3) by i-gw.dalsys.com via smap (V1.3) id sma020968; Mon Dec 30 15:54:50 1996 Received: by future.dsc.dalsys.com (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/8.6.12) id AA79148; Mon, 30 Dec 1996 16:00:59 -0600 Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 16:00:59 -0600 (CST) From: Richard Stanford X-Sender: richards@future.dsc.dalsys.com To: Jacob Suter Cc: FreeBSD ISP List Subject: Re: Bandwidth.. In-Reply-To: <199612302010.OAA22944@intrastar.net> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 30 Dec 1996, Jacob Suter wrote: > 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. Is this really a volume test? Sounds kinda low to me. We have a single user's home page that gets around 7,000 hits a day. > > 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). Sure, a 128k link. But considering that P5-133s are, oh, around $200 these days, why not go for them? If you can afford (thinking US here) more than a 64K line, you should be able to get a comfortable webserver (P5, SCSI, et cetera). This is assuming you're reselling webspace (or giving it away w/ dialup accounts, something more than a personal webserver). Is it "needed"? Probably not, on a low-volume link. But it's a cheap comfort, IMO. Just think of it this way -- how many customers would you need to lose through irritation if there's a problem to pay for the hardware? Not /that/ many. The only trouble with things like IDE drives and $9 controllers on a production machine that I see is reliability. Speed is not the issue (not on a 128K link) but moving from a 2% chance per year to a 1% chance per year of failure is more than worth it (fictional numbers, but you get the idea). The point is to make your servers bulletproof and efficient, then you don't have to worry about them. Also, you should get in extra hardware for when they do (and they will) fail .. you can't prevent this, but you can minimize the number of times it happens. -Richard