For a file server: more ram, faster hds, better cpu?
- Thread starter Chaapa'ai
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I was going to mention this. Having just a single SATA disk and that CPU makes this 'server' sound like a desktop that's running server operations.
OP - If this is the case, I'd highly recommend that you ditch any ideas of upgrading these boxes and invest in proper hardware. Even something basic like a DL360 with just 3 SAS disks running RAID5 would provide you with massive gains.
This is a forum where high end rackmount servers go in your loft for your mp3 collection, but a basic desktop PC is just fine for large enterprise environments
As above though, the suggestion wasnt to use only SSDs.
I'd echo what has been said, a decent server grade machine would make a world of difference. The DL185 might be worth a look - a nice entry level storage focussed server
Yes, it was. Not by daz though
i presume your talking to me here
i wasn't intentionally implying to use a ssd only setup as it would seem the requirements here are a lot more complicated just thought it may be a simple way to increase the Hdd read speed
a specification needs to be determined as to how many people need access and how fast they need to be able to retrieve these files that would then determine both the required HDD read speed and the required Network bandwidth to accommodate
say at minimum your talking 50 users accessing 50 seperate 500MB
total required = 25gb
if one person was to download a single file on a gigabit network your talking roughly 6 seconds @ 100Mb/s (with a little overhead)
split that out between 50 people and your going to up your time to a minimum of 250 seconds at 2mb/s
quadruple your network bandwidth and disk speed your going to see at best (at very best) 8Mb/s therefore your looking at just over a minute per person accessing a 500MB file.
personally i would look to splitting the employees into groups of 10 - 20 and creating a machine for each group to access files from ( with a main machine sitting behind those) there fore with maybe only half of that teem accessing files at a given time the workload per machine is greatly reduced
10 people accessing 500mb file (half workload ona 20 person group)
total = 5GB
at ~10mb/s your talking maybe 50s per person accessing these files
these machines needn't be anything special just a Hdd and a gigbit nic maybe $400 per machine so maybe buy 12 machines and your looking at a $6000 investment (with a few extra switches etc ) use 10 machines initially with 2 in reserve for immediate replacement should one fail.
one problem you may face doing this is maintaining file versions between machines
(i know there are a number of flaws in the above solution but its a fairly cheap one)
alternatively or look at a distribution method where by the files are sent out automatically overnight ready for use in the morning but that would require good knowledge well in advance of which files are required every day
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That's one of the worst pieces of design advice I've heard for quite some time actually. Multiple machines, complete with high acquisition costs then higher ongoing maintenance and support costs? If bandwidth is an issue then either build a NIC team or move to 10Gbit ethernet.
But neither are likely necessary, I've seen far larger environments run on 1Gbit (with failover NIC teaming) just fine because all 50 users don't open their files at the same time. Contention is actually a reasonably good idea as usually it's simply stupid to spend money building a system capable of servicing a purely theoretical peak load.
The only time multiple server would make sense is if you segmented the network and then used DFS to distribute load, but the complexity makes it pointless here.
If you really need high performance then stop trying to build a file server and buy something made for the job (Netapp etc..). That said you don't need that, what you need is a proper server with a sensible RAID implementation.
DL380, quad core, 8GB RAM, 8x 300GB 10k SAS in RAID10 - you will need to be doing something out of the ordinary to need better than that, in fact in most cases it'll be overkill and you could go to RAID6 for additional storage space (I don't like RAID5 for large volumes myself).
But neither are likely necessary, I've seen far larger environments run on 1Gbit (with failover NIC teaming) just fine because all 50 users don't open their files at the same time. Contention is actually a reasonably good idea as usually it's simply stupid to spend money building a system capable of servicing a purely theoretical peak load.
The only time multiple server would make sense is if you segmented the network and then used DFS to distribute load, but the complexity makes it pointless here.
If you really need high performance then stop trying to build a file server and buy something made for the job (Netapp etc..). That said you don't need that, what you need is a proper server with a sensible RAID implementation.
DL380, quad core, 8GB RAM, 8x 300GB 10k SAS in RAID10 - you will need to be doing something out of the ordinary to need better than that, in fact in most cases it'll be overkill and you could go to RAID6 for additional storage space (I don't like RAID5 for large volumes myself).
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Let's argue about RAID 5 with a hotspare versus RAID 6
Depends on your environment to some extent but I personally consider RAID6 to be far superior...and most SAN vendors seem to agree with me. I just can't see a scenario where RAID5+HS makes more sense...
There we go, argument started.
Yep, I'd agree with Evil-I (and a few others about expanding on the NIC). Chances are, there are 2 major problem with your current setup - Storage (read & write) and network strangle.
Your HDDs are probably been hammered by the 100s of users (even if not at the same time), the disk head will bounce around to read/write the files. Try RAID 10 if you're not going for a dedicated hardware RAID, if you can get a decent hardware RAID, go for RAID 5/6 which will provide redundancy.
Even if the storage solution has been resolved, you next problem will probably be the network bottleneck. Get a multiple NIC and try out bonding/teamin (depending the marketing term), also make sure both your router/switch and NIC supports Jumbo frames.
Just my 2p worth. Feel free to correct me
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Could a simple clustered server suffice, with a selection of RAID disks in each?
Even 2 servers in parallel should do?
That way you should have double the read capacity, along with data replication for backup purposes?
I'm not 100% on how the load balancer works, but it should increase the throughput, with other perks alongwith.
Even 2 servers in parallel should do?
That way you should have double the read capacity, along with data replication for backup purposes?
I'm not 100% on how the load balancer works, but it should increase the throughput, with other perks alongwith.
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Yep, I'd agree with Evil-I (and a few others about expanding on the NIC). Chances are, there are 2 major problem with your current setup - Storage (read & write) and network strangle.
Your HDDs are probably been hammered by the 100s of users (even if not at the same time), the disk head will bounce around to read/write the files. Try RAID 10 if you're not going for a dedicated hardware RAID, if you can get a decent hardware RAID, go for RAID 5/6 which will provide redundancy.
Even if the storage solution has been resolved, you next problem will probably be the network bottleneck. Get a multiple NIC and try out bonding/teamin (depending the marketing term), also make sure both your router/switch and NIC supports Jumbo frames.
Just my 2p worth. Feel free to correct me
It's been proven time and time again that jumbo frames offer surprisingly low performance benefits at the best of times and there are scenarios where they result in reduced performance.
I'd also forget worrying about NIC throughput, I've seen larger and likely busier file servers run just fine on 1Gbit failover in lots of environments. It's also nice and easy to see NIC congestion because the OS can easily report it, so I'd fix the disk subsystem and then assess. Likely there's nothing wrong with the network.
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Why would you want to do this? The disk performance is a factor of the number and type of disks, spending money needlessly on another CPU, memory and motherboard offers no benefit over the cheaper route of putting additional disks in the existing server. File servers aren't CPU bound...they're IO or network bound.
And replicating data to a server next to it sounds like a fast track to bad habits if you regard that as backup.