Re: Advice on quiet but powerful hardware for Debian
On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 11:15:57 +0100, Chris Evans <chris@psyctc.org> wrote:
> Another request to this amazing list. I've run a web server which
> has a few simple perl CGI scripts but also some moderately CPU heavy
> R statistics CGI things. The box also runs SMTP (postfix) and double
> opt-in Email lists (ecartis). It's all run beautifully stably on an
> old box running Debian stable behind another Debian box which acts as
> three port firewall. The server box is getting very old and I'd like
> to speed up the R things so it's time to upgrade. Graphics power is
> not an issue on this machine as it's almost used only in text mode
> over ssh.
>
> Budget is not huge but my biggest constraint is probably that I have
> very little time for sysadmin work any more as this isn't my paying
> job. Other huge constraint is that the machines sit in the room I
> work in and listen to music in. I'd love to make the machine as
> quiet as possible within the need for some real grunt power.
>
> So questions I have are:
> 2) Assuming I do it myself I'm telling myself that it's probably time
> to go to SATA, to use at least RAID0 mirroring to minimise risk of
> losing things, to push the CPU power as high as I can (dual
> processor?) and the RAM up to 1G at least and perhaps to add some DVD
> writer for backup (though currently I can get the all the things I
> need to backup onto a CD).
More disks, processors and peripherals - more heat generated - more
fans you need to dissipate the heat - more noise generated from the
fans. Well, for me the noise generated by a dual processor machine
running 4 disks at RAID 10 is just acceptable - it'll sound like a
constant low-sounding humming, but that's just it.
> I have been thinking of Opteron CPU looking toward Debian64 some day
> but perhaps that's a bit distant and a bad basis on which to go that
> way. Any recommendations of drives, CPU, RAM and motherboards and
> the trade off of quiet/powerful? Reply to me or the list: I'll
> collate and summarise. Thanks in advance.
Well, going for Opteron isn't really a bad basis, although you'd just
spend a little bit more.
Try taking a look at IDE or Serial ATA as SCSI disks are definitely
real noisy. Price - performance - noise emission ratio is quite
acceptable.
--
Paolo Alexis Falcone
pfalcone@gmail.com
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