Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 14:53:03 +0200 From: Olaf Hoyer <ohoyer@fbwi.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> To: "Artem Koutchine" <matrix@chat.ru> Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Motherborad/Memory/CPU for web hosting system Message-ID: <4.1.20000420143901.00a516d0@mail.rz.fh-wilhelmshaven.de> In-Reply-To: <002d01bfaabb$d3453e40$0c00a8c0@ipform.ru>
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At 15:24 20.04.00 +0400, you wrote: >Hi! > >I am trying to pick a hardware config for a server which must hosts >dozens of web server. It is going to be a commercial hosting and >i picked FreeBSD as OS because of many personal reasons:) Now >i must pick some x86 compat platform hardware. > >What I am thinking about right now is : Asus P2B-LS motherboard, >Pentium III above 500, 512MB ram, 1 SCSI 10GB, 1 SCSI 30GB, >1 UDMA IDE AS BIG AS IT CAN BE for backup. The main problem >is the motherboard. I just don't see any alternative and that;s bad. I'd >like >to have a choice. It seems like the newer i820 bases motherboards from Asus >have SCSI contrller Ultra160 which is not supported by 3.4 ( i'd rather no >go with 4.0). But on the other hand BX is kind old now. Hi! Well, I don't know which brands are available in your area, but there is plenty of stuff available. I'd prefer for servers the BX and Gx chipsets, because they are stable, and proven. They have their edges ironed out, and have proven under stress. Forget any Intel 8xx chipset right now, they are troublemakers. Asus is one of the best brands, but there shall be Intel (their server boards are fine), Tyan, Gigabyte. Those boards also shall be available. The dual boards from Tyan and Gigabyte also ship with U2W SCSI controllers, I also heard rumors that in near future a 160 controller will be onboard. Also SMP should be regarded when dealing with multiple requests, also multiple NICs shall be taken into account, for load balancingm issues. So the CPUs can distribute some of the load. Also a RAID (as option with an adapter on those boards) can enhance performance and overall stability. Big IDE for backup is IMO not that good idea. In case of hardware crash (power spike or so) you also lose that disc. For backups use only removable media, such as streamer, MO-drives (the newer ones hold also more than 2 GB) etc. Or you go for a hot-swap capable HDD (means SCSI) in a removable frame for backup use. Store your backups at another location than your server. I also heard reports (a sysadmin at Springer Verlag in Berlin) that the P2B-LS is not that fast, because they mapped the (whether LAN or SCSI) on the last PCI if I remember correctly. Therefore performance wasn't that good. If you want, I may pick up some model numbers from Gigabyte and TYan and send it via PM. Regards Olaf Hoyer -------- Olaf Hoyer www.nightfire.de mailto:Olaf.Hoyer@nightfire.de FreeBSD- Turning PC's into workstations ICQ:22838075 Liebe und Hass sind nicht blind, aber geblendet vom Feuer, dass sie selber mit sich tragen. (Nietzsche) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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