Linux Vs Windows - Much of a Performance Difference?

Redgie

Redgie

Redgie

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First things first, I'm new to commercial servers, I have my home one but obviously that's completely different.

Here's the scenario, in a month or so I'm going to be purchasing 12 months worth of rent for a Fasthosts Dedicated Server for around £1,200. The specs are a 2.8Ghz dual core, 4GB of RAM and 2 x 250GB SATA drives.

My budget is indefinate, it's already too high and can't go any higher unforunately, but I may consider upgrading down the line.

Generally speaking, the server will be running 4+ Gaming servers (About 2% CPU and 30-50MB RAM each. Around 5 websites (Including 2 forums and a few blogs), 2 ventrillo servers, 2 teamspeak servers and 2 radios.

What I'm wondering, is if I'm going to see any real performance advantage of going to Linux? I realise that it is much more resourceful than Server 2008, and cheaper! But I don't know how much I like the idea of learning a new OS just for the purpose.

Anybody got any experience or input? Very much appreciated guys :) And remember, I'm new to this :p
 
Buy what you know - that's going to be of infinite more use than a few percentage points performance increase.
 
Look at your game and software requirements and if they work on both platforms, i personally would go linux but as growse said go with what you know. If you do not know linux do not treat the above as a time to learn as you will get thrown in the deep end.
 
Euphoria said:
Look at your game and software requirements and if they work on both platforms, i personally would go linux but as growse said go with what you know. If you do not know linux do not treat the above as a time to learn as you will get thrown in the deep end.
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Agreed. I'd go linux but dont use time where you'd lose money a time to learn, you may end up frustrated in your server software not configuring correctly..
 
Mixing game servers and webhosting isn't a great idea IMO. Game servers typically run smoother on linux when things start loading up but windows will be far simpler to setup.

The real power of linux is the sheer amount of scripting you can do.

Personally I'd say you'd be better off going with a reputable web host for the web stuff - who will probably be already setup with the features you need, upto speed on keeping the hosting secure and updated, etc. and save you a lot of setup/maintenance time.

Then spend a little less on a server - rapidswitch do servers from about half of what your paying that would be more than capable of hosting 4 game servers and voice servers. The overall costs should be quite a lot less. Or if you want to setup the web hosting yourself most virtual servers are more than capable and can be had for minimal monthly costs.
 
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Thanks for the input guys, you've given me a lot to think about. I'll just quickly mention one or two things.

With regards to mixing hosting of game-servers and web sites, each will need access to the same MySQL database, so having them all access it locally is of great importance to me, as currently there is a small but noticible delay.

Also, I would like to be able to, in the future, offer web hosting as part of a business prospect, this is only a future idea, but still something to point out as this server would be something I'd like to use for the ideas growth.
 
After running game servers a for about 7 years my single word of advice is to not go with linux. For the vast majority of games you will find the performance to actually be better on windows than linux.

However, web hosting is definitely better on linux..
 
JonRohan said:
For the love of christ do not buy a fasthosts server. It won't matter what OS is on the thing it'll never work properly. :p
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We currently have two with Fasthosts and have had them for the last two years, we used to have an older one for several years before this too and none of them have ever skipped a beat! :)
 
You could never host all that decently on just that one box. Even if it was on gigabit line. You would be best to put the httpd on a different server. Or use a cheaper managed hosted solution for httpd. Depending on your expectations on usage and what gaming servers they are.

linux or windows, comes down to preference. But i would say freebsd will be a better option. But if you can't set it up then go windows 95.
 
Groen, is there any reason why you don't think it can all be hosted on one line? I'm trying to learn so would be helpful to know :)

Looks like you guys think web hosting is better on Linux and Game Servers on Windows, I was afraid of that! But I guess future expansion can be an split into 1 webserver and 1 game server!
 
He's wrong, there's nothing wrong with on one line (hell, those roles you could run two boxes and not be close to maxing a 100mbit link), on one server - well, it depends how well you can control the resource usage of your apps. On a sufficiently beefy server you'd have no problem running both rolls under VMware.

And web hosting on unix is just a convention these days, IIS is as good as any web server these days, particularly if you're coding in languages which play to it's strengths (ASP, .net in general).

Though given the price of commodity web hosting these days it's hard to see the point putting it on a dedicated server unless you have a particular need.
 
<snob>Well of course ASP .NEt will be better on IIS but who would want to do that? If you want a really powerful WebServer look at SunOne on Solaris on a CMT-based Sun SPARC box (T5120 for example).</snob>
 
Bry said:
After running game servers a for about 7 years my single word of advice is to not go with linux. For the vast majority of games you will find the performance to actually be better on windows than linux.

However, web hosting is definitely better on linux..
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i wouldn't say thats enterily true.
it depends on the game server.

some game servers do run a lot better under linux, infact some are even designed soley for linux.

but theres no point using windows if the game server you want to run only works under linux, and no point using linux if the game server you want to run only works under windows.

best thing to do is look at the game servers you want to run, and then check if they run better under linux, or windows.
 
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