Major server upgrade; can you tell?

StangFlyer · 01-20-2002, 12:46 AM

Everyone - You should now notice some improvement on the message board, and various other non-msgboard pages on both MustangWorks.com and FunFord.com also (More so on FFW than MW). Last night I finished building a box to replace the machine that had been running as our secondary server (a Win2K box); hosting our MS SQL and MySQL databases, MW & FFW MsgBoard files, as well as various other things.

Although, our Unix server still runs most of the web site pages and applications for MW at this time, the Win2K box does run the entire MW MsgBoard. The old machine was only a PII-300Mhz box with 128 megs of ram and it was getting the hurt put on it during peak usuage hours by the message board. However, the new machine that I've just replaced it with is a 1.6 Ghz AMD Athlon XP server with 784 Megs of 266Mhz 2100 DDR ECC Ram and has twin 7200 RPM ATA 100 40 GB drives running RAID 0. Can you say, big difference?

On this end (physically using the machine) it was like going from a 4-cylinder Mustang to a Mustang drag car! I hope that this serious upgrade improves life for everyone...

Fox Body · 01-20-2002, 01:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dan McClain
...On this end (physically using the machine) it was like going from a 4-cylinder Mustang to a Mustang drag car! I hope that this serious upgrade improves life for everyone...

Dan, those are some mega specs. Thanks though for breaking it down to us stangers..

drudis · 01-20-2002, 03:12 AM

COOL!
Will have to give it a thumbs up!

MTU 50 · 01-20-2002, 03:39 AM

Yeah, those are some impressive specs.

More Power is Always a Good Thing!

lx mike · 01-20-2002, 06:52 AM

Quote:

On this end (physically using the machine) it was like going from a 4-cylinder Mustang to a Mustang drag car! I hope that this serious upgrade improves life for everyone...

Is there any question as to the best stang site online??

6T9PONY · 01-20-2002, 07:16 AM

NICE JOB DAN!

Thanks for upgrading!

PKRWUD · 01-20-2002, 07:35 AM

Very impressive upgrade! Is that why the time is off? It's probably just my ISP, but it almost seems a hair slower. I'm sure it's just my end.

Take care,
-Chris

joe4speed · 01-21-2002, 03:04 AM

Beautiful! That old Pent. III served us well for a long time!

Unit 5302 · 01-21-2002, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JL1314
Beautiful! That old Pent. III served us well for a long time!

Hehe, nope, not PIII. We had a PII to work with.

I think response has improved, too bad I'm now on dialup...

mustangman65_79 · 01-21-2002, 03:37 AM

Quote:

However, the new machine that I've just replaced it with is a 1.6 Ghz AMD Athlon XP server with 784 Megs of 266Mhz 2100 DDR ECC Ram and has twin 7200 RPM ATA 100 40 GB drives running RAID 0. Can you say, big difference

For us computer geeks who understand all this, nice choice in upgrades. Too bad u didn't get the 10,000 RPM scuzzi drives (I think thats u spell it). Thats the only thing I would have done differently. Although that should be fast enough as is. It just would complemet the 784 megs of ram better.

joe4speed · 01-21-2002, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Unit 5302

Hehe, nope, not PIII. We had a PII to work with.

I think response has improved, too bad I'm now on dialup...

Whoops I read that wrong!!

mustangman65_79 · 01-21-2002, 09:55 AM

Well, I can't say I've notice much diff, but don't listen to me because I'm not here durring peak times, so I don't know how slow it is. It does seem a little faster, but again, not here durring the day. Also at work, I think the speed is something like 120, not sure.

