Is Zacate enough for a webserver?

[ncalipari]

I need to build a small server to host an Open Atrium website plus some other small websites and an FTP, for an academic project. Maximum number of contemporary users is 20.

The server will run 24/7, so being able to save some power is a nice plus.

Do you think that Zacate is enough to run drupal with Open Atrium on top? Or the performance wall is so low that the E350 is not worth?

Maybe I should go for the phenom II X4 840 (90 euro)?


I'm not sure if a drupal website and the other tasks are cpu intensive or not...

Maybe I should pick an energy efficient processor, but usually they are much more expensive...

 

[Vesku]

I think a 65W Athlon II dual core would be a good fit, total system power draw should be reasonable with CnQ and an 80 Plus power supply.

 

[veri745]

Yes, I would say that a Zacate should be enough power to run a simple webserver.

 

[Spikesoldier]

Yes, I would say that a Zacate should be enough power to run a simple webserver.

for twenty people, zacate is fine. anything more and you would want something more robust.

 

[dma0991]

If CPU performance is key to your needs I think what Vesku has suggested is good. I would go for the cheaper Intel Atom D525 instead if GPU performance brings no benefit to the server.

 

[formulav8]

Why would you get an Atom over Zacate? Atom is a dog. Zac is definitelty faster than that thing.

 

[ncalipari]

can someone and underclock/undervolt a phenom?


Maybe I can buy a Phenom II X4 840 which is dirty cheap now (90$) and disable one/two cores and underclock/undervolt it...

I know that you can turn off a core from linux, but will it reduce power consumption of the server?

 

[Spikesoldier]

why deal with a 125W part when you can get a 10W system?

 

[Chiropteran]

It's probably enough, but if you want a little more I'd look at the low power sandy bridge CPUs.

For example, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116394

A little more expensive and little more power hungry, but very efficient.

 

[dma0991]

Why would you get an Atom over Zacate? Atom is a dog. Zac is definitelty faster than that thing.

If cost is an issue the Atom would work just fine as a server IMHO.

can someone and underclock/undervolt a phenom?


Maybe I can buy a Phenom II X4 840 which is dirty cheap now (90$) and disable one/two cores and underclock/undervolt it...

I know that you can turn off a core from linux, but will it reduce power consumption of the server?

I don't see why is there a need to get a 4 core CPU and disable 2 cores when you can get a dual core for cheaper. Zacate E-350 is the way to go if power saving is a must. MSI is selling the Zacate pretty cheap as well and supposedly the most power saving.

 

[Joseph F]

I think that you should get an Athlon II X2 processor and if it's too power hungry just undervolt and underclock it.

 

[tweakboy]

Maybe a lot of hd thrashing i you have 4GB or something.

 

[Cerb]

Atom (dual-core w/ HT) or Zacate would be fine, but an Atom would likely feel a bit slow, given how complex Open Atrium appears to be. Give it 2GB+ of RAM, and learn to get Drupal caching well enough (OotB, Drupal is set up for devel and debug, which is why every other CMS say's they're so much faster ), and go. Such a system should be handle 20 simultaneous users, with a little PHP and MySQL tuning (bigger MySQL buffers, APC for PHP, >128MB shared memory).

Now, I don't know whether Brazos or Atom are a better value, as I can't find any LAMP, or even straight up PHP tests w/ it, but there's no way on Earth it will not be enough. If you're just worried about it getting too bogged down, don't--there's a learning curve, but Apache, MySQL, and PHP will probably just need some tweaking, so as not to eat up too much RAM and disk. If you are also concerned about service time for each request, then I'd say Atom < Zacate < Athlon II < Phenom II, but I can't confirm Zacate's actual performance.

I think Zacate would do well (LAMP has been a strong area for AMD since the Athlon), but I'm not sure if it's what you really want, based on current pricing. An Atom 330 or 510 barebones might be your best bang/buck, and an Athlon II box the most versatile on the cheap. If you go Athlon II, and want it to be more efficient, make sure the board has undervolting options, as not all do. The problem, cost-wise, is simply that you are paying for a nice IGP that you have no use for, with Zacate.

If electricity cost isn't much of an issue, a Biostar A880G+ and 3GHz Athlon II are only $101. You can beat that price with Atom, but you'll have far more performance w/ the Athlon II, and you can't get a Zacate board that cheap. Not sure what, if any, undervolting options that board has, but the price is right. The advantage to the Atom is that you can get a barebones, add a drive and RAM, and be done for $200-230, where the Athlon II build will be closer to $300 (case, PSU, RAM, HDD, mobo, CPU--optical drive can be borrowed for the OS install).

Maybe a lot of hd thrashing i you have 4GB or something.

4 will be plenty for that software--probably even overkill, but RAM is cheap--with that many users, as long as APC is set up, and MySQL's buffers/caches are beefed up a little. HDD thrashing, with 20 users, would mean a PEBKAC on the admin's part.

