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Official Server Upgrade discussion

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I personally think you guys are goin way overboard with the specs you're lookin at. Good lord, I have seen WAY more advanced sites than this, with a shitload of traffic, running on dual P3's with 512 meg of ram. 4-6 gig of Ram is PLENTY. Raid, sure, but do you need to set up the most advanced Raid configuration ever? No.......


Maybe I am not seeing the big picture I guess, but you guys sound like you're gonna be running the biggest website in the world.
 
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Well, consider that the current site is running on 1 gig of ram. Now add in more members (at least double), more functionality (stats engine, photo galleries, other projects?), and that the current site really lags during the day. I agree about the RAID, but RAM is probably the most crucial part of the server.
 
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BrutusMaximus said:
I personally think you guys are goin way overboard with the specs you're lookin at. Good lord, I have seen WAY more advanced sites than this, with a shitload of traffic, running on dual P3's with 512 meg of ram. 4-6 gig of Ram is PLENTY. Raid, sure, but do you need to set up the most advanced Raid configuration ever? No.......


Maybe I am not seeing the big picture I guess, but you guys sound like you're gonna be running the biggest website in the world.
Click to expand...

Where you here the couple days before NLOID? Even folks on cable modem and networks were waiting 2-3 minutes to get pages loaded, because we had almost 500 people hitting the server...the server was all but seized up. The current server is OK for normal day-to-day traffic of the membership we have now, but when we get that spike in traffic, it slows way down...Lord knows how bad it's going to be right before NLOID next year when we have 5,000 members and upwards of 1,000 people hitting the site at once. We're trying to get a server that will accommodate a continued growth in membership and traffic.

As for which database is being used, I'm pretty sure it's MySQL.
 
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Are there options we can leave out for the time being, and hope to raise enough funds to add a few scaleable components later? Sure we'd love to have that server to last forever, but do we really have that committed of group that donates? No, not really, we have a small minority that gives a lot.

I guess I just wonder if there isn't a middle ground between high-end and cheap which could get the job done now but be the right choice for something that would be easy to upgrade down the road.
 
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Not sayin this current setup is fine, and nothing new is needed. Just sayin that I think alot of the specs I have heard are overboard by a large margin. Or at least the pricing is. I guess it would be easier for one of us to always have hands-on access to the machine, that would really drop the support cost and whatnot by a ton. Can really build a machine with plenty of balls for like $3k, if you dont have to pay someone to set it up and support it. Regardless, a dual xeon machine with around 6 gig of ram is not gonna cost 5-6k.......

Antec Silent series w/ 350 PS (or whatever) - $66
SuperMicro X6DAL-XG-O Board - $319
Dual Xeon 3.0 EMT64 800 mhz 1 meg cache (2) - $690
6 Gig Registered ECC PC3200 DDR - $1223.94
LSI SATA Raid Controller - $213.50
Western Digital Raptor SATA (4) - $704
Total - $3216.44

Somethin to start with at least.
 
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I guess I'm seeing these $3K options and drooling, as we will have raised that much once the t-shirt profits are sent in and Charlotte's $1000 gift is in. That would bump us up to around $3500 or so. And I don't think we'd raise much money until the fall considering how much we've asked of our members already.
 
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You also have to consider that listing out individual components is different than buying a pre-assembled system, which would also presumably come with some type of at least limited support for awhile. Also, as far as I know we don't have anybody willing and/or able to purchase these components and assemble the server from scratch. It's not like this server is going to be running somewhere where we can go fix it immediately if something goes wrong.

Clarity said:
What I'm looking for right now, is for someone to point out a company that is known for building solid machines, and having (ideally) US-based customer/tech support. We can then spec out a machine to our needs with them, and use that as a very clear target for our current drive goals.

We could also buy individual parts, put the whole thing together, and go that way. I have no problem with that. I could assemble it here, and get the OS going enough that the machine could be online that someone from the site with enough of a Unix clue could connect and set everything up. But that's the catch, we're talking remotely trying to build a kernel, install things like mysql and php, configure access -- plus there's the concern about the machine shipping in less-than perfect working order, etc.

In a perfect scenario, an existing company builds the machine, loads the OS, tests everything, ships it to the hosting facility, who puts it online next to the current box. At which point I can find someone with a clue to install and configure it to meet my/BP's needs. At which point I can install a fresh and current copy of vBulletin, hack in all of our modifications, then copy over and convert the database. At which point, we could switch DNS info, and transition the "live" site to the new box.
Click to expand...
 
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Purchasing and building it, I can do that with no problem. The actual problem comes from, if I have it shipped to me, build it, etc, etc, then ship it to wherever it's gonna be hosted.........Hence where the pre-assembled system comes into play. I personally hate pre-assembled anything, but I guess there isnt much choice.
 
