Topic: Which is the best architechture Performance/Price

[Snoopyski]

Hello Everyone,

I want to know "poll" wich is the best architechture for balancing Performance/Price for SME Server 7 ?

AMD XP
AMD XP X2
AMD 64
AMD Opteron (Dual)
Intel P4
Intel P4 Hyper
Intel Xeon (Too much expensive !!!)

Thanks for all answer,

Snoopyski

[byte]

Well except the 64bit technology I would say any of the others, SME 7 is not 64bit (yet, if it's ever attempted )

[Janm]

Think about more ram
My server some times use 800-900 mb of ram
when i look at it in phpsysinfo
pentium 4 dual core
Jan

[dsemuk]

Processing power isn't the first consideration in a server enviroment, fill up your server(s) with RAM and make sure the disks are not a bottleneck.

Having said that, I would go with the AMD Opteron(s) or AMD64 (not X2)

I work in an enviroment full of Intel Xeon processors and the amount of heat servers based on Intel processors kick out is shocking!

We only have one small box running a couple of Opterons and although it is often under heavy load it still runs cooler than any of the Intel boxes.

We (sadly ) run entirly M$, so if SME was running on these boxes the story may be different but I very much doubt it.

Heat = wasted energy

You really need to look at what your server will be doing befor deciding what you need to power it.

Dave

[Janm]

Test right now when clam antivirus is running

Hardware Information
Processors 1
Model AMD Athlon(tm) processor
CPU Speed 1.8 GHz
Cache Size 256 KB
System Bogomips 3604.19
PCI Devices 00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE
00:08.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone]
00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G100 [Productiva] AGP
 
IDE Devices hda: Maxtor 6Y080L0 (Capacity: 76.34 GB)
hdc: IDE-CD R/RW 16x12A
 
USB Devices Linux 2.6.9-34.ELsmp uhci_hcd UHCI Host Controller
Linux 2.6.9-34.ELsmp uhci_hcd UHCI Host Controller
 
 


Tasks: 154 total,   1 running, 153 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.0% us,  0.3% sy,  0.0% ni, 99.7% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:   1294700k total,  1262116k used,    32584k free,    59832k buffers
Swap:  2031608k total,      104k used,  2031504k free,  1043504k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 3893 root      16   0  6916 1944 1564 S  0.3  0.2   0:01.84 sshd
 3515 root      17   0  2316 1048  776 R  0.3  0.1   0:00.06 top
    1 root      16   0  3308  668  576 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.95 init
    2 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0
    3 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 ksoftirqd/0
    4 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 events/0
    5 root       6 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 khelper
    6 root      15 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kacpid
   19 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd/0
   29 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.59 pdflush
   30 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:01.00 pdflush
   20 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khubd
   32 root      12 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 aio/0
   31 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.94 kswapd0
  106 root      25   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kseriod
  188 root      10 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kmirrord
  189 root      10 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kmir_mon
  197 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 md2_raid1
  198 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 md1_raid1
  203 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:03.14 kjournald
  959 root       6 -10  1520  468  392 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 udevd
 1134 root       6 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kauditd
 1195 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kjournald
 1416 root      18   0  2648  440  380 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 mingetty
 1421 root      18   0  1760  440  380 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 mingetty
 1422 root      16   0  1716  340  276 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 runsvdir

Jan

[duncan]

Think about more ram
My server some times use 800-900 mb of ram
when i look at it in phpsysinfo
pentium 4 dual core
Jan

Its not actually using all that ram. Regardless of how much ram you have - phpsysinfo will always show it used. If you start going into swap - then you might need to look at more ram

Personaly I am happy with the AMD XP processors for price and performance.

[raem]

Janm

> My server some times use 800-900 mb of ram

Linux attempts to utilise all the RAM you have in a server, why leave it unused ! There have been many posts about this over the years.

[Janm]

Hej Ray
here is an example of a v.6.0.01 i manage for a friend
just after a restart

Type          Capacity Free      Used     Size
Physical Memory   30%  175.81 MB 73.60 MB 249.41 MB
- Kernel + applications   15%    38.27 MB  
- Buffers   4%    9.27 MB  
- Cached   10%    26.07 MB  
Disk Swap   0%  1.00 GB 0.00 KB 1.00 GB

Jan

[raem]

Janm

>...just after a restart

Wait until the server has been running for a while, that memory will get utilised. As I understand it, all Linux systems try to use all the memory, it makes the system run faster. It's not a bad thing, it's a good thing.
It will swap the memory out if required, and as has been said to you, the state of the swap file is more the issue ie if always a lot of swap being used, then that suggests you need more physical memory.

[Janm]

Thanks Ray for the explanation
When i come to think about what you say
its obvios that the ram is best there is no moving parts
i think that before the prices were so high the peaple
who made them knew it was neded badley
so if we could put a complet sme system in ram
this could be fast problem is no power no SME
have a nice day
Jan

ps the same computer running for 5 ours now

Memory Usage
Type Percent                  Capacity Free Used Size
Physical Memory   46%  133.61 MB 115.80 MB 249.41 MB
- Kernel + applications   19%    46.68 MB  
- Buffers   14%    34.96 MB  
- Cached   14%    34.16 MB  
Disk Swap   0%  1.00 GB 0.00 KB 1.00 GB

taken with Pytty from remote

And this is my computer local sme also 5 ours after

Memory Usage
Type Percent        Capacity Free   Used       Size
Physical Memory   14%  1.05 GB 179.05 MB 1.23 GB
Disk Swap   0%  1.00 GB 0.00 KB 1.00 GB

[p-jones]

I have an Athlon XP2400 in daily use serving files to 5 users, pulling email and providing an internet gateway. It only ever exceeds 10% CPU utilisation on a Sat night when Clam does a full system scan. It has been this way for 18 months or more. Athlon XP series are getting old and are almost obsolete now.

I also have another server running on a PII-400 (not my choice - I built it for a friend and had to use what was available) and dishing out CAD files / spooling CAD files to a plotter and pulling email, some with large attachements, for 5 architects. It runs at about 35% and apart from what I consider is a "sluggish" server-manager interface, it gets about its business quite happily, much to my surprise.

My own server gets hammered, it is a 2.8Gb Intel Celeron. It sits on about 6% most of the time.

(1) & (2) have 512Mb RAM, (3) has 1GB. All are running in server-gateway mode.

If I were building another, I would probably go for another 2.8Ghz Celeron (Skt 775). They are cheap, there are plenty of GOOD cheap all in one integrated boards with IDE, SATA, SATA Raid etc all of which SME 7 seems happy with. Heat is not so much of an issue and it appears to get on with the business without any fuss. Rightly or wrongly, being an Intel CPU, I figure it should minimise the likelihood of any odd occurences which may occur from non intel CPU's.

I did run up SME7 RC3 on a Dual Core P4 - 2.66GHz and just doing a few basic tasks like sharing docs etc, it didnt really out perform the Celeron.

Of course, as has been stated in a previous post, final choice would depend on what the server has to do and for how many concurrent users. Like a previous post also, disk bottleneck would be of greater concern to me than actual processing power for just dishing out files.

Hope this give you some ideas.