It's too bad to see how much posts have degenerated. People used to write out long and insightful comments back in these days, but now comments are so short and meaningless. Too bad...

I run a mid-sized hardware/news web-site, and use a P4-2.4 512K L2 box with 1GB of RAM for all of our sql/php/apache/qmail/awstats needs. The server is taxxed, but I can tell you one thing, 1GB of RAM is the bare minimum you should have on any mid-traffic site. Plenty of L2 cache really helps too, but if I had to upgrade the server next time, I would get two lower-end Intel P4s (1.7's) and cluster them, splitting services amongst each box. Sure, it would be cool to get a Xeon MP box, but I think the $399US/mo would be better spent on two or three $99/mo boxes in a cluster with piles of RAM each.

All database programs "cache" the query results (if they are small enough or pointers to them on the hard disk if they are large) in memory to speed up future queries, a process they call indexing. The result of this is increased RAM and hard disk usage with less processor usage which makes me wonder why you are using dual athlon mps when 1 would be more than enough? If I were you, I'd add more RAM to the old machine and use the new one as a frontend box, as actually working with the queries uses lots of memory (as php stores query results in a buffer) and even more processing power.

Just my 2 cents

I run a "little" website on my own collocated server too. Here is a bit of information that might prove enlightening:

So far, for the month of January (25 days), I have served 2366813 pages. Each of those pages consists of multiple included files which total-up to 9888884 hits. As for bandwidth, I've served just over 30gb.

Now, my server has 2gb of memory in it now. In addition to caching content, each current user on the website spawns an Apache child process which use memory. Let's say that each process uses 1mb of system memory, times 1000 concurrent connections... That's almost one full GB of system memory used. Then add the cached content and general system overhead back in and you can see where all the memory is used and needed.

AG68, I could be talking out of my ass here but here goes my understanding on why they need so much RAM...

how many people are on this site at the moment? Quite a few I'd wager... (insert TR traffic statistics)

Let's assume they read a review or the equivalent size of information, then go to the comments section of whatever their reading and make a comment...

The average review on this site is probably about, what, 10 pages?

Include pictures and you might be looking at 50-100KB per page, so that's about 1MB per content review, plus a little more for comments...

They'll probably do this in the space of about 10 minutes...

Now, let's assume we have 1,000 users doing this at this very moment (that is, changing pages and downloading images).... that's about 100MB of RAM needed must be used, just for that 1,000 users changing pages

And 1,000 users is really not that much btw, if the forums have well over that then there must be many more casual viewers, surfers, and "linked to this site" people, not to mention regular /.'ers.

For 1,000 users, the TR server has to create pages, stick them in RAM, and send them to all the users at the same time... it'll probably have the last x weeks material all copied into the RAM as well to save on access latencies...

How many users are changing pages per time unit Damage? (I really don't know, I'm guessing at stats here)

Either way, the RAM gets eaten up real quick...

Now, like I said, I could be totally wrong on this one, but I hope I'm not,
IntelMole

Why are you serving static information dynamically? A review isn't dynamic content. Ads are low eb dynamic. Much more dynamic content is run on much less hardware than this.

#68/73: I think that person goofed and thought the quoted portion was your opinion.

No, aphasia, I was not stating that TR had not done this. I was responding to the fool that thinks it is too much -- saying that I prefer the way they have chosen to go. Didn't realize my comment could be misinterpreted.

[q]I'd rather see TR planning ahead for growth than getting something just barely able to handle their current needs -- as it will serve them much better in the longer term.[/q] They did, you just seemed to miss the references, or didnt you read the article.

[q]AG #68

sounds like you have no idea how much ram a web server really requires even when running multiple sites where most of them are using PHP. [/q]

#68 here.

Are you saying that web servers will never, ever require as much as 3 GB of RAM?

Or that TR will never become more popular and thus receive more hits? Or that the site's editors will never feel the need to include more images in their reviews? Or that the web site will never becomes simply "bigger"?

Prove me now that all this RAM is a waste of money.

AG #68

sounds like you have no idea how much ram a web server really requires even when running multiple sites where most of them are using PHP.

I used to have a poster of Bill Gates in the same room as my computer, and everytime Windows 95 crashed I threw a dart in his face!

Good times...

