[plug] recommendation for MySQL server

[Craig Ringer]

> I would like to get a viewpoint from the members on the following:
> 1) the amount of $$$ is NOT a consideration

> Looking at building a MySQL server to handle in-house critical work.  Web page data is generated from the database plus constant inputting of data and calculation.
> 
> Application to be run:
> Red Hat 9.0
> PHP4
> MySQL 4
> Apache 2
> SSH
> 
> I'm looking at the following:
> 1) IDE RAID5 with 4 x 120GB drives 7200RPM ATA100

Kill the RAID 5 if you want any database performance, especially on 
writes. You will want to run on RAID1 or RAID 1+0.

> 2) Sony CDT or AIT tapebackup

(S?)DLT being the other option. I have no experience with anything but 
DDS[24] though, and they're ... a little cramped unless you have unusual 
data useage patterns like the POST does.

> 3) 2 x 10/100/1000 Intel NIC

They're a dream to use, downright amazing.

> 4) Intel P4 3GHz CPU

I'm using a Dual Xeon at the POST. Compared to your storage cost, it's 
just not that bad to go to dual Xeon, and the improvement in 
responsiveness under load on a dual-CPU machine is impossibly huge. Dual 
CPU AMD may also be an option these days but I haven't done much with it.

> 5) 2GB PC3200 ECC Memory

If you're using multiple gigs of ECC RAM, then IMHO you're REALLY 
wanting to upgrade the CPU. Otherwise you'll be really bottlenecking 
your system.

>  Socket 478 Intel® Pentium® 4/Celeron® NetBurst
>  4 x DDR SDRAM PC3200 ECC Registered, 4GB max.
>  5 PCI, 1 AGP 8x (1.5v only)

Why AGP on a server board?

The board I'm using is an e750 (?) based dual-cpu intel board with 
1xPCI-X-133, 2xPCI-X-100 and 2xPCI . Features you get that you won't on 
yours (probably) include serial console BIOS, IPMI management, etc.

>  Highpoint HPT374 UDMA/ATA 133 RAID

I wouldn't use it, but it's useful to have I guess.

>  Broadcom BCM5705 Gigabit Ethernet

Yuk. Use Intel, the hardware is a dream and the drivers are perfect. The 
most recent server at work has dual onboard 10/100 eepro and PCI-X gigE 
eepro.

> Now I've worked with the Broadcom NIC and that works great, but I have not worked with a Highpoint RAID card. Does anyone have good and /or bad experiences with this card or should I buy a separate card?

http://www.3ware.com/

I'm using their Escalade 8500-8 card, and so far results are great. Good 
performance, real hardware RAID with SCSI RAID interface to the OS, 
serial ATA for hotswappable drives, etc. Oh, and price-per-megabyte on 
additional redundant storage is so low it's silly - think 120gb or 200gb 
seagate SATA drives. You could put the performance critical stuff on a 
pair of WD 10K RPM Raptors if you wanted, too.

The POST generates 2gb of data a week at the moment, and it's growing 
fast. I could easily make it 5gb just by being less strict about what is 
archived. I'm constantly aware of growing storage needs, and I'm finding 
SATA RAID to be a delight, especially combined with LVM for dynamic 
volume management and snapshotting (wonderful snapshots....).

To be honest, I did have a lot of trouble with the first Escalade card I 
got. It took a while to track down (partly my fault) but it turned out 
to be a faulty card. The replacement has been working like a dream ever 
since. The other drawback is the lack of a local office.  OTOH, it's a 
/real/ RAID card - all metadata on the disks, so they can be moved from 
one machine to another in an emergency; hardware RAID transparent to the 
OS; hot-add, hot-remove, and hot-rebuild arrays; etc. It can't currently 
add disks to an existing RAID 5 array :-( but then when I bought mine, 
it couldn't hot-add arrays too. They patched it in with a firmware 
upgrade, and they have a history of doing that.

Backups are also nice when you have SATA. Plug in 120gb (or 250gb, 
whatever) HDD to the running server, use LVM to snapshot the logical 
volume to be backed up, copy data (or disk image of lv) to new drive 
while the volume is still mounted and in use, sync, remove drive. Great 
for taking snapshots of servers for offsite storage. There are 
circumstances where you'd need to stop daemons for long enough to create 
the snapshot (depends on what you're doing) but that's a 20 second job. 
I know you can do it with SCSI - but it's hard to argue the need for 
another $1000 SCSI drive to be hopefully used only once.

Of course, I would also reccomend that you test the 3ware setup 
extremely well before relying on it, and keep good backups. This is true 
of absolutely anything, and you'd be very silly to do anything else.

> My other option is to go with a SCSI system using a Adaptec RAID card, etc.

Even if you say price isn't an issue, you'll be paying megabucks. It's 
bad initially, but if you then discover you need to add lots more 
storage... time to go get a loan.

The only bad thing I can say about our new server at the POST is that I 
don't have two of them. The initial problems were solved, and it's been 
a dream ever since.

Craig Ringer

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