# What Type of Server Does SDMB run on? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 11, 2001, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116 "2001-07-11T17:43:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2001, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/1 "2001-07-11T17:43:39Z")
I see all of these threads talking about the server being slow during peak times and that made me wonder what the specs of the server are (type, processor speed, RAM, hard drive size etc.) I work in IT so I was just curious. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2001, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/2 "2001-07-11T18:34:25Z")
It’s a [Cray SV1](http://www.tera.com/products/systems/craysv1/), soon to be upgraded to a Cray SV1ex™. Actually I was joking. I don’t know that the administration is keen on revealing the exact characteristics of the server. I do know that there are some websites that will attempt to determine which OS is being run by a web server. ---
**Author:** ![jdavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f6c823/32.png) [@jdavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jdavis)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2001, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/3 "2001-07-11T19:13:02Z")
Specs: Dell PowerEdge 1300 Two Pentium III 450 MHz processors 512 MBs RAM Two 9 GB SCSI hard drives w/mirroring via RAID controller Purchased in Spring of 1999. Could I do something about the speed of the web server? Sure. Would there be any return on that investment? Most definitely! Not to be flip about it but in almost all likelihood the return would be negative since we’d also then need to purchase additional bandwidth capacity to handle the increased traffic. Since banner ad sales aren’t setting the world on fire that seems like a losing proposition at the moment. Any excess capacity we have given to the web server in the past miraculously gets used up rather quickly placing us right back in a bogged down condition. I’d expect a replay of that exact same phenomenon in the future. It’s that “free resource” thing. You keep giving it away and people not only take it but also seem to want more… C’est la guerre! ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2001, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/4 "2001-07-11T21:01:12Z")
**jdavis** , can you answer the following things as well? 1. What bandwidth (upload/download) does the SDMB server have available to it? 2. How large are post.myd and post.myi at the present time? How large is the entire data directory? (I’m curious because I am wondering how much space I may need for the UnaBoard in the future). ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2001, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/5 "2001-07-11T21:13:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jdavis \* > \*\*Specs: > > Dell PowerEdge 1300 > Two Pentium III 450 MHz processors > 512 MBs RAM > Two 9 GB SCSI hard drives w/mirroring via RAID controller > > Purchased in Spring of 1999.\*\* And here I thought it was an underfed hamster running in a rusty wheel. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2001, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/6 "2001-07-11T21:30:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \* > I don’t know that the administration is keen on revealing the exact characteristics of the server. Guess I was wrong. :o ---
**Author:** ![mblackwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5fc32e/32.png) [@mblackwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mblackwell)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2001, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/7 "2001-07-11T21:42:48Z")
Hmm Interesting. > **[What's that site running?](https://sitereport.netcraft.com)** > > Using results from Netcraft's internet data mining, find out the technologies and infrastructure used by any site. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2001, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/8 "2001-07-13T14:44:12Z")
Is it possible someone could look at my questions, or if they are deemed a security risk to discuss openly (I’m pretty certain they are not), mail me instead? ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2001, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/9 "2001-07-13T14:49:43Z")
I don’t think **J** gets to the boards very often, **Anth** (at least not this here visible part!). You might do better dropping him an email. ---
**Author:** ![jdavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f6c823/32.png) [@jdavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jdavis)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2001, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/10 "2001-07-13T15:36:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Anthracite \* > \*\ ***jdavis** , can you answer the following things as well? > > 1. What bandwidth (upload/download) does the SDMB server have available to it? > > 2. How large are post.myd and post.myi at the present time? How large is the entire data directory? (I’m curious because I am wondering how much space I may need for the UnaBoard in the future). \*\* 1. Two T-1s configured to look like a single communication channel from the LAN side our network. 384 Kbytes/sec upload/download shared capacity. The SDMB probably consumes 40% of this bandwidth at peak capacity with the remainder being utilized by our other web sites, corporate usage, etc. 2. Using an older version of MySQL so the file names are different from yours but the complete post file and post index file are both approximately 825 MBs. Of course, that’s a problem when you only have 512 MBs of RAM. The performance of the SDMB ends up being constrained by the performance of our disk subsystem…and of course MySQL’s table wide locking mechanisms which don’t do much for concurrency. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2001, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/11 "2001-07-13T16:21:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jdavis \* > **1) Two T-1s configured to look like a single communication channel from the LAN side our network. 384 Kbytes/sec upload/download shared capacity. The SDMB probably consumes 40% of this bandwidth at peak capacity with the remainder being utilized by our other web sites, corporate usage, etc.** Oh my. This is a lot less than I thought. 40% of 384Kbytes is about 1.536 MBit (assuming 10 bits/actual data byte). That is about 12 times my bandwidth upload, and about equal to my bandwidth download. I guess I’m not doing too bad then…but why does my connection get saturated sometimes, I wonder? (Don’t answer - rhetorical question. 😛 ) > [@](#): > > \*\*2) Using an older version of MySQL so the file names are different from yours but the complete post file and post index file are both approximately 825 MBs. Of course, that’s a problem when you only have 512 MBs of RAM. The performance of the SDMB ends up being constrained by the performance of our disk subsystem…and of course MySQL’s table wide locking mechanisms which don’t do much for concurrency. \*\* Yipe - I didn’t make this connection. So, we have 825 MB each for 1,340,000 posts is about…615 Bytes per post for each file, on average. On the UnaBoard, my post file is about 1.5 MB, but my index file only about 200 KB. I had about…4800 total posts as of today. I don’t know why my index file is so much smaller, proportionately speaking. Anyhow…that helps me a lot, thank you. It also tells me I ought to think about a RAM upgrade in the future as well (I only have 64 MB, although task manager shows I rarely break 40 MB used - for now). ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2001, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-server-does-sdmb-run-on/72116/12 "2001-07-13T20:02:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Anthracite \* > I don’t know why my index file is so much smaller, proportionately speaking. jdavis has said in the past that he added some additional indexes to the default vBulletin/mySQL set-up for performance. And anyway, as we all know, it’s not the size of the index …