Role of RAM in Fileserver

WhoBeDaPlaya

WhoBeDaPlaya

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Dec 16, 2002
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Hello all,

Was just wondering if the amount of main system RAM is critical in a fileserver.
I have a P3-based fileserver that uses SDRAM, but am a little undecided on
whether to beef it up to 512MB or just leave it at 384MB or even 256MB.

Running WinXP. Nothing fancy, just a media file server to a couple of systems
at home (the folks' systems, bro's, mine, HTPC).
 
Well, you can use it to run more services (web server, database, whatever), or otherwise Windows will use it as a place to cache stuff. I've got 256 in my linux file server machine, and it's running dhcp, bind, tftpd, apache2, postgres, ejabberd, vnc, samba, and 2 instances of Folding@Home. Even so it's only actively using ~100 MB of memory; there's about 160 MB of cached files sitting in memory in case someone asks for them. And I just bought 2gb more of ram for it :p

In other words, 256 should be fine. If it's not, migrate it to Linux and it will be ;)

 
unhappy_mage said:
In other words, 256 should be fine. If it's not, migrate it to Linux and it will be ;)

Click to expand...

haha QFT I couldn't agree more. Unless your server will be under heavy load (hundreds of clients) then the system requirements are very low for it. Many people overestimate what it takes to be a server (the people who use dual opterons for a home fileserver, for instance.) I run a ventrilo server for my WoW friends and I and it consists of a whopping 233mhz pentium 1 and 64 megs of ram, running gui-less gentoo. Works beautifully. I'll probably transfer my sql / apache / ftp services over from the dual PIII to it as well so I can use the duallie as a workstation instead of a server and I have no doubt it can handle all that too, considering how light my load on those services are.
 
monitor your systems ram usage - a file server doesnt use ram really - depends what FTP / File server programs you use

you got XP using prob around 100mb on default and maybe less -

my file server running 2k3 (180 trial) has 512 of ram and running Gene6 FTP PRO with constant usage and i never go above 200mb of usage, using a P4 1.4ghz

that is with 960g of storage on about, mm 7 drives and 1 IDE controller card.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. My aim is to keep the unit as silent and cool running as possible (easy to do with a P3 650 :D )

Some details about my setup :

P3 650 (Slot 1 Coppermine)
Abit BX6 (Rev 1) w/256MB
WinXP SP2
2x Promise Ultra TX2s (these cooperate beautifully)
Canopus Spectra 2500 TNT (didn't have anyplace else to stick it)
Realtek 8169 GigE NIC
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 15GB boot drive
5x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB (PATA)
1x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB (PATA)
2x Hitachi Deskstar 160GB (PATA)
 
Always thought that this should be more than enough for a personal fileserver.
Just wanted to confirm that.
 
Yeah that'll be plenty. I love seeing old equipment being turned into servers...it's such a good use of old hardware that still has plenty of life left. Makes me sad to see people chucking old equipment thinking it's not useful anymore :(
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
Yeah that'll be plenty. I love seeing old equipment being turned into servers...it's such a good use of old hardware that still has plenty of life left. Makes me sad to see people chucking old equipment thinking it's not useful anymore :(
Click to expand...


QFT.

Every machine out there has a use, and it doesn't take much to run a file server.
 
To get an idea of how well your system is using the memory you have for file system cache, fire up PerfMon and monitor the "Cache Bytes" counter on the Memory object, and the "Fast Reads/sec" and "Copy Read Hits %" counters on the "Cache" object.

File servers may use CPU depending on how you have them configured. A server that's using IPSEC to talk to its network, for example, probably uses the CPU to encrypt and decrypt every network packet sent and received. Encrypted and compressed files also take CPU resources.
 
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