OT: os/hardware recommendations (was Re: filepro RAM limit)

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian K. White" <brian at aljex.com>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: filepro RAM limit


> I don't claim this is a viable choice for you right now, but if it were me 
> I
> wouldn't put much into it. I'd tell'm if they switch to linux it'll be a 
> lot
> faster and put'm on 3 or 4 sata drives maybe using the purely software 
> raid
> and the built-in motherboard sata ports.

I suppose I should clarify that this recommendation is only in the assumed 
context that the old box was only a single scsi drive on a 80 or 160 mhz 
cable. Any userbase/workload that currently functions at all, however 
slowly, on that, is automatically small enough that 4 sata's (even plain 
sata-1 150mbit ones) and software raid5 on linux will be fine, will in fact 
be not just fine but ridiculously faster. If you have 50 or more users and 
the application is very active then a hardware raid card and more disks are 
in order. Can still be sata though, though sata-II (300mbit with command 
queueing) would be a good idea.

So you could set up a box with 4 sata-2's on the motherboard & software 
raid5, grab a copy of their data and try the weekend report, and if you 
don't like it, then add a raid card and 2 or 4 more disks without wasting 
anything you bought so far.

But that all assumes linux.
OSR6 would be easy to switch to and be fast like linux/freebsd, but almost 
no one is using it. Support and other users who have figured things out are 
rare. I used it enough to identify a number of issues I decided would be 
stupid to live with if I didn't have to, and haven't wasted any more time on 
it.

Brian K. White    brian at aljex.com    http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
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