Tips on What to Buy for a CF and SQL Server Setup

 
Dec 04, 2000
Chad Elley posted the following to CF-Community@HouseofFusion.com, in response to a query from Al Musella, DPM, Musella Foundation, both redacted here:

Al had asked:

"I need a new server... and had a couple of questions...

"1. What is the difference between a "server" and "tower"?
"2. How important is it to use SCSI drives vs. the new ATA/100 drives, [and] which are much cheaper?

"It comes down to choices. I could go for: Dell Poweredge Server with dual 800mhz Pentium III, dual 18gig SCSI drives and 256 megs RAM or a "clone", tower case, high quality power supply, dual 1,000mhz Pentium III with dual 40 gig ATA/100 drives and 512 megs RAM. Is the "server" designation and SCSI drives worth getting lower RAM and processor speed? I will use it for [the] ColdFusion / web server and also [as a] Real Video server. I will be using Windows 2000 Server - I assume that you can mirror ATA/100 drives with windows 2000? No?

"Nothing really mission critical on the server. I will be using the old web server as a SQL server. (Dell Poweredge dual 600mhz / 256 megs RAM / dual 9 gig SCSI drives) and retiring the current SQL server (Dell Poweredge single 300mhz, 128 megs RAM."

Chad responded:

"Tower and Server have nothing to do with each other. Tower designates what kind of case the computer is in. Server implies that it will be serving 'something', for a lack of words. (Web server, file server, application server).

"Depending on what kind of SCSI drive it is, you are looking at 40-80 MBps transfer speed. ATA/100 (I believe) is something new that should have throughput of about 100 MBps (I could be wrong). The difference in price is that with a SCSI drive, you have a SCSI bus and requires all sorts of different peripherals. SCSI bus = more expensive components.

"Processor speeds: [aim for] dual 800 or dual 1 GhZ. You aren't looking at that big of an increase. Intel processors over 1 GhZ do not show the return in speed as shown in the change in price. You are probably getting more out of the dual 800's for the $$.

"Memory: 512 is obviously a lot faster. If the server is going to be hit a lot, I would probably want to go with the 512. Especially since you are serving real video.

"Hard drive space: [T]his is just a question of how big does your server have to be? I would imagine that if you are serving real video ... [Y]ou might want to go with a larger drive. 18 GB may be filled up rather quickly. But if you know that 18 will last you a while, ... it might be sufficient.

"When you look at it ... you are really comparing apples and oranges. I think that both would perform your services as needed. Both will handle the web serving.

"Price may be a crucial figure. Not sure how expensive these machines are ... but you also need to look at where you get them. For example, you mentioned one is a "clone" and that to me means ... bottom basement type machine. Someone put the pieces together. If you are going to be doing some ?huge' hosting, you may want a guarantee on the product (so that it doesn't bomb out on you.) If the SCSI server has a warranty ... you might want to look into that as well.

"But I think I have detailed the differences between the key pieces. You might want to look for something that compromises the two machines. Let me know if you have any questions. ... "

Michael Smith of Teratech adds the following comment:

"Also, the other often overlooked source of slow performance is bad network topology. All servers should be connected to an Ethernet Switch (not a Hub) and NICs configured to run Full Duplex, if possible. There are other steps that can be taken to isolate traffic, etc., such as a second NIC to connect to a separate switch connected to any database servers."


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