Technical thread for Server Discussion (merged)

[xazil]

Just to toss in my voice to those above championing the twin processors...

I use opterons at work as well and those things fly as server processors, in fact we have one as a SQL box.

Also if you have two processor heavy applications like PHP and SQL then twin processors are the way to go, 2 twin processor boxes is just gravy.

And in closing - 64bit Linux...</Homer Simpson Drooling>

 

[Michael Morris]

Just to toss in my voice to those above championing the twin processors...

I use opterons at work as well and those things fly as server processors, in fact we have one as a SQL box.

Also if you have two processor heavy applications like PHP and SQL then twin processors are the way to go, 2 twin processor boxes is just gravy.

And in closing - 64bit Linux...</Homer Simpson Drooling>

64 bit Linux will do better with a 64-bit processor (or processors), which the Opteron is not and the Athalon is.

 

[xazil]

64 bit Linux will do better with a 64-bit processor (or processors), which the Opteron is not and the Athalon is.

Oh? I have seen nothing that indicates Opteron are anything but 64 bit processors that can also do 32bit. Just like the the Athlon FX.

From what I have read the Athlon FX is basically a cut down Opteron 100 series (less HyperTransport links) that runs faster than the current 100 series does in megahertz.

 

[Jupp]

Yup, Opteron is as 64bit as 64bit can be. The Athlon FX-53/55 is nothing else than a toned down Opteron 1xx series (1 hyper transport link, no dual cpu). On the other hand the 200 series Opterons have 2 hyper transport links that are used to connect the two cpus in a system together and to the outside. Depending on what 200 series you wanna use you can get almost 2 opterons for the price of one FX53/55, well as long as you dont wanna go and buy an Opteron 250

 

[Psionicist]

Psionicist: Those are interesting stats... I wonder then, why mySQL is taking up 75% of the CPU time on this box.

As Michael says, though, if they can buy two new boxes, the point is moot.

One reason: The ENW database is _huge_, the average post here is longer than on most other forums. The current server has 1 GB of RAM. The database is larger than 2 GB. If the information the forum is looking for is not in the RAM, MySQL have to swap from the hard disk. That is one reason why MySQL is eating resources. 2-4GB RAM (preferable 4 GB) and SCSI-drives will solve this problem.

Btw, Jupp: Jupp is Swedish for Yup.

 

[Michael Morris]

@Psi> Any linkage on that PHP cacheing thing a ma jig you mentioned earlier in the thread?

 

[Psionicist]

@Psi> Any linkage on that PHP cacheing thing a ma jig you mentioned earlier in the thread?

Here you go: http://turck-mmcache.sourceforge.net/index_old.html

 

[Michael Morris]

Not bad...

 

[buzz]

Just a Web designer, not a hardware guy, but I want to add my vote for dual servers, Opteron, SCSI RAID, and, looking at how much has been collected already in the donation thread, replacing rather than refurbishing the current server.

And for the heck of it, I'll put forth the idea of FreeBSD. Fast, free, stable, and the target of only 1% (in combination with Mac SO X Server) of hacking attempts. Linux, OTOH, is at around 65%, and IIS 25% or so. We used FreeBSD at the ISP I used to work for, and we had a ridiculous number of users running on a single box with no problemo.

Anyway, great discussion. Very nice to see all of the combined brainpower. ENWorld rawks.

 

[fett527]

Front-end web, back-end database. I think that's covered.

If you do not go with SCSI RAID you are making a mistake. Listen to what everyone is saying on disk seek times. This is critical.

And if you can afford it, put dual-procs in the new server, or at least buy a dual-proc board and budget for the second proc down the road.

Two-cents from a small-medium sized server/network admin for over 5 years.