Quoting "John G. Heim" <jh...@math.wisc.edu>: > to go) and mysql. We have databases for spamassassin bayesian rules, > drupal, moodle, imp (webmail), and our own private data. Our private data > is pretty small with the biggest table containing under 10,000 records. We > do have a table with about 4,00 PDF docs in a blob field. > > I think we can get a machine with a quad core, 32 Gb of RAM, and 300 Gb disk
Sounds fine to me. I recommend, when possible, a minimum of 1 CPU and 1 GB memory per database. Since you mention 5 databases, that means 5 CPUs (cores) and 5 GB memory minimum. Since you can't buy 5 cores, a single quad core would be okay (a dual quad core even better). But your spec sounds fine to me. > for under $6000. But I'm confused about disk. I would think disk pspeed > would be fairly important. How can I configure a machine with a fast disk? > What are my options from Dell in that regard? Get the fastest RAID controller you can and are comfortable with, and as many of the fastest disks you can afford as you can fit in the machine. Since you want to stay under $6000, using SSD or FusionIO is probably out. I would think (haven't verified) that you could buy 4 (or 5) 15K RPM SAS drives in your price range, setup as a RAID 10. If not, try 10K RPM SAS drives. If that fails, well, there is always SATA... I personally like to buy 7 drives: 2 RAID-1 for the OS, 4 RAID-10 for the MySQL databases, and 1 hotspare. But, if you need to keep costs down, you can dump the RAID 1 and just do 5 drives (RAID 10 plus hot-spare). You'd have to spec all that one Dell's web site to see if it comes in under $6K. If not, just start dropping down until you hit your mark (from 7 drives to 5, from 15K SAS to 10K SAS to SATA). -- Eric Rostetter The Department of Physics The University of Texas at Austin Go Longhorns! _______________________________________________ Linux-PowerEdge mailing list Linux-PowerEdge@dell.com https://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-poweredge Please read the FAQ at http://lists.us.dell.com/faq