OT: Upgrade feasibility, to AMD64/5.x.x or to stay i386/4.9 on AMD64 hardware?

Communications Machine ITStaff at wmptl.com
Mon Oct 18 12:20:12 PDT 2004


Hey all, looking to upgrade a server used in a small business here, looking
for opinions and advice about migrating to an AMD64 system, vs. using i386
box, also if it would not be just as feasible to use i386 distribution on
AMD64 hardware simply for the speed?

Here's what we've got now, and have been running for a few years without
fail; just things getting a little slow to keep-up with things now:

AMD K62 - 300mhz CPU
768 Megs RAM
60GB ATA-133 and 80GB ATA-133 Drive attached to Promise TX2 Controller (no
raid)

System serves as:
    - mailserver (sendmail/pop3/spamd/mimedefang with custom filters)
    - webserver ('standard' apache serving mostly static pages)
    - application server (apache/mod_perl mostly, lot of custom apps)
    - squid proxy server/gateway using authentication and custom logging
    - samba server for workgroup, not primary fileserver but used quite a
bit
    - MySQL server *** several databases nearing couple hundred megs worth
of data, queries starting to take longer than ever before...
    - FTP server, (combined with http/upload virtually hosted site),
operates as place for customers/vendors to drop/receive data - used quite
frequently, but for mostly sub 1gb files
    - many custom apps, mostly written in PERL, which process data via
cronjobs, etc.


Here's what we're proposing for the new hardware:

AMD Athlon64 - 3200+ (Socket 754 - I know, but it's cheap)
MSI K8T-FSR (VIA Chipset)
Adaptec AAC-2410SA 4-Port S-ATA RAID Controller
(4) Seagate 200GB S-ATA Drives to be configured RAID 5
2048MB DDR400 Non-ECC RAM
DVD-ROM, floppy, etc...

Just wondering if we should maintain i386/4.9 distribution and wait for the
AMD64 platform to mature further into stability as the releases progress...
or to jump on the FreeBSD 5.x.x bandwagon and go with a native AMD64
platform; so long as we can run Apache/mod_perl + mysql, things should be
all good... or not?

Any advice, suggestions (hardware or software) would be greatly appreciated,
please either CC the list and reply, or vice-versa as we are not directly
subscribed to the mailing list for -questions, only for amd64 - thank-you.

--
Nathan Vidican
itstaff at wmptl.com
Windsor Match Plate & Tool Ltd.
http://www.wmptl.com/






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