>>>>> "a" == alex <alex@meerkatsoft.com> writes:
a> We are currently looking at Dell / HP
a> but the questions is
a> - how many processors (2 or 4)
a> - do we gain with 4 cpus if we probably never have a few users connected
a> - what processors are recommended Opteron / Xeon / Itanium
a> - how much memory ? 2GB ? 4GB ?
a> - Disks, i guess we go with Raid5, 15k SCSI
a> - what OS ? Suse / RHE3 / Fedora /
a> - Disk controller ?
Run, do not walk, from your Dell solution. I've never been able to
get "expected" performance from those boxes. They seem to do
something to the RAID controllers to make them not work as fast as one
would expect the equivalent name-brand part (eg, LSI RAID card or
Adaptec RAID card) and similar disk drives.
Others have commented on the other aspects. The RAID configuration is
something everyone has an opinion for. I personally run a RAID5 on 14
disks, but the new server replacing this Dell box will have RAID10 on
6 disks for data and RAID1 on 2 disks for pg_xlog + system. It is a
dual Opteron with 4GB RAM and an Adaptec controller. I only run
FreeBSD.
See the performance mailing list for a big discussion on vendors just
two or three weeks ago.
--
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Vivek Khera, Ph.D. Khera Communications, Inc.
Internet: khera@kciLink.com Rockville, MD +1-301-869-4449 x806
AIM: vivekkhera Y!: vivek_khera http://www.khera.org/~vivek/
