Linux file server

[Robert Meyer]

--- cliff at cliffmeyers.com wrote:
> 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?
> 

It becomes apparent when your database starts getting hit by larger numbers of
requests.  PHP doesn't hit the disks unless it's doing I/O, so it wouldn't
affect disk performance.  MySQL would possibly affect performance if queries
were all over the place and there were a lot of them.  If everyone is getting
the same sets of data, MySQL caches the info and doesn't hit the disks.

Some of the places that you'd start seeing the performance difference a lot are
large Email servers, database servers with moderate to high load and file
servers that are being hit by concurrent users.  Also, remember the reliability
factor.  SCSI drives tend to be more reliable than IDE (another factor in the
cost difference) so if the data is valuable, it's a thing to think about.

In general, when assessing a system, I ask the question: "How much will it cost
if we lose this system?"  I use that number as a justification for the costs of
reliability and disaster preparedness.

Hope this helps...

Cheers!

Bob

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