Crazy Horse GT · 01-21-2002, 09:58 AM

good job dan, thanks for helping us out.

mustangdani55 · 01-21-2002, 04:11 PM

even if i am on dial up i see it a tad bit faster...thanks Dan

StangFlyer · 01-21-2002, 04:34 PM

mustangman65_79 - I definitely agree. Using Ultra Wide SCSI III drives, regardless of drive RPM, would be much better. That's because SCSI drives have their own CPU built-in and do not utilize any CPU usuage from your systems processor. IDE drives have no CPU of their own, and therefore, rely totally on your systems CPU to handle all data transfer. This is why SCSI drives are much more expensive than IDE drives.

However, the new box I just built was just the first of four new servers I plan to add throughout this year for the sites. The next system in my grand plan is a twin processor 1.6 Ghz Athlon MP system based on a Tyan server motherboard with 1 Gb of DDR Ram and using twin 10,000 RPM Ultra Wide III SCSI drives running in RAID 0 mode. After this is completed, it will become our database server. At that point the databases will be moved off the new single processor 1.4 Ghz box I just built onto the twin processor machine. The single processor box will then just host servers.

After that, I will later build another twin MP system (just like the first) and at that point the Web server and application servers will move to it, freeing up the single processor box I just built to run just our FTP server, Email server, and reporting software.

The fourth box (another single processor IDE system) will be a simple Web server that serves all the images, media files (video, sound, and photos) for the sites, and run our advertising system. This box will replace the current Unix server.

Think all that will be good enough?

jonnyk · 01-21-2002, 10:05 PM

Sounds like you have a lot of horsepower to play with

I'm envious. Nice to hear the site will be gaining a bunch of speed!

joe4speed · 01-21-2002, 10:12 PM

Wow, Dan, you run all this from your house? Take a pic so we can see how cluttered that room is!! There must be a ton of wires going everywhere! I just have one computer in here with 50,000 wires!

StangFlyer · 01-21-2002, 10:21 PM

jonnyk - Not yet really. I've just built the one new system so far, the other three I described will come throughout the next 6 to 12 months most likely.

JL1314 - I do not totally run everything from my house. Although I do have a home office where the Win2K server lives (now on the new box), which runs through a 1.1 Mb business SDSL circuit, the main server is co-located at a hosting company. That server is a Cobalt RaQ Linux box and sits behind the hosting company's multiple OC3 / 1 Gb network backbone. The main server hosts most of the applications and pages for the sites, as well as the main Email system and media files. All the sites images, and the videos and photos, are served from there because I have virtually unlimited bandwidth behind that box.

Eventually, when all the new boxes are built, I will dump that box, the hosting company

, and also the SDSL circuit I have and convert over to two T1 lines dropped directly into my home office. At that point I actually will be running everything locally.

But, beyond the one server I have sitting her next to me, I also have my own personal system that I do all my work (and play!) on. My system is an AMD Athlon 1 Ghz Thunderbird box with 384 Megs of PC133 RAM. It has an ATA100 40 Gb HD, an ATA100 100 Gb HD, a DVD-ROM, CD-RW, 250 Mb ZIP, GeForce2 Ultra card, a TV Tuner / Video Capture card, a digital Creative sound card with 3D audio, Firewire ports for digital video editing, a hi-end flat bed scanner, a and LexMark Z-95 1200 Dpi color printer. I use a 21" trinitron monitor and have a Boston Acoustics surround sound multimedia theater speaker system hooked to it.

Besides that, I also have my laptop sitting next to me on the desk that is a PIII-600 with 200 Mb of RAM. Then I have another system in my office on the other side of the room that is an older Pentium II-466 w/128 Mb of SDRAM on a 19" monitor that my Fiancee uses. Then we have an older Pentium 200 Mhz system with 48 Mb of RAM that is in my soon to be step-daugher's room.

All of which is connected on a LAN at 100 Mbits and jacked into the SDSL router & Firewall, which gives every system broadband Internet access.

Yeah, I guess I'm pretty wired these days... But, you have to understand this is what I do for a living (my regular career) and for my own business (Mustang Works).

