[Samba] Samba Server Specifications

[Aaron Kincer]

Do you mean a review to detail the best performance? This is complicated 
question since budget clearly plays a role. But I'll give you what I 
think are the highest performance options without considering costs (and 
not including a RAM storage array).

RAID: 0+1 (mirrored stripe sets)
Drive Type: 15K SAS array on an independent controller (PCIe bus)
NIC: Multi-gigabit load balanced

Remember that for raw speed, you would be better to have many smaller 
disks than a few larger ones. Also, having higher bus and memory speeds 
is important too. Network design plays an important role as well. Making 
sure all of your clients aren't all going over a single 1000Mb or 100Mb 
link to your server backbone helps remove a bottleneck.

When measuring performance, it is important to note that your throughput 
is always going to be only as fast as your slowest link. If you really 
want to stress test your server, setup four or five clients all plugged 
directly into the same switch as your server and move large files to and 
from. Start with one client and add more one at a time. Watch the 
performance as you add additional clients.

Hope that helps.

John Schmerold wrote:
> Has anyone posted an up to date hardware review lately?
>
> It seems clear that a RAID6 server with 300GB CHEETAH 15K.5 SAS drives 
> will
> trump a P3 with a 30GB IDE drive, however, not everyone will spend the 
> money
> required for the high end unit, I'm looking to build a new server & 
> trying
> to make best use of funds (aren't we all).
>
>
> TIA