System Bottlenecks

[Spicer, Kevin]

Errol Neal wrote:
> Hi all,
> SCSI vs IDE, is the difference that noticeable?

The best I/O improvement is by making sure you've got plenty of RAM and putting the MailScanner work directory in tmpfs (not either of the mail queues though!)

> Linux vs Solaris? Anybody got any ideas?

Personally speaking ufs sucks and anything FS intensive struggles on Solaris (in fairness my experience is with low end machines, E250 and lower).  You'll get more bang-per-buck using linux on Intel.  Where Solaris excels is at the high end and I can't see why anyone would need a high end server for a mail load of only 15-20k.

> 
> PS our daily volume of mail passing through our MailScanners is
> somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20K
> 

For comparison I run a mail server handling a load of about 7K using a Compaq blade (800Mhz processor, IDE drive, 512M ram, running Linux) with MS, SA, DCC, Razor2, Pyzor, MailStats and MailScanner-mrtg. The main load comes when the two stats programs process the logfiles.  

If you've got the money for Sun hardware buy Intel and get an extra box for redundancy/ load balencing!
 



BMRB International 
http://www.bmrb.co.uk
+44 (0)20 8566 5000
_________________________________________________________________
This message (and any attachment) is intended only for the 
recipient and may contain confidential and/or privileged 
material.  If you have received this in error, please contact the 
sender and delete this message immediately.  Disclosure, copying 
or other action taken in respect of this email or in 
reliance on it is prohibited.  BMRB International Limited 
accepts no liability in relation to any personal emails, or 
content of any email which does not directly relate to our 
business.