Duals!

[dq]

Quick question folks..
Whats a stronger, or a more performance setup..
A dual P3 500mhz 100fsb, or a single 750mhz 100fsb..

operating system will be 2003 server.
server running:

mail server
ftp server
file server (for local network)

Just got two 500's and one 750, dont know what to complete the setup with..

thanks folks..

 

[spyordie007]

SMP

 

[dq]

Thanks Sypordie007..

Just wondering, firstly, that is if the applications support SMP ya?

and secondly, where will the perfomance lie.. I mean the two 500's will see better speed or just more robust?

 

[spyordie007]

Well it really depends on what services you run however with those you mentioned odds are they will support SMP.

Just about every common mail/ftp/file server for either windows or linux has good SMP support.

In reality both options is probably going to be far more than you need; however the advantage to SMP is that the box can truely be doing 2 things at once which enables it to process more mail/ftp/file connections.

The ONLY thing that your 750 would do better is running a stand-alone single-threaded app (i.e. playing a game).

 

[dq]

Ah right,

Yea, all the applications that are running on the box support SMP, I dunno about Symantec Corp for the live update server of all clients on the network, but thats hardly CPU intensive..
The thing that I would like to know is you state both setups are far in excess of what I need..

The system is currently chugging along on 2 * 233mhz Pentium 2's.. belive me, its struggling.
It seems as if its really working the hardrive, as the harddrive in is a real beast.

I mean, The dual 500 over the single 750 route in your honest opinion is the way to go?

 

[spyordie007]

The system is currently chugging along on 2 * 233mhz Pentium 2's.. belive me, its struggling.
It seems as if its really working the hardrive, as the harddrive in is a real beast.

You sure you have enough RAM in that box? Dual P2 233s should really be sufficient for what you're trying to do so long as it has plenty of RAM. You might want to make sure it has a decent HD also (old drives are dirt slow).

I mean, The dual 500 over the single 750 route in your honest opinion is the way to go?

Unless you are looking for single-threaded performance, yes.

 

[dq]

Its got 448meg of ram, yes, its 32's with 64's with 128's... and so and so..
the harddrive is a wd 8meg buffer 160 gig.. (u know that special edition rubbish)..

I think the 233's just anit got the power to give to server 2003 enterprise..
its just a thought.. could be wrong???

what ya think?

 

[spyordie007]

Is that enough RAM for what you're running on it?

The HD should be plenty.

I've got a couple of dual P2-350's that I upgraded a while back to 2003 server running some of our less intensive services (one's an extra DC and the other is a web proxy). I think they've both got 512MB of RAM. They dont seem to have any problems keeping up, and I'm sure they get much more traffic than your server does. Granted they both have SCSI RAID for storage, but aside from that they arent much more powerfull than yours.

233s are definetly slow; and I would expect the UI to be obnoxiously slow (especially when doing something like windows updates). But for home use they should be enough to keep up w/ ftp and file serving; and so long as you arent running an open-relay (and your arent right!) than it shoulnt have a problem w/ mail.

 

[dq]

Hehehe, don?t worry... no open relay here... would be nice to for a coupla hours

Mail server:
Anyway, the mail server defo gets LOTS of traffic, not just traffic in terms of connections, its also files, big files do get sent out and big files do get sent it... its accommodating for around 30 odd users...

Ftp server:
Nothing major

File server:
Occasional 5 to 6 gig transfers...


Windows gui is terrible... its shockingly slow... things open at an extremely slow pace when you need to 'access' them, but when there running in the background or as services they do there job fine (logging, accepting connections, transferring).. I want to speed up the general experience but at the same keep the system robust.

Any changes?
If you?re bored, just tell me to fly away... hehe...

 

[spyordie007]

I think you'll be happy w/ the dual 500s

 

[Smilin]

Yeah, it's gonna be a little slow but that's probably a good thing. 2k3 is optimized for services rather than foreground apps. You can change it in computer properties but I wouldn't recommend it.

Based on what you're doing I would guess your drives are your biggest bottleneck. Why not fire up perfmon and find out?

 

[NewBlackDak]

Originally posted by: dq
Hehehe, don?t worry... no open relay here... would be nice to for a coupla hours

Mail server:
Anyway, the mail server defo gets LOTS of traffic, not just traffic in terms of connections, its also files, big files do get sent out and big files do get sent it... its accommodating for around 30 odd users...

Ftp server:
Nothing major

File server:
Occasional 5 to 6 gig transfers...


Windows gui is terrible... its shockingly slow... things open at an extremely slow pace when you need to 'access' them, but when there running in the background or as services they do there job fine (logging, accepting connections, transferring).. I want to speed up the general experience but at the same keep the system robust.

Any changes?
If you?re bored, just tell me to fly away... hehe...

What mail server software are you using? Our mail server was running on an old 7300/200 with 112MB Ram running EIMS without a single problem. It served 312 users at 2 sites, and we get VERY large ads email to us. It was also virus checking(although that caused an obvious delay in mail movement).

 

[dq]

Hey NewBlackDak,

Its running Mdaemon from deerfield.. Version 7.1.2 with Kasper Antivirus on the mail side scanning.
Belive me, the files being sent out and received are of large size. Almost wish there was an SMTP-NETBLT protocol ..
You see the system is running perfect. Its not slow in respect to 'what its doing'
Its running slow in regards to usability. I know its a server, I know its not to be touched..
But, it would be nice to feel as if the system has got space for more.
The harddisks are brand new, not raid as of yet, but its the wd se rubbish (8meg buffer)

It was more of a general thing, I mean SMP on two 500's would outperform a single 750?
But I guess SpyOrDie answered that with a yes...

Its got about 35 processes running in the back all of which are needed.

Any opinions..??