> > 2. Disk type - use SCSI, not IDE. IDE takes too much CPU. If you're
just
> > trying to copy a file, that's not bad - but if you're trying to process
DB
> > queries at the same time, it's bad.
>
> I'd drop SCSI and spend (some of) the difference for more RAM. IDE
> performance when using DMA isn't bad at all.
Myself, I'd still use SCSI. IDE does well when you're only doing one
transaction at a time, but when you're trying to do two things at once,
responsiveness gets abominable. SCSI does much better in that regard... and
since this is supposed to be a heavily-used db server, I imagine that there
will either be *nothing* hitting the disk (enough RAM), or *lots* of things
hitting it at once. When our company first started out, we used to run our
server on an IDE drive, I still have nightmares about how badly it sucked.
; )
> > 4. CPU's - you may not need a 1 GHz. Find the "sweet spot", which is
> > probably an 866 or 933. The difference won't be that great. If the
> > difference between a 933 and a 1 GHz chip is going to make or break it,
you
> > probably need a quad-CPU solution to allow for growth and expansion.
>
> As a general advice, that would be a good one... but the 1 GHz chips
> are rather cheap nowadays, as they are more than a year old.
You're right, the GHz chips have dropped considerably since I last priced
them out.
steve