1969Mach1 · 01-21-2002, 11:02 PM

Nice Job, that sounds like a nice server to me. Only thing is the internet in general gets faster, and my isp slows me down. I'm on cable I havn't noticed a real difference but I havn't been on to much and my browser/computer is messed. I think it's time for a format.

Take it easy,
§am

SilverPoet · 01-22-2002, 03:57 AM

She's got a little more zip to her...although it's nice to have a cable modem that loads obscenely fast with a DSL or Cable will agree that we are corrupted...I couldn't use dialup again if I tried...would be too darn frustrating.

Good Job and Thanks, Dan. You're hard work really shows. I think everyone will agree that we appreciate it.

01-20-2002, 12:46 AM	#1
StangFlyer Founder Join Date: Jun 1995 Location: Michigan Posts: 19,326	Major server upgrade; can you tell? Everyone - You should now notice some improvement on the message board, and various other non-msgboard pages on both MustangWorks.com and FunFord.com also (More so on FFW than MW). Last night I finished building a box to replace the machine that had been running as our secondary server (a Win2K box); hosting our MS SQL and MySQL databases, MW & FFW MsgBoard files, as well as various other things. Although, our Unix server still runs most of the web site pages and applications for MW at this time, the Win2K box does run the entire MW MsgBoard. The old machine was only a PII-300Mhz box with 128 megs of ram and it was getting the hurt put on it during peak usuage hours by the message board. However, the new machine that I've just replaced it with is a 1.6 Ghz AMD Athlon XP server with 784 Megs of 266Mhz 2100 DDR ECC Ram and has twin 7200 RPM ATA 100 40 GB drives running RAID 0. Can you say, big difference? On this end (physically using the machine) it was like going from a 4-cylinder Mustang to a Mustang drag car! I hope that this serious upgrade improves life for everyone... __________________ StangFlyer 1991 Mustang GT - Supercharged 377 Stroker 2000 Ford Lightning - Project Lightning Hauler Media Center Gallery - View my member photos

01-20-2002, 03:12 AM	#3
drudis Moderator Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Livonia, MI, USA Posts: 1,194	COOL! Will have to give it a thumbs up! __________________ Darius Rudis, Moderator Corner Carvers Delight 1989 Mustang LX - Open Track Car http://www.dariusrudis.com

01-20-2002, 03:39 AM	#4
MTU 50 GOT TORQUE ???? Join Date: Aug 1999 Location: New Hudson, Michigan, USA Posts: 689	Yeah, those are some impressive specs. More Power is Always a Good Thing! __________________ 1991 GT, AOD, Moroso Cold Air, 3.73s, Pulleys, H-pipe, MAC Pro-Dumps, FMS c-springs, and KYBs, A/c delete, 190 LPH fuel pump, 3-row radiator, Maximum Motorsports full length subframes 2002 Oldsmobile Bravada(wife's car) 2005 Ford Taurus SEL (company ride) GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS !!!!

01-20-2002, 07:35 AM	#7
PKRWUD Junior Member Join Date: Mar 1999 Location: Ventura, California Posts: 8,981	Very impressive upgrade! Is that why the time is off? It's probably just my ISP, but it almost seems a hair slower. I'm sure it's just my end. Take care, -Chris __________________ Webmaster: Rice Haters Club Jim Porter Racing Peckerwoods Pit Stop Support Your Local RED & WHITE!

01-21-2002, 03:04 AM	#8
joe4speed He said Member...heh, heh Join Date: Sep 1999 Location: Jupiter, Florida U.S.A. Posts: 3,718	Beautiful! That old Pent. III served us well for a long time! __________________ *Joe!* 1988 GT, 13.58@101mph Check out my listing! Click here! Or my website:www.joe4speed.com

01-20-2002, 07:16 AM	#6
6T9PONY All about the Windsor. Join Date: Feb 2000 Posts: 2,052	NICE JOB DAN! Thanks for upgrading!

