On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 16:15:45 +0200 Hans Wilmer <hwilmer@condor-werke.com> wrote: > > Hi! > > Unfortunately, I´m a bit lost on what hardware to use to build two > servers. Both servers should run Debian, and I´m trying to find out > about compatibility issues before buying any hardware. > > One of the servers will be used as a fileserver running SAMBA as a > PDC. A single CPU system might be sufficient to serve about 40 users, > but my impression is that a dual system would be better suited to our > demands on the long run. I'm probably not the best expert on multi-processor servers, so I can't help you too much there. I can tell you that your cpu won't be the bottleneck for 40 samba users, though. You need to make sure you're using Raid 0 or 5. Pulling and pushing files from here to there is easy for the cpu, but the hard drive will be the bottleneck where everything slows down. I only have a half dozen computers on my network here, but I rarely notice the cpu indicator on my machine changing when someone's doing a large file transfer (few hundred MB). What I notice instead is the hard drive activity light and the network meter. And this is on an old AMD Tbird 1.0Ghz w/768MB of ram, whose main job is acting as my workstation, not a file server. Also note that this same "file server" doesn't just do Samba, but also NFS and Appletalk. The only reason I think you would need to worry about file transfers is if your users all editing 7GB videos all day. But even then, you would need Gigabit ethernet and more raid arrays before I would expect you to have cpu problems (and I would expect you to be asking about Appletalk, not Samba :-). HTH, Jacob -- GnuPG Key: 1024D/16377135 Random .signature #15: "What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot water." --Matt Welsh
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