Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 06:42:42 -0800 (PST) From: Danial Thom <danial_thom@yahoo.com> To: Wojciech Puchar <wojtek@tensor.3miasto.net>, "Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC" <chad@shire.net> Cc: Free BSD Questions list <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: speccing an NFS server -- smp good or bad? Message-ID: <20060109144242.93250.qmail@web33310.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <20060109122752.D12901@chylonia.3miasto.net>
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--- Wojciech Puchar <wojtek@tensor.3miasto.net> wrote: > > For a FBSD (or Solaris 10) based server that > is only acting as an NFS server > > and nothing else, is there any advantage to > using an SMP machine? Any > > no. one CPU is powerful enough. pentium 200 > class machine does have no > problems working as NFS server for 100Mbit/s > LAN at full speed, assuming > disk is able to cope with. > > > disadvantage? > > > > Does CPU speed play any great factor (ie, use > a 1.8ghz opteron instead of a > > 2.2ghz opteron for example)? > > no. with slowest available AMD64 CPU it will > still be much overpowered. > consider using that machine for other tasks > too. > > but you will need motherboard with something > better than 33Mhz 32-bit PCI > and lots of ATA/SATA ports, or extra > controllers plugged if you like this > server to really be able to do 1000Mbit/s > speed. > > > card. I assume lots of RAM for the OS to use > to cache would be desirable and > > GB ethernet. > > > all depends of the type of workload. in case of > mostly large file streamed > big cache won't help much. in case mostly small > subset of files will be > used, big cache may be a benefit. I agree and disagree :) As for CPU speed (where you can assume linear performance benefits as GHZ increase), "Faster" is always better, although not "necessary". With a faster cpu and faster ethernet card your responses will be faster. Every millisecond counts. Faster machines react faster to requests and faster machines can fill a wire more effectively. It won't be overloaded with a slow processor, but it will be snappier with a faster processor. Your premise that 2 processors are faster than 1 is faulty, since FreeBSD sucks at SMP. So avoid SMP because your performance may even be worse than with 1 processor. I haven't tested 7.0 yet but its becoming the story of the OS that cried "WOLF"; they may get it someday but I'm getting tired of believing them. "GB ethernet" is meaningless, since gigabit controllers and 100Mb/s controllers (these days) are the same. Many on-board "gigabit" interfaces are only on 32bit/33Mhz busses. You want a 64-bit/133Mhz card that has a good driver in FreeBSD. All cards are different. Intels are good. Some others may be good also. DT __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL – Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com
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