Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 13:12:23 -0600 (CST) From: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com> To: joel@quicklink.com (Joel Kelmenson) Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Recommendation Needed for server setup Message-ID: <199604041912.NAA01813@brasil.moneng.mei.com> In-Reply-To: <9604041813.AA23448@www> from "Joel Kelmenson" at Apr 4, 96 01:16:39 pm
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> It would be great to hear some recommendations on good setup > for a web and news server. I have one system that I would like > to use. It is a P90 PCI, 8mb, 720mb ide drive. > > I know that I will have to do a lot to this system. > More RAM, SCSI harddrive, SCSI adapter, ethernet adapter, etc.. > > It would be very helpful if I could get some advice from those of > you who have some experience setting up quality servers. > > Any suggestions would be appreciated. Well, I'm running a news server on a P90. There is a very low number of nnrpd clients, it's mostly a transport machine. It accepts a full feed from multiple feeds, and feeds those same folks with full feeds. There's probably a dozen nntplink's and three or four innxmit's running at any given time. The thing you're going to have to figure out is how heavily you're going to be hit as a Web server, and how many nnrpd clients you expect to support. > Things to suggest: > 1. Best CPU A P90 may be adequate. news.sol.net runs 75% idle. More important, get a decent motherboard. > 2. How much RAM (minimum, optimum, overkill). News RAM formula: Memory: 16MB + sizeof(history.pag) * 2 + numclients * 1MB + numfeeds * 1MB For news.sol.net, this translates into 16MB + 16.7MB * 2 + 5 * 1MB + 27 * 1MB = 81MB, which explains why I feel a little tight with only 64MB. Remember, you will need MORE RAM if you want to run a Web server too. > 3. Best adapters to use. If cost is an issue, the NCR-810 controllers are fantastic at around $60-$70/ea (ASUS SP200). They have very good performance. If slots becomes an issue, I start recommending the Adaptec 3940, much pricier, but you get two busses on the same card instead of just one. You _want_ multiple SCSI busses. The generic DE21040 based network cards are fine, so are many SMC cards. I still run ISA network cards in lots of my machines. > 4. Hard drives (type, brand, size, etc..). I'm admittedly a Seagate shop, and quite happy. For news, nothing more than a 9ms drive is acceptable, which places you in the Hawk/Barracuda range. Remember the golden news rule, MORE DRIVES TRANSLATES INTO MORE THROUGHPUT. You would rather have four 2GB Hawk drives than two 4GB Barracuda's. The only place you _might_ compromise for a larger (4GB) drive is alt.binaries. You should be able to get the Barra 2GB drives for around $700, the Hawk's for $600. The Barra 4GB drives are around $1100, the Hawk's around $900. Prices rounded up to the nearest even hundred dollars. Prices are at or around wholesale. :-) Read the INN FAQ's for more details about how to split up your disk space. > 5. Software (web server, news server, tools, etc..). Web server? Here, I favor Apache, because of the built in virtual Web support. For news, there is nothing besides INN. Netscape News is INN, repackaged. C-news is not seriously used anywhere anymore, for large scale operations, except at a few holdout "legacy" sites. > 6. Where to get the best prices. Become very, very good friends with a PC retailer. Give them free Internet access in exchange for wholesale prices :-) It is NOT hard to strike these kinds of deals. > etc... > > When I ask for the "best" I don't mean most expensive. What I > mean is what works well without going overboard. > > What would be helpful too, is if anyone knows where to get good deals on any > of the suggested hardware. We could all benefit (if we share price info). > I hate to buy something and find out that I should have bought.... Or > "you paid how much!... you should have gotten it..." > > Thank you in advance. > > Joel. ... Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Greco - Systems Administrator jgreco@ns.sol.net Solaria Public Access UNIX - Milwaukee, WI 414/546-7968
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