Re: Advice sought : new database server

On 04/03/12, Rory Campbell-Lange (rory(at)campbell-lange(dot)net) wrote:
> I'd be grateful for advice on specifying a new server
>
...

> The existing server is a 2 x Quad core E5420 Xeon (2.5GHz) with 8GB of
> RAM with an LSI battery-backed RAID 10 array of 4no 10K SCSI disks,
> providing about 230GB of usable storage, 150GB of which is on an LV
> providing reconfigurable space for the databases which are served off an
> XFS formatted volume.

In conversation on the list I've established that our current server
(while fine for our needs) isn't performing terribly well. It could do
with more RAM and the disk IO seems slow.

That said, I'm keen to buy a new server to improve on the current
performance, so I've taken the liberty of replying here to my initial
mail to ask specifically about new server recommendations. The initial
plan was to share some of the load between the current and new server,
and to buy something along the following lines:

> 1U chassis with 8 2.5" disk bays
> 2x Intel Xeon E5630 Quad-Core / 4x 2.53GHz / 12MB cache
> 8 channel Areca ARC-1880i (PCI Express x8 card)
> presumably with BBU (can't see it listed at present)
> 2 x 300GB SAS 2.5" disks for operating system
> (Possibly also 300GB SATA VelociRaptor/10K RPM/32MB cache
> RAID 1
> 4 x 300GB SAS 2.5" storage disks
> RAID 10
> 48.0GB DDR3 1333MHz registered ECC (12x 4.0GB modules)

However, after comments on the list, I realise I could get two servers
with the following specs for the same price as the above:

2x Intel Xeon E5620 Quad-Core / 4x 2.40GHz / 12MB cache
48.0GB DDR3 1066MHz registered ECC
4 channel Areca ARC-1212 (PCI Express x4 card) + BBU
4 x WD Raptors in RAID 10 (in 3.5" adapters)

In other words, for GBP 5k I can get two servers that may better meet
between them my requirements (lots of memory, reasonably fast disks)
than a single server. A salient point is that individual databases are
currently less than 1GB in size but will grow perhaps to be 2GB over the
coming 18 months. The aim would be to contain all of the databases in
memory on each server.

I'd be very grateful for comments on this strategy.

Rory

--
Rory Campbell-Lange
rory(at)campbell-lange(dot)net

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