P3 600 file server question

[Teine]

quick question for the storage gurus... i have an old p3 600 in an abit bh6 with 768megs of ram that i was considering turning into my file server at home. this machine would be used for nothing more that a NAS device. i was thinking about throwing a raid card (PROMISE FASTTRAK S150 SX4-M for instance) and running a raid 5 array. would the pc's processor be a bottleneck if the computer's only application was a file server? thanks for any input.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Well, the processor likely wouldn't be a bottleneck, but if you're using a PCI bus that could be. With 3 disks in software raid 5 on linux on a standard pci bus with 2 slightly faster processors than yours I get around 40 mb/s writes. Although I haven't tested, I think it could be a good deal faster with a pci-X bus. I'll be posting benches when I get a chance.

However, this is fairly irrelevant; 100 mbit ethernet is only 12 MB/s at most, and gigabit doesn't usually get more than 40 MB/s. So if you'll be accessing it over network, it won't be a bottleneck.

 

[UTGamer]

nope, it should do just fine

 

[morpheus6d9]

if u get the promise card get the one with 256mb cache other than that the specs of the server should be fine

 

[Teine]

thanks for the quick response