Re: hardware advice

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 12:11 PM, M. D. <lists(at)turnkey(dot)bz> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I want to buy a new server, and am contemplating a Dell R710 or the newer
> R720. The R710 has the x5600 series CPU, while the R720 has the newer
> E5-2600 series CPU.
>
> At this point I'm dealing with a fairly small database of 8 to 9 GB. The
> server will be dedicated to Postgres and a C++ based middle tier. The
> longest operations right now is loading the item list (80,000 items) and
> checking On Hand for an item. The item list does a sum for each item to get
> OH. The database design is out of my control. The on_hand lookup table
> currently has 3 million rows after 4 years of data.
>
> My main question is: Will a E5-2660 perform faster than a X5690? I'm leaning
> to clock speeds because I know doing the sum of those rows is CPU intensive,
> but have not done extensive research to see if the newer CPUs will
> outperform the x5690 per clock cycle. Overall the current CPU is hardly busy
> (after 1 min) - load average: 0.81, 0.46, 0.30, with % never exceeding 50%,
> but the speed increase is something I'm ready to pay for if it will actually
> be noticeably faster.
>
> I'm comparing the E5-2660 rather than the 2690 because of price.
>
> For both servers I'd have at least 32GB Ram and 4 Hard Drives in raid 10.

I don't think you've supplied enough information for anyone to give
you a meaningful answer. What's your current configuration? Are you
I/O bound, CPU bound, memory limited, or some other problem? You need
to do a specific analysis of the queries that are causing you problems
(i.e. why do you need to upgrade at all?)

Regarding Dell ... we were disappointed by Dell. They're expensive,
they try to lock you in to their service contracts, and (when I bought
two) they lock you in to their replacement parts, which cost 2-3x what
you can buy from anyone else.

If you're planning to use a RAID 10 configuration, then a BBU cache
will make more difference than almost anything else you can do. I've
heard that Dell's current RAID controller is pretty good, but in the
past they've re-branded other controllers as "Perc XYZ" and you
couldn't figure out what was really under the covers. RAID
controllers are wildly different in performance, and you really want
to get only the best.

We use a "white box" vendor (ASA Computers), and have been very happy
with the results. They build exactly what I ask for and deliver it in
about a week. They offer on-site service and warranties, but don't
pressure me to buy them. I'm not locked in to anything. Their prices
are good.

My current configuration is a dual 4-core Intel Xeon 2.13 GHz system
with 12GB memory and 12x500GB 7200RPM SATA disks, controlled by a
3WARE RAID controller with a BBU cache. The OS and WAL are on a RAID1
pair, and the Postgres database is on a 8-disk RAID10 array. That
leaves two hot spare disks. I get about 7,000 TPS for pg_bench. The
chassis has dual hot-swappable power supplies and dual networks for
failover. It's in the neighborhood of $5,000.

Craig

>
> Best regards,
> Mark
>
>
>
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