Setting up my new server

[dangerstat]

Okay so I've needed a "workstation" for a while, something that'll be accessed remotely but is a reasonable "data munching" box.

So I've ordered the bits (finally!) and the spec is a reasonable
AMD Phenom X3 @2.3Ghz
8 GB DDRII 1066
6.5 TB available via SATA II drives (all at 7200 RPM)
BluRay ROM drive (no idea why I bought that for a server!)

Basically I'm looking or advice on what to put on it, and how to set it up. Mainly it'll be used as a "pro" workstation or development / data processing (so lots of perl scripts running through large files, some Java dev with Eclipse, and possibly backing up my other machines).

I was thinking of putting the latest (testing - Lenny) release of Debian on it as the main OS (64 bit variant so it can access all 8GB). But also having XP / Vista virtualised. Also I want to have a couple of other linux machines virtualised so I can have a cluster (no more than 4 nodes) to play about with paralell programming.

Is Debian the best bet for this type of project? What performance impact would having RAID 0 (that's the mirroring one right) have for general server / data processing tasks have?

 

[Laser402]

Raid 0 is Striped, no redudancy if a disk dies, RAID 1 is a mirror, shouldn't give any noticable performance impact on writing, but a decent RAID Card would help give some good reads. If the program can read from 2 disks at the same time (forgot what its called)

 

[daz]

I would generally go for either RAID5, or RAID10. RAID10 would offer the best performance, but you lose half your space, RAID5 gives you more space but isn't quite as fast.

 

[dangerstat]

Thanks for the replies, I think I'll avoid messing with RAID at this point. And just use one of the drives to back up anything important on a weekly basis.