By the way, Bill put up very high resolution, 20 MB images of himself on his website! I didn't know that he had fans who actually wanted to make their own posters of him!

http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/bio.asp

More dart throwing in the near future....

Bill's denial does not mean he did not do it or say it or remember it. Just look at the transcripts from the monopoly lawsuit. Poor bugger has lost all his memory... Would 640K even be enough?

Actually, Bill Gates never said that.

http://www.urbanlegends.com/celebrities/bill.gates/gates_memory.html

[q]3GB of RAM for a webserver that serves just 1 website? Just how many page requests does this site recieve?

Hefty hardware for a website... but ehh... it's your money. [/q]

Sounds like you're the kind of guy who would have agreed with Bill Gates when he said back in 1981: "640K ought to be enough for anybody."

One does not get a piece of hardware to last as long as possible by getting the cheapest, smallest, weakest stuff available when upgrading.

I'd rather see TR planning ahead for growth than getting something just barely able to handle their current needs -- as it will serve them much better in the longer term.

3GB of RAM for a webserver that serves just 1 website? Just how many page requests does this site recieve?

Hefty hardware for a website... but ehh... it's your money.

[q]What TR doesn't run on IIS?[/q]

Apache is simply better and cheaper. Steve Gibson's (yeah I know everyone hates this guy) ID Serve utility reports the TR server exactly as:

"Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) mod_gzip/1.3.19.1a PHP/4.2.3 mod_fastcgi/2.2.12"

http://grc.com/id/idserve.htm

from what I've read, a ZCR loads the PCI bus pretty heavily. 2CPU put up a comparison in a review here:
http://www.2cpu.com/Hardware/15k.3/10.html

Adaptec's ZCR performance is, well... shitty. You're better off using anything BUT the ZCR card.

I have word that a full-blown review of the Adaptec 2000S (ZCR) card is in the works at another site. I guess we'll all see soon enough.

AG61, you just put a ZCR card in the slot.
Like this one. (street price new, about $250)

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/techspecs.html?prodkey=ASR...

I built a server with that card a while ago and it's worked pretty well.
Of course it's Huge overkill for it's use, but fun stuff non-the-less.
http://bbwsd.com/server/

Got any information regarding zero channel raid on that motherboard, and how to enable it - what do you put in the green slot?

Heh, 18 months ago I had assembled a 2U webserver, using a Mylex Accelleraid 170 RAID controller with 4 36GB SCSI hard drives in RAID 5, only a single 1GHz Athlon however at the time. I spent about 2 hours building it, then other things conspired against me and I put that server on the back burner. Then, a year ago, an old, but essential webserver colocated 100 miles away died (damned 75GXP), so in a panic I drag out the 2U server (2 hours work, remember), get it to work, install FreeBSD and other software, and colocate - yeah, about 5 hours from parts to installation with minimal testing!

I still don't know if that SCA backplane auto termininated or not. Still, it has been working fine for a year, so fingers crossed.

I want to build another one now - with specs similar to the box you have. Zero channel RAID would be nice, as it would save on the cost of a SCSI RAID controller.

What TR doesn't run on IIS? Maybe it will be much more challenging? TR will upgrade more often? More servers will be needed? And more articles like this (like how to recover from Code Red and such...)...

Gerbil #XXX

Originally Posted by anonybomber
For those who like the idea of stretching old hardware, (warning, website plug) visit http://www.x386.net to see what a lowly 386 can do with the right love and attention.

sweet...yes i'm an idoit

did it work?

[quote]I have the same mobo and the sys temp is at 77 degreez C. My dual 2400+ are running at 75 degreez C each. Any advice on how to get them to cool down?[/quote]You need more air circulation in your case. this will bring it down several degrees assuming that there is no other factor (such as improperly seated heatsinks)

[q]I have the same mobo and the sys temp is at 77 degreez C. My dual 2400+ are running at 75 degreez C each. Any advice on how to get them to cool down?[/q]

Easy, get big-ass copper heatsinks mounted by powerful fans for the cpus. As for the motherboard, good air circulation within the case is usually sufficient. Just make one fan suck the cool air in and another expel the hot air out.

Maybe the Queen's "English" need to get themselves "mangled" (a couple swift kicks to the butt should do the trick) so that [iext[/i] time, they don't make stupid pissy comments...

[quote]we're not impressed with this mangling of the Queen's English.[/quote]
however, i'm impressed by your use of the royal "we".