Web Server 5405 vs 5130

[jaquith]

Need help! Thanks ahead for Good Input!

I'm a .COM startup, Dedicated Server shopping and trying to decide if the X2 Quad Core 5405 is worth $50 more/mo over the X2 Dual Core 5130 with the following configuration. Also, my Developer wants to run 32 bit MySQL5. As far as traffic, new site with 100% free FL foreclosure info (good Ad Words budget & 35,000+ emails out day 1); so who knows?!

Data:
Now: 3 Relational Databases with 400,000 records with 500,000 Images
Soon: 6 Relational Databases with 1,200,000 records with 1,400,000 Images
Operating System:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux - 5.x - 64 bit
Server Specifications:
100 Mbps Uplink
2000 GB Bandwidth
2 GB RAM
RAID 1 (2 drive min.)
146 GB 15K RPM SCSI/SAS HDD
146 GB 15K RPM SCSI/SAS HDD
IPMI
Included applications:
C/Panel & WHM
Apache
MySQL Data Bases
CGI-bin, PHP5, MySQL5, SSI

 

[Devastator_uk]

Based on that information I would most likely go for the Quad Core as the databases could put quite a strain on the dual core.

 

[jaquith]

My thinking as well, but this is all new to me and costly. My Developers are not hardware savvy. And I only build home/small office PCs, and I've relied on Tom's Hardware for several years. Smart & Helpful folks!

Google has little comparative info on these Intel Xeon Dual/Quad Core Processors. Nor did I imaging my website needing 8-total cores to run fast either.

Thank you!

 

[amdfangirl]

Well depends on your traffic... you can always upgrade later... right?

 

[pr2thej]

You got a business plan? If you really want to justify going for a cheaper CPU then just look at how many unique hits you need to break even. If you can support that number with a dual....then go dual for now and get some resale value outta it when you upgrade.
Thats the only way to judge it, but its so much effort for such a little amount of cash.
For $50 I'd just bite the bullet now and get the Quad.

 

[Verge]

Data:
Now: 3 Relational Databases with 400,000 records with 500,000 Images
Soon: 6 Relational Databases with 1,200,000 records with 1,400,000 Images
Operating System:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux - 5.x - 64 bit
Server Specifications:
100 Mbps Uplink
2000 GB Bandwidth
2 GB RAM
RAID 1 (2 drive min.)
146 GB 15K RPM SCSI/SAS HDD
146 GB 15K RPM SCSI/SAS HDD
IPMI
Included applications:
C/Panel & WHM
Apache
MySQL Data Bases
CGI-bin, PHP5, MySQL5, SSI

Not much RAM, but I'm guessing that RAM would be an easy upgrade if, in time, you turn out to be doing a lot of swapping. So that probably isn't a priority for upgrade until the web traffic goes up. (And, were you using the 32 bit version, you may have had a difficult transition when you expanded the ram, unless you used the PAE kernel, which is, to be frank, not the best thing in the world. so, the 64 bit kernel is a better decision for expandabiliy, even if it makes no difference today.)

Running mysql 32 bit on the 64 bit RH is an interesting decision; it may be ok, but I'd like to know why you went that way.

100 Mbps isn't 'state of the art' but I doubt that you'll get anyware near that by the time that you max out your database query performance.

The other issue is that somewhere you'll need all the boring stuff like firewalls and probably nameserving, etc and a lot of the load on this box depends on whether there are other boxes offloading that kind of thing; so the load on the box that we are discussing depends to a significant extent on the rest of the network infrastructure and I can't make any comment about that without more info.

One of the good things about Linux is that there are utilities for monitoring just about any aspect of the computer performance. It takes a bit of doing to work your way around all the utils that can help to know which one or which config is best for your particular application, but your sys admin (!) should know about that or quickly be able to get up to speed (if the sys admin is any good, of course). You should, therefore, be in a good position to build it and see what happens when they come, in whatever numbers they turn out to come. Just hope that your business plan hasn't been too optimistic in terms of what hardware costs it can support.

And as a particular tip, in some cases, depending on whether there are a few frequent discrete queries with a lot of information per query (ie, in practice, not many different queries get made) or vice versa, you can also consider using something like squid in http accelerator mode to offload the actual db server somewhat. Doesn't work in all applications (eg, if every query is different), but where it does work it can be helpful).

How do you back up your data? while the idea of rsync/unison-ing it to near-line storage would be a nice idea, this will put a bit of a kink in your throughput, and I'm guessing (& guessing is bad) that you want the high throughput 24/7...or, maybe, you get some periods when bandwidth requirements are lower?

 

[jaquith]

Thank you very much for your comments & time, and I will forward to my Developers.

Yes, I have a business plan and originally it called for my Developers hosting on their servers for <$150/mo, BUT then they decided not to host me because of the resources and bandwidth they felt my project would require.

The hosting company originally recommended a RAID 10, and by going RAID 1 it reduced the cost $100/mo.

Traffic - I am essentially giving free foreclosure data to the public for 2/3 of Florida. It rivals RealtyTrac.com & Foreclosure.com data quality, and where they are charging end-users $50/mo I'm $0. I use sponsoring & referral fees instead. We'll soon find out...

I agree about the RAM and I'm pretty certain that I will bite the bullet and go to 4 GB. I also am concerned about running 32 bit MySQL on a 64 bit OS, and per my Developers the coding is different. I too prefer clean 64 bit apps & OS.

I took a $600/mo cost down to $380 + $25 2 GB RAM - It is a "balancing act." And I truly needed you alls help!