TM Server

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 03:02:16PM -0400, Teddy Mills wrote:
> 
> I have selected no hardware or software yet.
> 
> Below are my ideas, please read them and reply to the TLUG list or myself
> with your
> ideas and advice.  I thank you all, I'll be sure to be at the next meeting!
> I missed the  last one just 2 days ago! Ack!
> 
> /teddy
> 
> PS:
> I know O'Reilly has a book out called Managing RAID on Linux. Im getting
> that book asap.
> 
> 
> *********
> FUNCTION:
> *********
> To build a LINUX MYSQL4 production server to handle from 100-5000 small(<1k)
> database transactions daily.
> Mission critical. Downtime to be minimized as much as possible during the
> day.  Nothing else, thats it.
> A system that is as bulletproof as possible, against downtime, but doesnt
> cost the moon.
> 
> 
> *****************
> OS and software:
> *****************
> Redhat Enterprise AS or Fedora Core 2 ?
> I am open to any OS, but I am leaning towards using Fedora Core 2.
> I dont see anything in Enterprise Server AS that will help me.
> All software will be the latest open source versions of
> MySQL4, maybe Samba compiled from tar sources.

Well that could work for that as far as I know.

> ***********
> RAID
> ***********
> I am going to use a SCSI RAID and SCSI drives, so I am not going to use any
> software RAIDs or IDE drives.  I dont want to have to boot into Linux just
> to get access
> to the RAID drives, if possible.
> 
> I would like the Linux OS to be inside the RAID, but if that is not
> possible,
> then just the RAID to hold the MySQL data in say in /dev/sdb1.
> That means I assume my booting Linux OS would reside on say a 4GB IDE. hmmm.

Well it would be much cheaper to get a 3ware raid card and use SATA
drives,  Better performance than scsi raids in general for a lot less
money, and excellent support in both Linux and Windows.

No problem running the whole system for the raid on one of those.

> I thought about RAID 5, but I think I am going with a RAID1. RAID1 is secure
> reliable and fast. Just kinda slow on the writes. Im okay with that. A RAID
> 5
> means dropping 1 or 2 G's on the extra large capacity SCSI drives.

Raid 5 uses less space than raid1, and has the advantage of striping
too.  It just requires more disks to setup (but you get more space too).
raid5 with 2 drives is raid1 of course.  So raid1 is essentially just a
special case of raid5.

> Im going with a SCSI RAID1, unless convinced otherwise.
> I am leaning towards the MEGARAID 1600 SCSI RAID CONTROLLER and 3 80GB SCSI
> drives.
> 
> I am kind of stuck, maybe I should use a IDE SATA-RAID1 solution from
> PROMISE.
> If a IDE-based system can saturate our internet connection why bother with
> SCSI?

Don't go near promise.  It's junk, lousy linux support, and most of their
cards are proprietary software raid.  Bad idea.

Lennart Sorensen
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