Limitations of the hardware

M

MrGreene

New member
Hello!

Can you give some real life examples according to hardware specifications?

For example "...... amount of RAM can be good for ....." or ".... CPU is good for ......", "SATAII HDD wouldn't be enough for ......................".

I don't have much of an experience regarding the server and/or the hardware. So I would like to find out what I need for my planned projec to begin with.

Thank you!
 
Trial & Error. These questions will all depend on the type of process/scripts that you're running.

Will a forum with 1,000 visitors a day operate on a P4 2.4Ghz with 512MB ram? Yes it will. Will it run better with more memory? Definitely. Why? Because forum scripts that depend on MySQL or InnoDB are memory intensive programs. The more memory you have, the faster it can spit out information. If you have a lot of people searching on the server then you'll want more CPU to handle the requests.

Just like a personal computer - will you be able to run Windows on a P4 2.4Ghz? Yes you will. Will you be able to have 10 windows open browsing the web? Probably. Will you be able to load up Outlook, 2 excel sheets, 4 Word Documents, 8 Browser windows and a music player and except everything to be running smooth? Probably not.

It all comes back to Trial and Error. Someone somewhere took the time to test out World of Warcraft on a computer and make the determination that you need "X" memory as a minimum requirement, and "X" as a recommendation.

So if you know what scripts you're wanting to run, and what your final task is that you're looking to accomplish, maybe we can help guide you as to the hardware that you need. There's plenty of people on the web that have likely run into the same questions and provided answers.

So, real life example for me;

10 Firefox windows open (each with 10-14 tabs open)
8 Internet Explorer windows open (each with 4-6 tabs)
Outlook for mail
Digsby (MSN, ICQ, AOL, Yahoo chat) - 5 conversations
windows media player
7 notepad windows open
16 excel sheets
8 shell scripts (putty)
Dreamweaver
Fireworks
LiveZilla (live chat for my website)
Nagios (server monitoring program)
Adobe Writer (finishing up a contract)
Skype (chatting to a co-worker via Video & Voice)
Quicken

I have 4 x 24" monitors, 8GB memory, AMD 9500 Quad Core 2.2ghz Processor and running Windwos Vista 64-bit. I get ZERO lag when changing between programs.

Am I overkilling the resources? Nope. Did I buy outside of what I really needed? I don't think so - I may have went a little heavy on Memory and could have used only 4GB to accomplish the same tasks.

But this is what I do DAILY. Just so happens, this is my CURRENT desktop setup at this moment. Once I"m done in these forums, I close out about 14 tabs of FireFox, and I'm off to the next set of forums or work I need to do.

Oh, and since I like to multi-task, I do have 2 notebooks and another computer beside me with 8 monitors used for monitoring server networks etc mainly.

So it comes down to what YOU want to do, and how you want to do it. I can tell you that my truck is great and you should buy one (Dodge Durrango), but if you need to haul an RV that's not the vehicle you need. So what do you want to do, and what are you trying to accomplish?
 
Breath taking! Thank you very much for another great answer!

What I need is, I need from the beginning to gather a good configuration because upgrading the server on the way will be very hard.

My plan is a rather "simple" CRM application, to manage accounts, production, employees, which is planned to be used by about a thousand companies and 10x the amount of users will be able to log on to perform various tasks.

But not all parts of it will be based on the server, it will sync with the local machines as well for certain tasks.

At the beginning it won't have this many of clients but that's what we aim in 6-9 months.

That is also why I asked if I can manage it on my own and if yes, what do I need to learn..

For couple of months, there won't be any income at all.. And with all the office, marketing, accounting spendings, it adds up to a point where hiring someone to manage it seems too much.

If you could please enlighten me with your wisdom and experience, I will most certainly most appreciate it, both for this question and about the one I asked about management.

Thank you very much!

handsonhosting said:
Trial & Error. These questions will all depend on the type of process/scripts that you're running.

Will a forum with 1,000 visitors a day operate on a P4 2.4Ghz with 512MB ram? Yes it will. Will it run better with more memory? Definitely. Why? Because forum scripts that depend on MySQL or InnoDB are memory intensive programs. The more memory you have, the faster it can spit out information. If you have a lot of people searching on the server then you'll want more CPU to handle the requests.

