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How Much Ram for File Server?

Elfear

Elfear

Diamond Member
I'm building a file server for my boss and I'm not sure how much ram affects file xfer speed. It will be used for a small amount of people (3-5) with the likelyhood of two people being on it at the same time being fairly small. The system will have a gigabit ethernet backbone and I'll be putting together a skt939 board (MSI Neo4 probably) and 3 250GB SataII Hitachi drives for RAID 5.

Would a single 256MB stick be sufficient or would 512MB be better? Also, if 512MB is better, would I see any benefits from running 2X256MB sticks in a dual channel configuration or just a single 512MB stick?

Thanks guys, I'm a noob when it comes to file servers.
 
Ya but the building is the fun part. I've built ~20 boxes so I'm not scared to get my hands dirty, I just don't know much about file servers.
 
Thanks guys, I'm a noob when it comes to file servers.

Don't do it. The biggest mistake these home computer builders make is trying to build a server for a corporate environment.

n0cmonkey told you the correct thing to do. Don't build....BUY
 
Originally posted by: Elfear
Ya but the building is the fun part. I've built ~20 boxes so I'm not scared to get my hands dirty, I just don't know much about file servers.
Click to expand...

When it's 2:30am, you're plastered and about to have a bit of fun, and your cellphone rings because that server just went down. What do you do?

If you buy: You call <insert name of vendor> and have them go out there and fix it. You continue the night's activities until you have to meet them there (~4-14 hours, depending on warranty).
If you build: You go to the office immediately, troubleshoot the problem. If a piece of hardware is bad, you replace it then and there (can't wait till morning for the store to be open, or 3 days for newegg to get it to your door).
 
buy a dell. Jusr because its for work and you WILL get blamed for anything to go wrong with the fileserver.
 
Well, in all honesty it's for a small po-dunk crew. I work at a university for their cable department and this box a) is fairly non-critical, b) will have a dedicated back-up, and c) will serve 3-5 people. I realize servers are a different animal and maybe I'm in over my head but the boss doesn't want to fork over the big bucks for a pro-built server. We already have the hdds and the only things left to buy are the mobo, cpu, and ram.

Hopefully that will shed some light on the situation.
 
Originally posted by: Elfear
I have ~$330 for mobo and cpu and no budget on the ram (just be somewhat conservative he said).
Click to expand...

Dell PowerEdge SC420 starts at $350. With some of the deals floating around you can probably work it down a bit more.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the more ram the better. Always.
 
Originally posted by: Elfear
Is that the complete computer?
Click to expand...

Everything but an OS. I'd upgrade the RAM in it, probably upgrade the support, and toss the 40GB hard drive somewhere else.

I edited my post, but here it is again: The more ram the better, in almost every situation.
 
I'll look into that n0cmonkey. Thanks for the info. My boss is pretty set on gig ethernet capability and RAID 5. That's the main reason he's having me buy a new mobo and cpu. I'll have to see if the Dell systems come with that or if I'd be into it extra $$ for the add-in cards.
 
Why are you wasting money on s939 for a file server? File serving is the simplest thing a server can do - and it doesn't take horsepower: just a decent IO subsystem.

Advice above is right - you'll pick up a Dell PowerEdge with a Perc 3di/4di raid5 controller cheaper than you'll build an s939 for. But if you insist on building, spend the money on a reasonable motherboard/cpu, at least 512mb ram - and an excellent hardware raid card.
 
Can I get a Poweredge with a Raid5 controller and gigabit ethernet capabilities for ~$330? The reason I was thinking s939 is because the better mobos come with Raid5 controller, gig ethernet, and Sata II capabilities. I'd be out that much for add-on cards for our current hardware (A-XP 2000+ and dumpy mobo). If the Dell systems come with that than I'll have to look into it.
 
There are many factors.

1 What OS you are going to use?

If it's ONLY going to be a file server, and you run something like FreeBSD or OpenBSD on it, with no Xf86, a single 128MB stick will be plenty. (a single 256 or 512 stick will give you a LOT more future flexibillity with additional services or users .... however, for a 5 user file server, you don't need a lot.)

The two things that you are gonna want to worry about are Disk IO and Network IO. That is what will make all the difference for a file server. Well, also, you need a good backup system in place. (even though I see you are going with RAID5, you don't want to chance a a worm, virus, hacker, etc taking out everything)

Also, before deciding upon raid 5, please also consider raid 1+0. It may be more cost effective as well as better performing since you can do this with any software based raid solution and not take any major performance hit.

