For a file server: more ram, faster hds, better cpu?

Chaapa'ai · 1 Jan 2010 at 18:57

We have two file servers at work that serve out files ranging between 100 to 1000 mb per file to 100's of users across the network. At times it slows to a stand still which I am trying to fix. I am not sure what I should do.

We have two servers with the following config:

Q9650 CPU, 8gb ram, 1 TB HD non-raid, 1 gigE connection running Ubuntu 9.1 Server.

What can I do to increase server capacity so that the machine(s) don't bog down? I was thinking about getting a XEON 554X CPU. Would that help if that was all I changed? What is more important in a file-server config to increase the number of connections?

Cheers.

Chaapa'ai · 1 Jan 2010 at 19:07

We have more hard drives and a raid card that we can throw into a machine... would 5 X 1 tb drives in Raid 5 do better?

Chaapa'ai · 1 Jan 2010 at 19:17

Here is the screen shot of "top" in linux.

From what I can tell the CPU is 97% idle, the load average is low, but this server is chugging right now to accept new connections.

Chaapa'ai · 1 Jan 2010 at 19:22

dave-lew99 said:
I'd go for RAID 10 if you can.

Normally i'd have said it was CPU (Samba on *nix seems to eat it) but obviously, it's disks this time!

Otherwise, check CPU loads and RAM usage when it's running slowly, see what it's eating.

IF I add 4 drives and install the raid 10 will I lose the data on the original 1 tb drive or can it be added safely into the raid?

Chaapa'ai · 1 Jan 2010 at 19:29

No these are generally one-way downloads with no version control or anything locking up a file from use.