So, a few other pointers:
1. Set up Drupal's internal OotB caching.
2. Set up APC for PHP, and make the ttl for entries very long (like a day or longer). Get the monitoring script set up where you can check it, and do so once the server is in use. Most likely, you won't need to mess with it, but if it stays full, gets tons of fragmentation, etc., you might need to adjust some settings (going over 128MB requires changing a Linux kernel setting, IIRC).
3. Check MySQL's performance metrics, and make key buffers and caches larger. There are good 'net resources with more detailed, Drupal-specific, info.
All of the above will help immensely, even with small numbers of users. Drupal is big and bloated, and so caching is the answer to 90&#37; of its performance problems.

 

[Vesku]

Going to reiterate my Athlon II x2 suggestion, can always undervolt and underclock it. I'm not a fan of getting barely enough computer to do the current task, requirements change. If you have a hard power ceiling and absolutely have to keep your system under 50W then a Zacate itx board is a valid choice, other than that sort of restriction you are getting less for your $ if you choose Zacate over Athlon II x2.

 

[ncalipari]

Drupal is big and bloated, and so caching is the answer to 90% of its performance problems.

ehehhe I would argue on this sentence, since I would call Drupal flexible rather than bloated, but this is not the argument of this discussion

Anyhow let's analyze the price points:

Let's imagine that as a motherboard I'm going to use the Gigabyte AM3 GA-870A-UD3 REV 3.0 for the athlon build, which is 85 euros in my country.

Cheapest zacate: ASrock = 90 euro

MSI zacate = 120 euro

Amd Athlon II X2 250 Tray 48 euro (with MB = 138 euro )

Amd Athlon II X2 265 Box 62 euro (with MB = 148 euro )

Amd Athlon II X4 640 Box 84 euro (with MB = 175 euro )

AMD Phenom II X4 840 Box 87 euro (with MB = 177 euro )

Amd Phenom II X4 965 Box 127 euro (with MB = 217 euro )


I think that the best value for the money is the Phenom 840. The only thing that keep me from picking it is the power consumption.

If I could underclock, undervolt and maybe disable some cores of the 840, to keep the TDP in the 45W-65W range I would definetly go for it.

Also because I would be able to have more power if needed (e.g.: I want to run everything in a virtual environment).

What do you think? How much power would I save by disabling one or two cores?

 

[Cerb]

ehehhe I would argue on this sentence, since I would call Drupal flexible rather than bloated, but this is not the argument of this discussion

Then go look at the code. It's bloated, archaic, hackish, and uses too many files, and too many DB requests, for the work completed. I'm not saying it's a bad CMS. I'm quite fond of it. But, to make it work well for you, you need to assume that it's using more resources than you want it to, and you somehow have to make those resources smaller, and/or faster to access, to get it running really well.

If I could underclock, undervolt and maybe disable some cores of the 840, to keep the TDP in the 45W-65W range I would definetly go for it.

Also because I would be able to have more power if needed (e.g.: I want to run everything in a virtual environment).

What do you think? How much power would I save by disabling one or two cores?

Disabling cores for reduced power consumption is not worth it (this statement applies to most 65nm and 45nm AMD CPUs, not all CPUs). Underclocking and undervolting should get you enough power savings. Remember that power consumption is roughly a quadratic of voltage^2 + speed, until you start to near the CPU's voltage ceiling (which you won't be doing).

However...what other, if any, Phenom II options are there (such as 925 and 945)? I'm not sure why the 840 is even called a Phenom II, TBH. Also, are Core i3 CPUs worthy of consideration? They'd be an easy way to cut down on total power consumption. Looking at stock speeds, the Phenom IIs would surely have an edge for LAMP, if you ever put it under a real load. But per watt, I wonder if an i3 might be far superior, for similar or the same money, especially when you aren't going to give it a serious load?

 

[ncalipari]

Then go look at the code. It's bloated, archaic, hackish, and uses too many files, and too many DB requests, for the work completed. I'm not saying it's a bad CMS. I'm quite fond of it.

Still is one of the few CMS that AT LEAST try to implement a bit of Object Oriented paradigms in its code.

Moreover Drupal 7 really improved the quality of the code.

Which other open source cms do you know that are scalable, secure and designed for multiple users enviroments (e.g.: many personal blogs)?

It's not a rhetoric question, as I am truly curious to try an alternative that could satisfy these requirements.

However...what other, if any, Phenom II options are there (such as 925 and 945)?

You can check which CPUs I can buy here:

http://www.bpm-power.com/it/department/214/Cpu.html


It's the cheapest retailer in Italy, as he imports them from the USA with the strong euro (1 euro = 1.46 $ ).

I can find other CPUs not in this list, but they are at least 30&#37; more expensive.

I'm not sure why the 840 is even called a Phenom II, TBH.

Marketing scams.

Anyhow is just 4 euro more expensive than an Athlon II X4 640 so....

Also, are Core i3 CPUs worthy of consideration? They'd be an easy way to cut down on total power consumption.

If we can reach the price point yes...

