Can this fileserver config handle the load?

[TheTMeister]

I plan on building a little FreeBSD fileserver for all my critical data, and I plan on also having it be accessible from the web via FTP and HTTP server. My main question, is will this setup be able to handle the load/throughput, or would I get better preformance with a different cpu/mobo/ram config. The specs are:

Dual Pentium Pro 200mhz 256k Cache
Older Dual PPro Mobo w/
Intergrated 10bT Nic and Video
64meg 168pin EDO RAM
Escalade 6200 PCI IDE RAID Controller
3 or 4 40gig Seagate 5400rpm HDs
Raid 5
FreeBSD 4.3
with Standard FTP/Web/Samba Services
3com 10/100 PCI Nic, Possibly 1000bT Linksys?

Will the CPUs be able to handle the load OK, or should I switch up to a single faster processor (if I did it would probably be celeron)? And data security is my main concern, followed by server reliability, and then througput, but I would like them all if possible. And would I benefit at all by switching from the 3com 10/100 to a 1000bT Linksys card? Would the RAID 5 array be able to keep up with it? And my last question is what filesystem should I use? I've heard that RiserFS would work well, but should I consider anything else, mabey NTFS or the standard linux FS?

btw, there won't be many users at any time, say 5 max, but all will be doing thing like dumping HD images and streaming large video files on a regular basis.

 

[quepasa]

That should be alright, but you might wanna buy a Celeron or Duron since the CPU's and mobos themselves are fairly cheap. Maybe even a PII 233.

 

[bigshooter]

My ghost server at work is running off of dual ppro 200's. Of course it has 512megs of ram and will shortly be upgraded to gigabit ethernet. It handles win2k fine, takes a while to boot up but after that everything is working great. I fried my raid controller though, so now just using single drives. The only reason you might want faster processor is if you are doing software raid 5. The CPU has to do a lot of calculations especially for more than 3 drives.

 

[TheTMeister]

ok good, do you happen to know if FreeBSD will benefit from added ram? If it took standard dimms I'd throw 512meg in, but since I have to buy the older EDO I don't want to upgrade unless it will benefit.

 

[cchan]

I don't have any numbers to back this up, but my experience with FreeBSD has showed that 128MB is probably a better size for a server if you are going to be running SAMBA and Apache on the server at the same time. And if security/backup is if utmost importance I would go with RAID 1 or RAID 10.

Cheers.

 

[TheTMeister]

ok, I can get an extra 64meg for only about $40, so I'll do that, but why do you reccomend raid 1 or 1+0 over raid 5? Isn't raid 5 fully fault tolerant, or is there sill possiblilty of data loss that isn't there with the others?

 

[TunaBoo]

Raid 5 needs a more expensive controller and is more CPU dependent. Raid10 or 01 would be better.

 

[TheTMeister]

I was going to go with RAID 1, but as you can see I'm going with the Escalade 6200 RAID 5 controller, which will only be about $120, and should be able to offload all disk activity to its onboard processor, plus I will get an extra 40gig over going with 0+1

 

[Poochy]

Escalade 6200 PCI IDE RAID Controller
3 or 4 40gig Seagate 5400rpm HDs
Raid 5


The above setup isn't going to be possible, unless they've changed the 6200 hardware recently. The one I'm looking at right now only has 2 ports, and since each port only supports one (not two) drive, you're limited to a total of 2 drives with the 6200. So you are left with the choice of Raid 0, 1, or JBOD. You'll need a 64xx or higher to do Raid 5, though from what I've read on the various FreeBSD mailing lists, Raid 5 with 3 drives using an Escalade is going to give you not-so-good performance.