Specs for server

[Tosh]

Craig White wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-03-11 at 15:41 -0400, Jon Shorie wrote:
>> We have been running a mix of Redhat Linux, Fedora Linux, Kubuntu Linux, and
>> Sun Solaris 8 on our servers and some desktops since Redhat 6.0.
>>
>> It is finally time to replace our last sun server.  The only thing that this
>> machine does is share files via nfs to our network of about 50 users and 18
>> servers.
>>
>> I am trying to decide between a Core 2 Quad Q8200 and a Pentium Dual Core
>> E5400.  The Quad is running at 2.33 GHz.  The Dual is running at 2.7 GHz.
>>
>> Does anyone have any suggestions as to whether we would notice much difference
>> between the Dual and Quad for performance.
>>
>> I am including a list of the specs.
>>
>> 4u Rackmount Chassis
>> Antec Neo Power 430 430Watt Modular Power Supply
>> Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Motherboard
>> 4 GB Ram
>>
>> Intel Pentium Dual Core E5400 2.7 GHz Processor or
>> Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33 GHz Processor
>>
>> Western Digital Caviar WD5000AACS 500GB Hard Drive for the O/S Install and
>> temporary backup files.
>>
>> (2) Western Digital Caviar WD7500AACS 750GB Hard Drives using Linux Software
>> Raid for the shared files.
>>
>> Intel PWLA839GT 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet Adapter
>>
>> The Specs of the Sun Server are as follows:
>>
>> Sun Ultra 450
>> 2 Ultra Sparc 400MHz Processors
>> 2GB Ram
>> (4) Seagate Ultra 320 SCSI 36GB Hard Drives
>> 1 Drive for O/S Install
>> 1 Drive for Backup Temporary Files
>> 2 Drives using software raid mirroring for the shared files.
>> 10/100 ethernet adapter
>>
>> Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
> ----
> I would tend to doubt that the processor is going to make all that much
> difference on a server whose primary function is to provide NFS but my
> own thinking is...
>
> 1 - I prefer good hardware RAID over software RAID.
Second that, I tend to use 3ware SATA/SAS RAID Controllers

>
> 2 - Peformance using RAID 1 or 1+0 (4 drives minimum) is much better
> than RAID 5
>
> 3 - I really like having at least a mirror RAID (RAID 1) on the boot
> volume as well as the data drives so in a server I wouldn't necessarily
> segregate the OS from the data on physical drives but rather in
> different RAID partitions.
I also tend to keep the os off the raid volume and then clone using 
clonezilla or partimage to make a "bare-metal" recovery

>
> 4 - I would probably use RHEL or CentOS for this server rather than have
> to deal with the churn of many upgrades using Fedora. I like Fedora for
> Desktop and specialty server types but not a network backbone system.
CentOS is the choice if you do not need support or direct patches, else 
use RHEL
Fedora has a lifespan of 12-18 months, then "support" ends, CentOS has a 
lifespan about 7 years.

>
> Craig
>


-- 
Toshaan <toshlinux at gmail.com> - http://www.toshaan.be