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I guess I'm late to this thread, but oh well. Here's a spec example for a machine I recently built (I build everything in my company myself, we don't purchase anything turn-key/ready to run unless it has 'Cisco' or '3Com' inked on it) :wink:

$ 428.00 SUPERMICRO Beige 4U Rackmount Chassis CSE-743S1-645
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=11-152-045&depa=0

$ 520.00 SUPERMICRO X6DH8-G2 E7520 Chipset Server Motherboard
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=13-182-043&depa=0

$ 345.00 (x2) Intel Xeon 3.0EA GHz with EMT 64, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=19-117-026&depa=1

$ 286.67 (x6) Crucial 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR2 400 (PC2 3200)
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145077

$ 199.99 Adaptec 64-bit PCI to SCSI RAID Controller Card, Model 2010S
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=16-103-138&depa=0

$ 183.00 (x5) Seagate Cheetah ST336607LC 36.7GB Ultra320 80pin
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822111132

$ 26.01 Rackmount Rail Kit For SC-742 Chassis 420I 420S 300I 500S
http://www.provantage.com/buy-7SUPM...0s-300i-500s-supermicro-cse-pt26-shopping.htm

TOTAL = $4498

All that's missing here is a floppy and cd-rom, but any flavor will do for $30.

The SuperMicro cases are incredible. Everything is accessible without tools, and there are eight hot swappable scsi drive bay front accessible. The only thing to consider on this particular case is that the 645W stock PS is not hot-swappable, but a 2-bay or 3-bay hot-swap model can be added for another hundred from any sites that carry the case.

From my experience in building dual Nacona-chipset Xeon systems, the easiest case mounting match is a Super-O board in a Super-O case. Anything else (I used to use Asus a lot) will give you fits in mounting the heatsinks correctly. I've built a half dozen of these systems new, and they absolutely fly with Fedora Core 3 installed.

The first time a built a system to this spec, I installed VMware Workstation under FC3, added XP Pro SP2, and then installed SETI@home within that. I cloned that drive image 4 times and launched all 4 sessions concurrently. Each individual session of SETI@home was faster than our older 1Ghz dual-processor P-3 systems running Server 2003. Even further, the four sessions combined could process more SETI@home work units in one week than my HT P4-3.0 at home can do in one year. I ran the first such system like that for a two week burn-in period and none of the WinXP sessions nor the FC3 host crashed -- under 100% constant CPU load for 14 days.

SETI@home playtime aside ... I build these systems for DB processing. We run mixtures of MS-SQL, MySQL, and TopSpeed TPS/Clarion in-house applications, and these systems have been terrific through our first 6-months with them.
 
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I'd really like someone to explain a good reason why we HAVE to spend $8000 now. Almost every expert I've consulted on the issue laughs at the total we're looking at, asking if we're looking to run an incredibly large website.

We don't need that kind of power. Plus, even if we do need it down the road, wouldn't it be smarter to get a good server now (one with plenty of power and a little room to grow), and then upgrade it a year or so down the line when the RAM and other components are much cheaper? Plus by then we'll know exactly how much "extra" power we'll need.
 
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BrutusMaximus said:
...Question. That $8k plateau, is that for multiple purposes? Or is it all for the new server? Honestly think ya got enough for a new server right now :)
Click to expand...

The server we're looking at is right around $8,000 (through a deal with one of the BP member's connections). Dual 3Ghz Pentium Xeon processors, 8GB RAM, 5x36GB RAID. That may seem like overkill for a small site like this, but did anyone notice the slowdown in page load times we just had this weekend because of the NFL draft? And we had only 200 or so folks on line then...that was nothing compared to right before NLOID when we had 400-500 people on line and it took 3-5 minutes to get pages.

Between the huge (and still growing) increase in membership, along with the upcoming stats engine, we're going to need all the server we can get. Keep in mind that we're all the way up to 40% the size of Bustnuts.
 
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Well I can definitely find something cheaper with the same performance, but I dont know about having a service contract, getting it built and whatnot. Will definitely look around though. Building it is no big deal at all, I can do that myself for all that matters. Need a linux guru for the OS install, cause I just know enough to be dangerous when it comes to linux/unix.

I'll try both routes, see what I can dig up.

52X Black
2010S SCSI RAID
3 Year Next Day On Site Warranty for systems $5000-$7500
2 x Intel Xeon 3.0 GHz with fan/heatsink
Advanced Assembly
Software Installation
4 x 2GB PC2100 ECC Registered
OpenBSD
3 x Cheetah 10K.7 73GB Ultra320 80pin

There is around 7k, that includes 3 year on-site, 1 day response, assembly, OS installation (which I just threw openbsd in there, there are other choices).

Got this on http://www.mbx.com if you wanna go do some other configuring and such.

Now if we'd just order components and build it somehow, get someone to install the OS, blah blah blah.......look how much money ya can save.

Antec Silent series w/ 350 PS (or whatever) - $66
SuperMicro X6DAL-XG-O Board - $319
Dual Xeon 3.0 EMT64 800 mhz 1 meg cache (2) - $690
6 Gig Registered ECC PC3200 DDR - $1223.94
LSI SATA Raid Controller - $213.50
Western Digital Raptor SATA (4) - $704

Total - $3216.44

I priced this out like a month ago or better, so it's probably cheaper by now. Not tryin to start a fight by any means, just discussing this.

OR -


Could go to IDE and stay away from the SCSI stuff (scsi is always nice, but too damned expensive), save yourself an assload more.

5 x Barracuda 7200 40GB
52X Black
2400A IDE RAID
2 x Intel Xeon 2.8A GHz with fan/heatsink
3 Year Next Day On Site Warranty for systems $5000-$7500
Radeon 7000 32MB DDR w/TV
Advanced Assembly
Software Installation
4 x 2GB PC2100 ECC Registered
FreeBSD

$5,811.00
 
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