Your suggestion: Hardware/Software for high traffic board

[scotty]

hi out there,

I would like to know, what's your suggestion for a high traffic forum with an average of 250 to 300 user online at daytime and peaks up to 600 users on some evenings.

Single server or Two servers?

If Single Server, has it to be a Xeon?

What linux? Debian!?

Please post your experiences! Thanks!

scotty

[Dimava]

I would suggest a Pentium 4 2ghz with ENISM

[scotty]

what do you think of:

AMD 2200 Dual
Tyan Motherboard
1024 MB RAM
2x80 GB HDD

[Coreace]

what do you think of:

AMD 2200 Dual
Tyan Motherboard
1024 MB RAM
2x80 GB HDD

Replace your IDE drives with a SCSI. Otherwise, the Athlon MP is fine for your use. However, the more memory you can afford - the better.

[sanyo]

HP E800 Server
PIII 1G *2
1G RAM
36G SCSI HD

[Zachery]

why is scsi so important? the extra 2800 rpms for the low end scsi drives cant make that big of a differnce, maybe at 1500rpms? scsi is so much more expensive overall so is it really nessary?

[dzeanah]

I'd say even a dual-P-III could handle it.

why is scsi so important? the extra 2800 rpms for the low end scsi drives cant make that big of a differnce, maybe at 1500rpms? scsi is so much more expensive overall so is it really nessary?

Because SCSI has the lowest seek times available, which matter with the queries you'll be running. SCSI also allows drives to re-order read/write requests to optimize performance. Then there's the issue of build quality, warranty length, and the abundance of high-end SCSI raid controllers...

[Floris]

If you are not going to use two servers (1 for site, 1 for database) then at least have the operating system on one hard drive, the site on one hard drive, the files on one hard drive and the database on one hard drive.

Dual Intel CPU's will make you enjoy yourself more then AMD. Xeon is nice, stable, and can handle the stress with ease. Don't use celeron cpus and if you go single, don't use AMD either.

For the hd's, don't take IDE, and if you do, make sure they are in a RAID setup, so you enjoy the speed. At least get 512, but I recommend 1 GB ram, and if you can get it, double that to 2 GB.

Using plesk, ensim or cpanel or nothing like that at all, is just a preference.

Debian is a very good choice, if you know how to use it. No need for gui and very nice to control.

Many users still use redhat for server setup, but .. for some reason they just keep upgrading and updating their modules, kernels and sources. I personally try to avoid it. I rather use FreeBSD or Debian.

But with 600 users in peek times, I do advice dual cpu, more then 1 server, several scsi hd's and enough ram to handle the stress. One extra fan in the box to take out the heat isn't going to kill anybody.

[scotty]

what do you think of:

AMD 2200 Dual
Tyan Motherboard
1024 MB RAM
2x80 GB HDD

moved last night...

..at the moment 200 users "on board":

 08:08:28  up 2 days, 15:45,  2 users,  load average: 0,19, 0,29, 0,22
100 processes: 98 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states:  14,0% user   0,1% system    0,0% nice   0,0% iowait  84,0% idle
CPU1 states:  11,0% user   1,0% system    0,0% nice   0,0% iowait  86,0% idle

config:
apache 1.3.27 with php4.3.1 compiled
PHPA 1.3.3r2
MySQL 4.0.12 - active query cache
gzip enabled

[Zachery]

theres nothing wrong with dual AMD's there alot cheeper and they can handle a large workload

[Pascal_S]

tgttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

[ummahforums]

1. For security reasons, stay away from control panels - all a cracker would need is one password to mess up your site. Login to the shell via SSH, use public key authentication (disable password authentication and direct root logins in sshd_config), set a passphrase for your key, and login as a normal user and then su to root.

2. Use FreeBSD. It handles better with higher loads on the same hardware (I'm speaking from experience, and a lot of sysadmins will say the same - please don't flame me if you disagree lol). It's also a lot easier to administrate (you can't disagree with this one lol).

3. Intel processors are more reliable. A lot of sysadmins have said that Athlon MPs are unreliable.

4. As to the HDD, try and get SCSI if you have the budget. With RAID if possible. Faranth - SCSI drives are more reliable and perform faster. If you must go with IDE, get RAID (as Xiphoid said). Mirroring *with* striping, if possible.

5. As Xiphoid said, try and get as much RAM as possible (ECC RAM), and the more fans the better (and the noisier lol).

6. I'd recommend dual CPUs rather than dual servers, as the network link between them might become a bottleneck. If you must have dual servers, make sure you have good 1000Mbps network cards in them.

[tgillespie]

I would go with FreeBSD as Redhat has some performance catches.

I would also go with dual Intel CPUs as they run smoother over long periods of up time.

I wouldnt really worry about SCSI that much if all your doing is forum hosting. If you we're running a download server or something with large ammounts of sudden activity, get some mirrored scuzzy drives. 4 at the least.

I would go with atleast 512 MB Ram as said before, but an extra 512 to make 1 GB would be a smart upgrade.

Also, if you go Intel, get 2.4 GHz or above.

[Zachery]

intell in general is so much more ex*****ve than amd, ive never had any problems with any of my XP or MP systems.