Performance

xy16644, not exactly sure what's wrong with your connection or web browser, but I've deleted three double posts from you in this thread already ...
 
Thats true morbit. They dont fully utilise the G5 at all. It sits there idle most of the day. SQL gobbles up a fair amount of RAM (I have limited it to 1 or 2GB I think) but they dont NEED a G5. Thats what got me thinking about the desktop replacement "dream" (lol). ;)

The fact that this is even remotely possible blows my mind as normally we always sell clients bigger more expensive servers and more software licenses. Along comes a free OS that can handle 90%+ of the features of the SBS 2003 server...wow...I need to let this sink it.

Its a complete change in the way I think about upgrades and hardware/software...

** Sorry about double posts...I think that was me being overeager! **
 
Even though you have a point regarding the "power" of the server also think about things like hardware support. And I don't mean drivers, I mean when things break. The bigger (and more expensive) hardware usually has better components (quality) and depending on which model it might even have things like dual power supplies, dual everything.

SBS is just a neat "little" package that has pretty much everything, it's great for small to medium sized companies. But I wouldn't touch SBS with a ten foot pole. Not that I wouldn't use Windows, I'd just split all that functionality up and move each to it's own server.

The fun part is you could run a different OS on that same hardware, it doesn't have to be a Windows box. As long as it provides the functionality the users need it really doesn't matter what it runs.
 
I think SBS is good value for money for a small business but I absolutely can't stand it to be honest!!!

I'd love to see FreeBSD run on a G5...
 
I'm running FreeBSD on several DL380 machines (still G3 and G4, I believe, mostly busy firewall/proxy servers), and I can tell you: it flies.
 
Thats excellent!

Does FreeBSD work fine with all the hardware in a DL380? Controller cards, NICs, etc
 
Haven't had any problems with any of it, though I'm talking about slightly older hardware (HP Smart Array 6i, HP NC7782 Gigabit nic, Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.00GHz, etc.). ACPI, SMP, Raid, all ok.

There are 2 older DL380s somewhere (dual core, 15K disks added) running about 150 concurrent Squid users both, at a load of about 0.6 - 0.7. Also a new HP consumer-class desktop with two fiber NICs in bridge mode, easily handling 150+ Mbit/sec throughput, with a whopping 50,000+ established states, at a load of < 0.1.

Nice workhorses.
 
I am tempted to grab the DL380 G3 I am about to decommission. Only problem is paying the electric bill with one of those ;-)

I still haven't quite grasped the load figures when running top. If you server is running at 0.6 does this mean its running at 60% utilisation? I'm sure I've seen mine go to 2.0 or higher when installing ports. Does 2.0 = 200% ?! Bit confusing. I did read about it in the book Absolute FreeBSD but the author didn't offer much of an explanation...
 
Ideally, you can go up to a sustained load of 1.00 per core. So a load of 2 on a dual-core is fine, though if it goes up to more than 2, you won't notice any problems. It just means that a process has to wait for 'attention from the system' (cpu, disk, ram -- it is a combined value) for a few nano/micro/milliseconds longer. I've seen peak loads in the double digits that didn't bog a server down one bit.
 
Load is a number that refers to how many processes are waiting in the run queue. It doesn't relate precisely to CPU utilisation.

I find most hardware today way overpowered for server use. There are obviously exceptions, but when it comes to setting up a mail/gateway server for a small-medium sized LAN, a modern Core 2 Duo or Xeon will spend most of its life idling. An awful waste if you ask me. I've started using Intel Atom based systems. They're about as powerful as a high end Pentium 3, but can take upto 2 GB of RAM, draw less than 30 Watts, and can be mounted into a quarter depth 1U case!
 

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Most server hardware seems to idle 80% of the time. Which is why a lot of companies are consolidating their server hardware and have started to use VMWare (and vmware like products). That way you get more bang for your buck, less iron but still running the same services at a fraction of the costs.
 
Thanks for that DutchDaemon. So I have a Pentium 4 HT CPU which has two cores so I can comfortably go up to 2 and there will be no waiting for processes. Anything over and there could be a delay for processes. When I installed the MySQL port, that really hammered the system (about 3 I think) but I could still use it in another SSH session and browse the server via https with no problem.

Thanks for the pic aragon. I have been thinking about the electricty useage of running my little desktop server 24x7 here as electricity is expensive! Its only got a 240 watt power supply so hopefully it doesnt cost TOO much to run all day ;-)

Theres this guy I sometimes have to work with from another company and he is always grabbing old desktop equipment from clients (kind of like what I am running FreeBSD on). I could never figure out WHY he wanted such "crap" hardware but now I get it, put FreeBSD on it!!
 
Its only got a 240 watt power supply

Check it twice. It may be not up to task of running 24/7. Check real power draw under load, PSU power rating has nothing to do with total power consumption.
 
xy16644 said:
So I have a Pentium 4 HT CPU which has two cores {...}
Err... Not quite. A P4 HT is capable of running 2 threads (hyper threading) but it has a single core.
 
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