I should say that I would like an AMD cpu because when I had the choice I always picked AMD... I like to support competition in the market.... But this is not a strict rule. I am open to pick an i3.

i3 2100 is 105 euros... Suitable board is 83 euro... total of 188 euros, and I am giving up 2 cores, USB3, SATA 3, .....

I think AMD is better for such a low cost build...

 

[Cerb]

Still is one of the few CMS that AT LEAST try to implement a bit of Object Oriented paradigms in its code.

Moreover Drupal 7 really improved the quality of the code.

Which other open source cms do you know that are scalable, secure and designed for multiple users enviroments (e.g.: many personal blogs)?

It's not a rhetoric question, as I am truly curious to try an alternative that could satisfy these requirements.

Plone...and it's a PITA to set up, along with not having enough good themes, so you'd have to do that mostly on your own, too. Oh, and if you need to handle many users, you end up having to use caching, just like Drupal. There are other nice ones, too, like Concrete 5, but Drupal's pretty much got it when it comes to flexibility w/o pulling your hair out. I'm not saying you shouldn't use Drupal. Just saying that Drupal is a resource hog for what it does, and that's what you really need to think about when dealing with it. For various reasons, Drupal's devs have consciously decided to prefer use of caching, instead of making the CMS in general leaner (among the hypothetical negatives to this, it would make quality modules more difficult to develop). If you have enough RAM, and you're not dealing with 100+ logged in users, software configuration is where you really make it work well or poorly. Your concerns about doing other things with the machine in the future should really decide the CPU choice.

I know from experience that 30+ logged in active users is possible on an Athlon XP 1800+ w/ 1GB of RAM and ~50 modules, including use of views, panels, WYSIWYG editors, etc.. Not the speediest, even with everything tweaked, using LAMP, but passable. Basically, you can have a configuration not up to your needs (DB on a separate box, too little RAM, etc.), but you can't buy a CPU that's too slow, today.

With that selection, and those prices, the AII X2 255, 260, and PhII X4 840 do look good. The X4 underclocked would be better than the X2 underclocked, if you ever wanted to give it a real stressing as a server; meanwhile, if underclocking to begin with, there's effectively no difference between the AII X4 640 and PHII X4 840.

 

[heymrdj]

We run rackfulls of Atom 330 servers, i mean rackfulls (breadboxes). I myself own one, 330+4GB RAM, and it's all the power I could need for a simple web server. It even runs VMWare to host a Zimbra installation on top of that. Feeds about 50 users daily on the intranet, and sips juice (I think 30w full load).

 

[Cerb]

Drupal makes it far from a simple web server, but there's no way a 4-thread Atom wouldn't be up to the task, with enough RAM, and a little time and effort put into the software configuration.

 

[soccerballtux]

Drupal makes it far from a simple web server, but there's no way a 4-thread Atom wouldn't be up to the task, with enough RAM, and a little time and effort put into the software configuration.

the 4 thread atoms are slower than the AMD similarly priced solution
check anand's review

 

[Cerb]

the 4 thread atoms are slower than the AMD similarly priced solution
check anand's review

What review? The only AT review I know of is a Windows desktop review. AMD's could very well leave it in the dust, but I'd want to see at least some isolated Apache and MySQL benches, before assuming it will. It's even within the realm of possibility that Zacate at stock could be faster than an underclocked Phenom II X4. Postgres, FI, looks good, based on a TPC-B copycat, but is that enough? It's not just a different DBMS, but a significantly different workload.

Also, how expensive are Atom and Brazos for the OP? I can find a D525 at the site linked for ~2/3 the cost claimed for a E-350 (which I can't find).

 

[Fayd]

why are you only counting contemporary users? do users who don't keep up with the times not matter anymore?

just cause someone's out of fashion doesn't mean they don't exist!

 

[eternalone]

why are you only counting contemporary users? do users who don't keep up with the times not matter anymore?

Yes they dont matter. To give an example I never needed a cellphone always used landlines, nowadays if you dont have a cellphone you cant even get a job. So the answer to your question is yes, after a while we dont matter sad but true. We only matter if we have the health and cognitive abilities to stay relevent, after that society can give to shits about you, and your either a bum, dead, or in jail. Luckily if you have family to fall back on its good for help, but some people dont have that luxury. But I feel like you, "just cause someone's out of fashion doesn't mean they don't exist!" is right, but most people dont understand that concept.

 

[soccerballtux]

What review? The only AT review I know of is a Windows desktop review. AMD's could very well leave it in the dust, but I'd want to see at least some isolated Apache and MySQL benches, before assuming it will. It's even within the realm of possibility that Zacate at stock could be faster than an underclocked Phenom II X4. Postgres, FI, looks good, based on a TPC-B copycat, but is that enough? It's not just a different DBMS, but a significantly different workload.

Also, how expensive are Atom and Brazos for the OP? I can find a D525 at the site linked for ~2/3 the cost claimed for a E-350 (which I can't find).

eh no I'd say it's not possible. I'd gladly bet money on that.