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Date:      Wed, 12 Apr 2000 19:16:07 -0400
From:      Yoshihiro Ota <st96yb9t@drexel.edu>
To:        Michael Dungan <mpd@bluetie.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: high volume mail server hardware suggestions
Message-ID:  <0FSX0086CF6MBU@mail.ocs.drexel.edu>
In-Reply-To: <000b01bfa4cb$62fa4b30$c71930d0@hoorj>
References:  <200004122154.RAA11001@blackhelicopters.org>

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I've never done such a reserch.  Hoever, as far as I have seen performance
with the top command (I really like to see it and have done it for years),
proc power is not fully used when I/O or swapping occer.  If you want to use
full power of CPU, you need lots of memory first.  Otherwise, you can waste
your CPU power with swapping.  Sending e-mail doesn't require I/O, so CPU
power and lots of memory are needed.  Receiving e-mail needs I/O, and RAID
helps to increase the performance of I/O.  I think if about 80% to 90% CPU
power is used, that's the time when you may consider adding more CPUs.
Until that, I think you need more memory than CPUs.  (This is my openion;
some one has another openion).

The ftp.freebsd.org server has 4GB of memory and RAID system, but I forget
how many CPUs.

Hiro

At 6:06 PM -0400 4/12/00, Michael Dungan wrote:
> So you would say that memory is more important than proc power? My boss
> wants to know whether we should purchase dual or quad proc boxen. (We would
> be purchasing more dual boxen if we went this route.) Are they any online
> case studies on this? I'm no e-mail admin, but I'm the one stuck setting
> this all up.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mike
>
>
> > My suggestions (keeping in mind that other people will disagree with me):
> >
> > 1) SCSI, hardware RAID
> > 2) /usr/ports/mail/postfix
> > 3) lots and lots and lots of memory
> >
> > You can handle tens of thousands of users with this setup.
> >
> > > Does anyone have any suggestions for hardware for running high volume
> e-mail
> > > servers with FreeBSD? Should I use a few "large" servers, or several
> smaller
> > > ones?
> > >
> > > thanks,
> > >
> > > Mike




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