01-21-2002, 09:55 AM	#12
mustangman65_79 My poor 79 RIP Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Suisun City, Posts: 2,320	Well, I can't say I've notice much diff, but don't listen to me because I'm not here durring peak times, so I don't know how slow it is. It does seem a little faster, but again, not here durring the day. Also at work, I think the speed is something like 120, not sure. __________________ '84 mustang GT turbo '85 LTD '89 Camaro Irocz z28 '94 Lightning '96 Trans am

01-21-2002, 09:58 AM	#13
Crazy Horse GT Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Sale Creek, TN. C. S. A. Posts: 4,652	good job dan, thanks for helping us out. __________________ 95 gt vert, lot's of stuff, it aint slow. 04 sonic blue v - six my beater 89 rs camaro iroc turbo hood, other stuff, my wifes ride 84 lx stang cammed up 289 hi po, etc 65 falcon, maybe by the year 2020. black 00gt, gone but never forgotten. R H C- member # 1 o.b.c. da prez- member # 1 if your under 40 dont ask. goodbye for now odie,r.i.p. 11-27-03

01-21-2002, 04:11 PM	#14
mustangdani55 Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Indianapolis, Indiana USA Posts: 334	even if i am on dial up i see it a tad bit faster...thanks Dan __________________ It makes people wonder what you've been up to!

01-21-2002, 04:34 PM	#15
StangFlyer Founder Join Date: Jun 1995 Location: Michigan Posts: 19,326	mustangman65_79 - I definitely agree. Using Ultra Wide SCSI III drives, regardless of drive RPM, would be much better. That's because SCSI drives have their own CPU built-in and do not utilize any CPU usuage from your systems processor. IDE drives have no CPU of their own, and therefore, rely totally on your systems CPU to handle all data transfer. This is why SCSI drives are much more expensive than IDE drives. However, the new box I just built was just the first of four new servers I plan to add throughout this year for the sites. The next system in my grand plan is a twin processor 1.6 Ghz Athlon MP system based on a Tyan server motherboard with 1 Gb of DDR Ram and using twin 10,000 RPM Ultra Wide III SCSI drives running in RAID 0 mode. After this is completed, it will become our database server. At that point the databases will be moved off the new single processor 1.4 Ghz box I just built onto the twin processor machine. The single processor box will then just host servers. After that, I will later build another twin MP system (just like the first) and at that point the Web server and application servers will move to it, freeing up the single processor box I just built to run just our FTP server, Email server, and reporting software. The fourth box (another single processor IDE system) will be a simple Web server that serves all the images, media files (video, sound, and photos) for the sites, and run our advertising system. This box will replace the current Unix server. Think all that will be good enough? __________________ StangFlyer 1991 Mustang GT - Supercharged 377 Stroker 2000 Ford Lightning - Project Lightning Hauler Media Center Gallery - View my member photos

01-21-2002, 10:05 PM	#16
jonnyk Being stroked is great Join Date: Oct 1998 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 772	Sounds like you have a lot of horsepower to play with I'm envious. Nice to hear the site will be gaining a bunch of speed! __________________ Novi 2000 now spinning off the snout of the 331... Mods Pics

01-21-2002, 10:12 PM	#17
joe4speed He said Member...heh, heh Join Date: Sep 1999 Location: Jupiter, Florida U.S.A. Posts: 3,718	Wow, Dan, you run all this from your house? Take a pic so we can see how cluttered that room is!! There must be a ton of wires going everywhere! I just have one computer in here with 50,000 wires! __________________ *Joe!* 1988 GT, 13.58@101mph Check out my listing! Click here! Or my website:www.joe4speed.com

