Thanks to everyone for the help. It has been interesting getting
everones opinions as most of the information about "What to Buy" is
pretty non-existant.
The things I have noted is if the bean counters give us the go ahead for
a large lump of money then
Branded Server eg HP or even Sun if the budget allows
Dual Opteron or Dual Core 3Ghz+
4Gig ram
Ultra320 Raid Card
3x 145GB drives Raid5 Maildirs
2x 80GB drives Raid1 OS
IF not and we have to go cheaper (More likely in the real world)
Whitebox
Dual Opteron or Dual Core 3Ghz+
4Gig ram
4XSATA 200GB Raid 0+1 Maildir
2xSATA 160GB Raid1 OS
Probably about 10 grand gap in between but at least I have a good
bearing and should end up somewhere in the gap in the middle.
That much processing power should cover us for the foreseeable future
including expansion and more users over the current 700.
Also adding the atime to the fstab may have bought us time to think (or
time to put of until it becomes a problem again) and run some tests of
our own to help us make the right choice.
Thanks Again
Simon
Mike Meredith wrote:
>On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:57:06 -0400, Chris Meadors wrote:
>
>
>>I actually prefer the Linux kernel's software RAID over controllers
>>these days. The data is stored in a non-proprietary on disk format, so
>>one isn't as the mercy of the controller if something goes horribly
>>wrong. I've even found the performance to be better than the cheaper
>>hardware SCSI RAID cards on the market.
>>
>>
>
>Even if the on disk format is documented, I'd still rather recover from
>backups. Mind you there's other reasons for not liking "intelligent"
>controllers (recalling a certain RAID controller on which you were supposed
>to run a parity check once a week, which involved shutting down a large
>Alphaserver and booting off a boot floppy with the RAID controller software
>on).
>
>
>
