I asked my self these same questions about six months ago, and a LOT of
research and experimentation went into the final result. Here's what i came
up with:
Tyan Tiger100 ATX DUAL slot1
2x Celeron 300A (run at 375 with no problems, and 450 if you'r lucky)
256MB Sanyo chips on PC 100 SDRAM
Toshiba SCSI 40x CD
Adaptec 2940
SCSI drives (They really are better, all around - work with 'em for a while
and you'll see)
RivaTNT video
3Com XL ("vortex") 10/100 NIC
Case of choice.
Now, before we get off on a rant here, let me elucidate:
If you spend any time on onsale.com, you'll discover a few interesting
things. They sell 9 gig SCSI drives frequently for less than $200. for
instance:
"Quantum Atlas II DIfferential 9.1 GB 7200RPM Wide Ultra (New) $189.00"
This sounds like no big deal since it's a diffy, but if you look a little
closer:
"Buslogic BT-958D, PCI to UW SCSI Differential" $167.00
You would still need to pick up an Iwill or other less expensive controller
for the CDROM, or go with an IDE cdrom (Bad idea, but viable). If you want
"Killer" you gotta go SCSI.
The motherboard and processors weren't really an option at the time -
nothing matched the dual celery for sheer shit stomping processing power per
dollar... mbd and chips totalled just over $300. And never let anyone tell
you there's no real advantage to dual processors. While all my single CPU
buddies (even with faster CPUs, like PIII500s) are waiting for a process
that's overwhelming their unit, I'm still puttering around on the other
chip. At this point in time, newcomers have options I didn't.. like a
motherboard from Abit that's a DUAL PPGA 370!!!! And it looks to come in
under $200. So now, a pair of 400s and a motherboard could cost you less
than $400 before shipping and taxes. And those 400s will probably run at 450
(75*6) or 498 (83*6)!!!
There is good RAM available for $100 for 128MB. Just make sure you know who
made the chips on the SIMM. I recommend Sanyo, it's done well by me, and
according to tomshardware, works with most motherboards well.
I can't emphasize enough that IDE is not a viable option for multi-drive
servers, and to a lesser extent this is also true of workstations. Sheer
throughput benches don't often tell the entire story. While it's true that a
single UDMA drive can source as much data as a SCSI drive (provided they are
the same rotational speed and geometry) this is NOT TRUE in situations
where there are more than one drive to be accessed. Turn on a cpu monitor
while running those same benches, and you'll discover that on a large disk
to memory or disk to disk transfer, the IDE machine's CPU is often pegged,
while the SCSI machine's cpu is idling or nearly so. When one is running a
process like mysql or other memory heavy application (Quake3arena? - it's
smp aware!!!) the LAST thing one wants is delay due to processor overhead.
And i will bet that you'll see a huge difference in performance if you use
software RAID 5 and stripe across four or five drives.
I'm betting that with this type of config, you can build a KILLER server for
around $2000, with all of your considerations being met.
Steve White
Certified Linux Administrator
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Certified Unix Administrator
Quote:> Here's my challenge:
> Given what's available today, what would you need to build the most
awesome
> Linux server at a decent price?
> It's got to have the following:
> -At least 400MHz processor power (which is best?)
> -At least 128MB SDRAM (100MHz or better)
> -At least 50GB drive space (software RAID5 with IDE drives (heard of
> UDMA/66?))
> -100MHz system bus on the mother board.
> -Linux 2.2.X (of course)
> Who can help me fill in the blanks? (see responding messages for details)
> If we can get enough of the right people in on this discussion, we will
have
> a really killer machine that can be built on a budget by just about
anyone.
> Are you game?
> -ck
> _________________________________________________________
> - "You know, when I die, I want to die sleeping peacefully, like my
> randpa. -
> Not terrified and screaming, like his passengers."
> _________________________________________________________
by