Just like a personal computer - will you be able to run Windows on a P4 2.4Ghz? Yes you will. Will you be able to have 10 windows open browsing the web? Probably. Will you be able to load up Outlook, 2 excel sheets, 4 Word Documents, 8 Browser windows and a music player and except everything to be running smooth? Probably not.

It all comes back to Trial and Error. Someone somewhere took the time to test out World of Warcraft on a computer and make the determination that you need "X" memory as a minimum requirement, and "X" as a recommendation.

So if you know what scripts you're wanting to run, and what your final task is that you're looking to accomplish, maybe we can help guide you as to the hardware that you need. There's plenty of people on the web that have likely run into the same questions and provided answers.

So, real life example for me;

10 Firefox windows open (each with 10-14 tabs open)
8 Internet Explorer windows open (each with 4-6 tabs)
Outlook for mail
Digsby (MSN, ICQ, AOL, Yahoo chat) - 5 conversations
windows media player
7 notepad windows open
16 excel sheets
8 shell scripts (putty)
Dreamweaver
Fireworks
LiveZilla (live chat for my website)
Nagios (server monitoring program)
Adobe Writer (finishing up a contract)
Skype (chatting to a co-worker via Video & Voice)
Quicken

I have 4 x 24" monitors, 8GB memory, AMD 9500 Quad Core 2.2ghz Processor and running Windwos Vista 64-bit. I get ZERO lag when changing between programs.

Am I overkilling the resources? Nope. Did I buy outside of what I really needed? I don't think so - I may have went a little heavy on Memory and could have used only 4GB to accomplish the same tasks.

But this is what I do DAILY. Just so happens, this is my CURRENT desktop setup at this moment. Once I"m done in these forums, I close out about 14 tabs of FireFox, and I'm off to the next set of forums or work I need to do.

Oh, and since I like to multi-task, I do have 2 notebooks and another computer beside me with 8 monitors used for monitoring server networks etc mainly.

So it comes down to what YOU want to do, and how you want to do it. I can tell you that my truck is great and you should buy one (Dodge Durrango), but if you need to haul an RV that's not the vehicle you need. So what do you want to do, and what are you trying to accomplish?
Click to expand...
 
There's a couple of ways to approach this but personally the route I would take is not to go overboard on paying for hardware that you'll be using 6 months from now.

Moving accounts to a new hardware is really not that hard, and any person paying for service will gladly take a 60 minute downtime while you move the data to a new machine etc.

I'd honestly look at building within your immediate needs with a little overhead for growth maybe, and then build out as you move down the road. Some of the dynamic Cloud options may be fruitful in this venture for you as you can add memory and CPU on the fly as you grow.
 
First of all, thank you once again!

I'll do as you say then, plan a little overhead for the first six months.

However, could you do some "foreseeing" and give me some hardware recommendation please?

Also if you could please answer to my message in "how can I manage my own" section, I would so much appreciate it.

Thank you again and again, really fantastic to be able to hear the ideas of a real professional.
 
I thought I ran a lot

handsonhosting said:
So, real life example for me;

10 Firefox windows open (each with 10-14 tabs open)
8 Internet Explorer windows open (each with 4-6 tabs)
Outlook for mail
Digsby (MSN, ICQ, AOL, Yahoo chat) - 5 conversations
windows media player
7 notepad windows open
16 excel sheets
8 shell scripts (putty)
Dreamweaver
Fireworks
LiveZilla (live chat for my website)
Nagios (server monitoring program)
Adobe Writer (finishing up a contract)
Skype (chatting to a co-worker via Video & Voice)
Quicken

I have 4 x 24" monitors, 8GB memory, AMD 9500 Quad Core 2.2ghz Processor and running Windwos Vista 64-bit. I get ZERO lag when changing between programs.
Click to expand...

Outlook
6 window of Firefox Average of 10 tabs each
skype, aol, msn, yahoo
word typically 2 - 4 docs open
Excel typically 3-6 docs open


2 monitors, 1 x 24 and laptop monitor
Core i7 1.6 ghz with 8 gig ram
500 gig sata

Seems to handle it ok, but I was more impressed with the amount of stuff you are running.
 
A quad-core chip can be had for very cheap these days and they are very powerful. So no matter what your budget might be go for at least a quad core chip.
 
If you want to virtulize servers we found the most efficient cpu/ram ratio is dual/4 core and 32GB ram.
Like an IBM HS21. 8 cores and 32GB ram is a great combination.
 
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