Linux file server

[Mark Musone]

Yes, the file server is definitely writing a _lot_ more..
Web servers are basically just read-only, and most mysql backends are
quite small..

Heck, the worst that could happen is that you throw a few scsi drives in
for stuff that needs higher performance..or you just end up with a few
desktop machines with lotsa lotsa space! :^)


For the cost, it's most likely worth trying..i've got 1T at home, all
IDE, for my files and also my mythtv (realtime video recording) and I
haven’t had any problems..

Also, if your talking about copying files that are 100K, that’s not a
problem at all.. if your talking about copying files that are 10M then
you _may_ want to consider it more..


Are you going to be using software raid or hardware raid out of
curiosity?


-Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nflug at nflug.org [mailto:owner-nflug at nflug.org] On Behalf Of
cliff at cliffmeyers.com
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 8:24 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: RE: Linux file server

Mark, Robert,


Thanks to both of you for your input.

The file server is going to hold data for a 15-person office, where
there should
*never* be more than 5 concurrent users.  In fact, I'd be surprised if
more than
3 people were actually copying / saving files at a time, but I think 5
is a very
safe number to use.

I know it's foolish to buy a system without the capacity for some
growth, but in
our situation we won't hire more than 1 person a year for the next 5
years.

I must admit that I have a hard time believing the IDE drives will hurt
performance too much.  I run IDE drives on my web servers and those
puppies are
fast, even when they're running Apache, PHP and MySQL all on the same
box.  Is it
because each request is small that I don't run into issues with IDE's
inability
to multitask?  Would become more apparent on a file server, where the
typical
file being copied is at least 100K?


-Cliff





On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 01:26:26 -0400, "Mark Musone" wrote:

> 
> The most serious implication (which is quote often serious) is that
fact
> that IDE is not a multitasking protocol. So performance, expecially
with
> a raid-5 setup is usually poor. (every drive has to wait for for all
the
> drives to send a command and get an answer back) in a raid-5 setup
where
> your essentially striping bits across disks..this suffers
dramatically..
> One solution, if steadfast on still going with IDE raid is to buy IDE
> raid cards that have built in buffering. This way it sends and queues
up
> the queries in memory..
> 
> If this is NOT being used for performance reasons, i.e. it's just an
> office type file server light to medium use, it shouldn’t be a big
> problem..
> 
> One other caveat from what I've seen personally is that the IDE drives
> nowadays are horrible as far as reliability. Mi'm lucky if a brand new
> IDE drive lasts a year nowadays. My old IDE drives from 5 years ago
are
> however still humming along
> 
> -Mark
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nflug at nflug.org [mailto:owner-nflug at nflug.org] On Behalf
Of
> cliff at cliffmeyers.com
> Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 12:47 AM
> To: nflug at nflug.org
> Subject: Linux file server
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> 
> Does anyone have experience running a large (500 GB - 1 TB) RAID 5
array
> using
> IDE drives with Linux?  SCSI seems to be the standard used for these
> kind of
> systems but it easily doubles the price if not more.  Are there any
> serious
> implications of using IDE with a large RAID array?  Thanks a bunch.
> 
> 
> -Cliff
> 
> ---
> Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.512 / Virus Database: 309 - Release Date: 8/19/2003
>  
> 
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.512 / Virus Database: 309 - Release Date: 8/19/2003
>  


---
Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.512 / Virus Database: 309 - Release Date: 8/19/2003
 

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.512 / Virus Database: 309 - Release Date: 8/19/2003