This is not a debian specific question, but I know there are some hardware experts out there that may be able to help me and I would much appreciate it :-)
I am considering upgrading our server at work. I don't fully appreciate the performance advantage / disadvantages of dual processors and SCSI hardisks. Here is what I have been recommended to get: 2x Intel Pentium III 866 Mhz Intel TUPELO (STL2) Motherboard Dual Processor capable Adaptec AIC-7899 dual channel SCSI controller 2x 512 Mb Intel Certified ECC Registered Memory 2x Cheetah Seagate 36Gb LVD Hard Disks + network cards, floppy, CDROM, etc. Basically, my question is: What would the difference in performance be between this configuration versus say a single P4 1.4Ghz? This server will unfortunately have to run Windows NT (as the proprietary software requires it). It is basically a database server with 8x 486s acting as essentially dumb terminals. They will run a basic version of the proprietary software and all the processing will be done by the server. 1. What do people think about whether it is worth spending the extra money for dual processors? Does Win NT fully utilise dual processors? It is nearly $1500 (Aus) for the motherboard! But a P4 1.4 GHz is much the same price (I think), but the mother board would be cheaper then. 2. Is it worth spending the extra money on a SCSI controller and hard disks? Here is what the specs say on the SCSI HD: Formatted Capacity: 36.4GB Interface: 68-pin Ultra2/SCSI Data Transfer Rates: 160MB/s Average Seek Times: 5.4ms Buffer Size: 16MB Rotational Speed: 10000rpm Height (inch/mm): LP (1.0/25.4) Here is the specs on a 40Gb Western Digital IDE 7200 RPM: WD CaviarTM 40GB EIDE Hard Drive WD400BB Transfer mode: 100 MB/s Average Read seek: 8.9ms So the SCSI spins faster and has lower average access times. I suppose this means that it would be of benefit when you are talking about a large database server with multiple terminals connected. It is just hard to work all this out from the specs. Can anyone speak from experience on these issues? Especially regarding the dual processor versus single but faster processor. Thanks for help. Mark.
