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advice for File Server - does ram speed matter?



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 23rd 03, 11:01 PM
daytripper
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Default advice for File Server - does ram speed matter?

On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 18:45:13 GMT, "FN"
wrote:

I'm looking at using one of these Gigabyte motherboards in a custom built
file server, for a small business...

http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-128-166
http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-128-185

I'll be using Windows 2000 Server. IDE hard drives will be attached via a
separate Promise IDE Raid 5 Card. About 1-2 gb of RAM (feel free to
suggest).

Does RAM speed matter for this type of file server usage? I gather ECC ram
support is good for a server, but I have no idea if I should go with dual
channel DDR 400 or 266? Would the difference be noticeable? The
difference in the motherboard and the ram easily adds a couple hundred
dollars minimum, and I'm wondering if its a waste.


A file server? Multiply the number of network hoses times their best-case
bandwidth and I bet you still won't touch the *disk* bandwidth available,
never mind the memory bandwidth available with the lesser of your choices...

ie: it's likely a waste to spend $$ on premium memory...

/daytripper
  #2  
Old June 24th 03, 12:27 AM
FN
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Posts: n/a
Default


"daytripper" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 18:45:13 GMT, "FN"


wrote:

I'm looking at using one of these Gigabyte motherboards in a custom built
file server, for a small business...

http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-128-166
http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-128-185

I'll be using Windows 2000 Server. IDE hard drives will be attached via

a
separate Promise IDE Raid 5 Card. About 1-2 gb of RAM (feel free to
suggest).

Does RAM speed matter for this type of file server usage? I gather ECC

ram
support is good for a server, but I have no idea if I should go with dual
channel DDR 400 or 266? Would the difference be noticeable? The
difference in the motherboard and the ram easily adds a couple hundred
dollars minimum, and I'm wondering if its a waste.


A file server? Multiply the number of network hoses times their best-case
bandwidth and I bet you still won't touch the *disk* bandwidth available,
never mind the memory bandwidth available with the lesser of your

choices...

ie: it's likely a waste to spend $$ on premium memory...

/daytripper



As for the hard drives, just having a single IDE 5400 rpm vs 7200 rpm drive
makes a noticeable difference on a server. But thanks for the thoughts.


  #3  
Old June 24th 03, 01:52 AM
daytripper
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Posts: n/a
Default

On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 23:27:03 GMT, "FN"
wrote:


"daytripper" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 18:45:13 GMT, "FN"


wrote:

I'm looking at using one of these Gigabyte motherboards in a custom built
file server, for a small business...

http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-128-166
http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-128-185

I'll be using Windows 2000 Server. IDE hard drives will be attached via

a
separate Promise IDE Raid 5 Card. About 1-2 gb of RAM (feel free to
suggest).

Does RAM speed matter for this type of file server usage? I gather ECC

ram
support is good for a server, but I have no idea if I should go with dual
channel DDR 400 or 266? Would the difference be noticeable? The
difference in the motherboard and the ram easily adds a couple hundred
dollars minimum, and I'm wondering if its a waste.


A file server? Multiply the number of network hoses times their best-case
bandwidth and I bet you still won't touch the *disk* bandwidth available,
never mind the memory bandwidth available with the lesser of your

choices...

ie: it's likely a waste to spend $$ on premium memory...

/daytripper



As for the hard drives, just having a single IDE 5400 rpm vs 7200 rpm drive
makes a noticeable difference on a server. But thanks for the thoughts.


Building a file server around a single anything is probably a bad idea, but
building one around a single IDE drive would be down right stupid if
performance is a criteria. At least a scsi solution would allow seek
reordering where an IDE drive won't...
  #4  
Old June 24th 03, 05:51 AM
FN
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Posts: n/a
Default

western digital 200 GB with the 8MB cache


"George Macdonald" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 18:45:13 GMT, "FN"
wrote:

I'm looking at using one of these Gigabyte motherboards in a custom built
file server, for a small business...

http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-128-166
http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-128-185

I'll be using Windows 2000 Server. IDE hard drives will be attached via

a
separate Promise IDE Raid 5 Card. About 1-2 gb of RAM (feel free to
suggest).

Does RAM speed matter for this type of file server usage? I gather ECC

ram
support is good for a server, but I have no idea if I should go with dual
channel DDR 400 or 266? Would the difference be noticeable? The
difference in the motherboard and the ram easily adds a couple hundred
dollars minimum, and I'm wondering if its a waste.


Is this a file/print server only?... no database serving? 512MB RAM will
be sufficient - 1GB will give some breathing space for future bloat if you
wish. For hard disks I'd suggest considering a Promise SuperSwap kit

which
will give you failure redundancy plus a near-passive short-term backup by
disk swapping - the hot swapping works well but you have to be ultra
careful about grounding yourself, no matter the weather, before touching
the drive with the key... not sure if swapping goes with RAID-5.

I still have a PII/450 in our W2K file/print server and the only time it
really hurts for memory and CPU speed is on Defrags - yes, it *will* be
upgraded one of those days.:-) If there's a few spare $$ spend on the

case
- I have a Antec SX-1240 (6x5.25" bays) which, AFAIK, has been superseded
now but I don't regret spending on it and it has worked out very well.

What drives are you considering? I recently switched from IBM 75GXPs to
Seagate Barracudas (upgrade from 20GBs to 80GBs) and am seeing no more
little disk related glitches and Active Directory recoveries in the system
logs... and the Seagates, with FDB, are very quiet.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who,

me??


  #5  
Old June 24th 03, 05:22 PM
Robert Myers
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Posts: n/a
Default

On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 22:01:40 GMT, daytripper
wrote:


A file server? Multiply the number of network hoses times their best-case
bandwidth and I bet you still won't touch the *disk* bandwidth available,
never mind the memory bandwidth available with the lesser of your choices...

Think we've been down this road before, but I'll risk it, anyway. I
don't know the ratio of bytes read from disk to bytes actually used,
but I'll bet it's significantly greater than one. Wasting bandwidth
by reading more data than necessary is one way of hiding latency.

That doesn't make your argument or your conclusion necessarily wrong,
but it isn't the slam dunk you make it out to be. As to memory speed,
same argument applies. How many memory references per byte read or
written to disk via a network connection? More than one, that's for
sure. Lots going on at once: many users, many transactions. Nobody
ever sees a delay due to memory bandwidth bottleneck? I'm skeptical.

RM
 




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