upgrade server

Hi! I want to upgrade the server hardware, especially the hard drives and
power supplies as ~3 years seems to be a lifetime for those two parts. We
currently have a dual p3 1000mhz system with 1gig ram. We also have 2 30gb
hard drives in raid. If we go to the P4 2.8 with hyperthreading and a gig
ram, is that technically faster and better than what we currently have?
With a limited budget, if I propose xeon's I think I'll be slammed at the
idea. What would suggestions be?

Thanks.

Marcia

Jeff
Tue Dec 23 13:06:38 CST 2003

I would not expect that the P4 2.8Ghz HT would be any faster than the dual
P3 1Ghz processors if you are in the 400Mhz or even 533Mhz bus. Last time I
looked at it, you should understand P4 processors to be processing
multimedia functions at the rated clock rate, but using half-clock wait
states on the main pipeline instructions. Not withstanding the HT functions
make it act like a dual-CPU, that would mean you are shifting from a Dual 1G
to a Dual 1.4 since you really could care less about multimedia instructions
on a server.

The big factor of difference would be if you move to an 800Mhz CPU bus with
the highest rated Parallel DDR RAM to get as many wait-states out of the
memory access as possible....now you would be talking about some benefits in
the upgrade, but frankly you might be at the price that the Dual Xeons would
look good too. Part of the problem in talking about making a really good
server can often be that you are trying to solve the wrong bottleneck. You
quite likely are not CPU bound on that machine, it's the drives that are the
problem....and if you are using software RAID...that just complicates it.

Chances are that you would be perfectly happy with that same server if you
replace (scheduled maintenance replacement) the powersupply and the hard
drives. If you want to throw more money at it, get yourself a very nice
hardware RAID controller if you don't already have it, and just keep that
Dual PIII motherboard going. If it's an Intel board or other quality
manufactured board, it's probably going to run forever at this point, at
least until a power hit gets it. The performance is probably fine.



"Marcia" <mporter@martechgroup.net> wrote in message
news:OOWBHwXyDHA.2676@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Hi! I want to upgrade the server hardware, especially the hard drives and
> power supplies as ~3 years seems to be a lifetime for those two parts. We
> currently have a dual p3 1000mhz system with 1gig ram. We also have 2
30gb
> hard drives in raid. If we go to the P4 2.8 with hyperthreading and a gig
> ram, is that technically faster and better than what we currently have?
> With a limited budget, if I propose xeon's I think I'll be slammed at the
> idea. What would suggestions be?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Marcia
>
>

Marcia
Tue Dec 23 16:13:44 CST 2003

Thanks for the response. I do think the bottlenecks are at the read/writes.
I was told by a vendor that upgrading wouldn't be wise, that was why I was
looking at replacing. I will certainly look into upgrading the RAID.

Thanks.

Marcia


"Jeff Middleton [SBS-MVP]" <jeff@cfisolutions.com> wrote in message
news:unzuVdYyDHA.1060@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> I would not expect that the P4 2.8Ghz HT would be any faster than the dual
> P3 1Ghz processors if you are in the 400Mhz or even 533Mhz bus. Last time
I
> looked at it, you should understand P4 processors to be processing
> multimedia functions at the rated clock rate, but using half-clock wait
> states on the main pipeline instructions. Not withstanding the HT
functions
> make it act like a dual-CPU, that would mean you are shifting from a Dual
1G
> to a Dual 1.4 since you really could care less about multimedia
instructions
> on a server.
>
> The big factor of difference would be if you move to an 800Mhz CPU bus
with
> the highest rated Parallel DDR RAM to get as many wait-states out of the
> memory access as possible....now you would be talking about some benefits
in
> the upgrade, but frankly you might be at the price that the Dual Xeons
would
> look good too. Part of the problem in talking about making a really good
> server can often be that you are trying to solve the wrong bottleneck. You
> quite likely are not CPU bound on that machine, it's the drives that are
the
> problem....and if you are using software RAID...that just complicates it.
>
> Chances are that you would be perfectly happy with that same server if you
> replace (scheduled maintenance replacement) the powersupply and the hard
> drives. If you want to throw more money at it, get yourself a very nice
> hardware RAID controller if you don't already have it, and just keep that
> Dual PIII motherboard going. If it's an Intel board or other quality
> manufactured board, it's probably going to run forever at this point, at
> least until a power hit gets it. The performance is probably fine.
>
>
>
> "Marcia" <mporter@martechgroup.net> wrote in message
> news:OOWBHwXyDHA.2676@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> > Hi! I want to upgrade the server hardware, especially the hard drives
and
> > power supplies as ~3 years seems to be a lifetime for those two parts.
We
> > currently have a dual p3 1000mhz system with 1gig ram. We also have 2
> 30gb
> > hard drives in raid. If we go to the P4 2.8 with hyperthreading and a
gig
> > ram, is that technically faster and better than what we currently have?
> > With a limited budget, if I propose xeon's I think I'll be slammed at
the
> > idea. What would suggestions be?
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > Marcia
> >
> >
>
>