Re: hardware for file server

[Stephen Borrill <netbsd%precedence.co.uk@localhost>]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008, Matthias Scheler wrote:
> On 11 Jan 2008, at 16:39, Dieter Baron wrote:
> >  I intend to use 4 750gb hard disks with a raid 5 volume on them.
> [...]
> > - what kind of CPU, at what speed
>
> An Intel Core or Athlon 64 CPU with at least 2GHz should be good enough.

On a:

cpu0: Intel Pentium Pro, II or III (686-class), 1800.14 MHz, id 0x6fd
cpu0: features bfebfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR>
cpu0: features bfebfbff<PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX>
cpu0: features bfebfbff<FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF>
cpu0: features2 e39d<SSE3,MONITOR,DS-CPL,EST,TM2,xTPR>
cpu0: "Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual  CPU  E2160  @ 1.80GHz"
cpu0: I-cache 32 KB 64B/line 8-way, D-cache 32 KB 64B/line 8-way

> > - how much RAM

with:

total memory = 510 MB
avail memory = 491 MB

> RAID 5 in software is slow, especially for writes.

And 4 of:
wd0 at atabus2 drive 0: <ST3750640AS>
wd0: drive supports 16-sector PIO transfers, LBA48 addressing
wd0: 698 GB, 1453521 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 1465149168 
sectors
wd0: 32-bit data port
wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 6 (Ultra/133)

bonnie says:

              -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- 
--Random--
              -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- 
--Seeks---
Machine    MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU  /sec 
%CPU
         1024  7692  4.5  7555  1.4  5827  1.4 94683 59.4 124895 13.9 
143.0  0.6

So, yes, not that quick for write at all. Read performance is good though 
which may be all you want.

--
Stephen