From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 5 20:48:43 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 65C87106566C for ; Fri, 5 Jun 2009 20:48:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl) Received: from wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl (wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl [IPv6:2001:4070:101:2::1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 591B48FC13 for ; Fri, 5 Jun 2009 20:48:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl) Received: from wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n55KmYtS085169; Fri, 5 Jun 2009 22:48:34 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl) Received: from localhost (wojtek@localhost) by wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl (8.14.3/8.14.3/Submit) with ESMTP id n55KmY9d085166; Fri, 5 Jun 2009 22:48:34 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 22:48:34 +0200 (CEST) From: Wojciech Puchar To: Michael Powell In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <139b44430906050557v4ce23a13r259535c3e839deb0@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Opinion request about a file server X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:48:43 -0000 > > Sorry - it wasn't really intended that way. Please note that "slightly > downlevel..." was meant to refer to a combination of older Netburst > architecture and consumer retail motherboard. > The Core Xeons that replaced the old Netburst processors are much better > performers. In a true datacenter server environment wrt file serving it is indeed. pentium IV in average usage (contrary to special cases like video encoding) are even 40% slower per clock cycle than pentium III. new core2duo are mostly improved pentium III with higher clock and more cache :) > better to spend money on I/O rather than CPU. A server motherboard (as > opposed to consumer retail) will have better I/O subsystems, enabling better > throughput. indeed. in most unix usage patterns it's more important than CPU speed. >> with proper configuration it rarely swaps, and can easily saturate >> 100Mbit/s LAN, just not with single transfer, but it's not hardware >> problem, but windows problem :) > > At some point (when I went to a DSL broadband connection) I replaced the > above box with a K-6 II 500MHz with 384MB RAM. Same collection of multiple somehow comparable to my config with sligtly slower CPU, would perform similar in my case. > services. This box was previously utilized for beta testing Windows NT 3.5, > 3.51, and NT 4. So I was able to make a direct comparison between running > Windows NT and FreeBSD on the exact same piece of hardware. FreeBSD simply there is no sense of any comparision ;) > just made better use of the hardware and outperformed NT. In order to match > what FreeBSD was capable of NT would require a more powerful hardware > platform. No. it can't do most things that unix is capable of, unless you install cygwin ;) > will work just fine for what he and his 4 users have in mind for their > needs. I believe the performance characteristics of FreeBSD will maximize > his return on CPU cycles. my home laptop (PIII-M/1133) is rarely limited by CPU power.