If you are sure you want to stick with RAID 5, be sure to invest in a good hardware raid controller card (about $300 to $400). Otherwise your write speeds will be most likely garbage due to parity calculations.

Well, good luck with it whatever you do.
 
I guess I'll comment on this since I just took out my RAID 5 today. I had a software RAID 5 and I took a HUGE performance hit when writing to the drives. I like the idea of 0+1 with an external backup solution as well. Can't you just get a couple of those Linksys NAS-type devices that you hook a USB drive up to?
 
raid 1+0 is a raid array or raid arrays ....

raid 1 = mirroring
raid 0 = striping

raid 1 + 0 = mirroring + striping. Extremely fast performance, no parity calculations required, redundant. (it is expensive as it requires 4 drives, however, you can get away with a cheap/integrated RAID controller without any big performance hits)

raid 5 uses 3 or more drives, it's basicly striping + parity. If one drive goes down, the data on it can be rebuilt from the parity information on the other drives. For every bit of data written to the array, the controller needs to calculate what the parity bit is. With a good dedicated controller, you will have great performance, otherwise write performance will be slow (most likely significantly slowwer than the speed of a single drive).

I believe there is a Raid FAQ on anandtech that goes MUCH further into depth, you may want to look it up.
 
Originally posted by: LikeLinus
Thanks guys, I'm a noob when it comes to file servers.

Don't do it. The biggest mistake these home computer builders make is trying to build a server for a corporate environment.

n0cmonkey told you the correct thing to do. Don't build....BUY
Click to expand...

Yes, you will go down in flames when your server takes a dump. I don't normally buy Dell, but for small business they have the best, cheapest servers. Throw in a same day response 3 year warranty and your all set.
 
Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
There are many factors.

1 What OS you are going to use?

If it's ONLY going to be a file server, and you run something like FreeBSD or OpenBSD on it, with no Xf86, a single 128MB stick will be plenty. (a single 256 or 512 stick will give you a LOT more future flexibillity with additional services or users .... however, for a 5 user file server, you don't need a lot.)

The two things that you are gonna want to worry about are Disk IO and Network IO. That is what will make all the difference for a file server. Well, also, you need a good backup system in place. (even though I see you are going with RAID5, you don't want to chance a a worm, virus, hacker, etc taking out everything)

Also, before deciding upon raid 5, please also consider raid 1+0. It may be more cost effective as well as better performing since you can do this with any software based raid solution and not take any major performance hit.

If you are sure you want to stick with RAID 5, be sure to invest in a good hardware raid controller card (about $300 to $400). Otherwise your write speeds will be most likely garbage due to parity calculations.

Well, good luck with it whatever you do.
Click to expand...


I would recommend the same. Go with *BSD (Free/Net/Open) or a Linux distro. You will have far better performance from using a *NIX type OS over a Windows OS. Again, 256 would be plenty if you went this route.

The latest samba releases (3.x) are very very good. I have a few file servers up with over 900+ days uptime on them and they are all running FreeBSD (my personal favorite).

Anyway, what he said.... 🙂
 
Originally posted by: Penth
I guess I'll comment on this since I just took out my RAID 5 today. I had a software RAID 5 and I took a HUGE performance hit when writing to the drives. I like the idea of 0+1 with an external backup solution as well. Can't you just get a couple of those Linksys NAS-type devices that you hook a USB drive up to?
Click to expand...

You have point... THere are numerous and cheap NAS solutions like the Linksys that would be potentially cheaper, more reliable, and much quicker to setup than a dedicated box.

However, their performance varies. In this guy's case it will only be mostly one user at a time, so no big deal, but most cheap NAS solutions are 10/100Mbit, and your performance will vary depending on size/# of files.

I would recommend a NAS solution as well.

Elfear, you came here to investigate thoughts on your solution, -I hope you weigh out the alternatives as well.

 
really, for enterprise/corp use, buy one. buy buy buy. I am a huge homegrown PC guy, but I would still say buy. I have done IT for our small company, and I'm going to tell you, buy. That dell would be an excellent deal. It's right in your price range, and you get support. Spend the extra money on the warranty. (AKA Listen to NOCmonkey, his name is more then a handle, it's a hint at his background).

What kind of drives do you have?

As far as performance, if you are talking about raid 0+1 versus raid 5, it might be faster, but not really, and you loose bang for buck. As far as raid 5 being slower then a single drive...maybe on a software setup. On a dell Perc controller, with raid5+1 (raid 5 with a hotspare) would be much faster then a single drive.


This is all moot if you have a hodgepodge of drives, or if they are IDE/SATA.
 
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