01-21-2002, 10:21 PM	#18
StangFlyer Founder Join Date: Jun 1995 Location: Michigan Posts: 19,326	jonnyk - Not yet really. I've just built the one new system so far, the other three I described will come throughout the next 6 to 12 months most likely. JL1314 - I do not totally run everything from my house. Although I do have a home office where the Win2K server lives (now on the new box), which runs through a 1.1 Mb business SDSL circuit, the main server is co-located at a hosting company. That server is a Cobalt RaQ Linux box and sits behind the hosting company's multiple OC3 / 1 Gb network backbone. The main server hosts most of the applications and pages for the sites, as well as the main Email system and media files. All the sites images, and the videos and photos, are served from there because I have virtually unlimited bandwidth behind that box. Eventually, when all the new boxes are built, I will dump that box, the hosting company , and also the SDSL circuit I have and convert over to two T1 lines dropped directly into my home office. At that point I actually will be running everything locally. But, beyond the one server I have sitting her next to me, I also have my own personal system that I do all my work (and play!) on. My system is an AMD Athlon 1 Ghz Thunderbird box with 384 Megs of PC133 RAM. It has an ATA100 40 Gb HD, an ATA100 100 Gb HD, a DVD-ROM, CD-RW, 250 Mb ZIP, GeForce2 Ultra card, a TV Tuner / Video Capture card, a digital Creative sound card with 3D audio, Firewire ports for digital video editing, a hi-end flat bed scanner, a and LexMark Z-95 1200 Dpi color printer. I use a 21" trinitron monitor and have a Boston Acoustics surround sound multimedia theater speaker system hooked to it. Besides that, I also have my laptop sitting next to me on the desk that is a PIII-600 with 200 Mb of RAM. Then I have another system in my office on the other side of the room that is an older Pentium II-466 w/128 Mb of SDRAM on a 19" monitor that my Fiancee uses. Then we have an older Pentium 200 Mhz system with 48 Mb of RAM that is in my soon to be step-daugher's room. All of which is connected on a LAN at 100 Mbits and jacked into the SDSL router & Firewall, which gives every system broadband Internet access. Yeah, I guess I'm pretty wired these days... But, you have to understand this is what I do for a living (my regular career) and for my own business (Mustang Works). __________________ StangFlyer 1991 Mustang GT - Supercharged 377 Stroker 2000 Ford Lightning - Project Lightning Hauler Media Center Gallery - View my member photos

01-21-2002, 11:02 PM	#19
1969Mach1 HEY I CAN SET A NAME NOW! Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 2,556	Nice Job, that sounds like a nice server to me. Only thing is the internet in general gets faster, and my isp slows me down. I'm on cable I havn't noticed a real difference but I havn't been on to much and my browser/computer is messed. I think it's time for a format. Take it easy, §am __________________ 1969 Mustang Mach 1Sold 351-4V Windsor, 4 Speed MACH 1 - Moving At The Speed Of Sound. 1979 Mustang Indianapolis 500 Pace Car For Sale - Email me for Info 302-2V, 3-Speed Auto One of 2,106 made One of 405 sent to Canada. Yes those are caution lights, and No you can't pass me when there on. Ricer Hater's Club - Member #4

01-22-2002, 03:57 AM	#20
SilverPoet Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2000 Location: Brooklyn Center, MN Posts: 21	She's got a little more zip to her...although it's nice to have a cable modem that loads obscenely fast with a DSL or Cable will agree that we are corrupted...I couldn't use dialup again if I tried...would be too darn frustrating. Good Job and Thanks, Dan. You're hard work really shows. I think everyone will agree that we appreciate it.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Throttlebody and Intake Plenum Upgrade Question	SleeperGT	Power Adders	2	11-14-2003 09:02 AM
clutch and flywheel upgrade	roundeye82	Modular Madness	2	07-22-2003 09:54 PM
87-93 GT 3rd Brakelight: Bulb part #	ponyboy25	Windsor Power	5	04-13-2003 08:48 PM
NEED ADVISE-Which Upgrade should I do first?	jpumpkinn	Windsor Power	3	11-27-2001 12:51 AM
When is it time to upgrade the ignition?	92Rustang	Windsor Power	5	09-16-2001 01:06 AM