[Samba] server hardware

[Helmut Hullen]

Hallo, steve,

Du meintest am 20.08.12:

>>> This is a bit off thread, but could you specify any budget
>>> hardware/minimum Samba4 DC Samba3 fileserver server requirements
>>> for a college of 2000 students sharing 150 duel boot KDE/w7?

>> Where's the problem?
>> Such configurations need a machine with 2 GHz CPU, 4 GByte RAM and
>> (better) 2 or 4 NICs.

[...]

> Hi Helmut
> Thanks for taking on the thread.
> You give me encouragement in that the hardware requirements seem low.
> In fact we have been using 2 old laptops running from 16GB usb
> pendrives as our replicating DC's serving 10 client boxes no trouble
> at all. I see the main problem (and probably cost too) in the file
> server and redundancy. As the infrastructure is already in place
> (it's a 6 year old installation with cables everywhere) we need to
> make a decision on how to serve, store and backup files.

I prefer "rsnapshot", at least on a separate disk (or bundle of disks).  
By the way: RAID is no backup.

> We have a low budget and have looked at raid,

Not necessary.
On schools with about 1000 pupils: install "quota". Then you may need  
about 500 ... 1000 GByte HD place.

> a DRDB cluster and just rsyncing
> out to a backup server at regular intervals, switching cables and
> doing an IP takeover when the main fileserver goes down.

Take a look at "rsnapshot". It allows online backups. HD place: I start  
with about 3 times the actual "/home" size (the used size, not the  
installed size).

Please excuse my gerlish.

Viele Gruesse!
Helmut