asterisk users - Dec 2004 - Hardware opinions?

Hello, I am trying to build up a pretty meaty Asterisk box after doing our
initial testing and playing on a 1ghz system.

Right now I have decided on a prebuilt system which I normally don't do but
thought it seemed like a good deal.

I have included the initial specs below, I will be adding another 1 GB of RAM
for a total of 2 GB.

My first question is regarding the serial ATA drives... I will be using Fedora
and considering FC1 seems to be the smartest of the builds when it comes to the
digium hardware, will I have to scrap the SATA drives because FC1 doesn't
support them or do I have bad information?

If I need to scrap the SATA drives and let's say I didn't care about the
Raid functionality, would you folks think that IDE drives would be fine or would
the speed of SCSI really make much of a difference when it comes to Asterisk? If
speed of drives does matter, can someone tell me why Asterisk might need fast
drives vs. say 7200 IDE drives?

Next and last question is, how many simultaneous calls do you folks figure I can
run on this in the following two scenarios:

1- All clients would be using SIP devices like SPA-2000's and all calls
would originate/terminate using an IAX termination partner.
2- All clients would be using IAX like Asterisk or an IAXy and all calls would
originate/terminate using an IAX termination partner.


Here are the specs:

  a.. Dual (2) Intel Xeon 2.66GHz CPUs w/ HT Technology
  b.. 533MHz Front Side Bus 
  c.. 1GB PC2100 DDR ECC Registered Memory
  d.. Two (2) 120GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drives with 8MB Cache 
  e.. 52X CD-RW Drive w/Burning Software 
  f.. 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive 
  g.. ATI Rage XL with 8MB Onboard
  h.. Onboard RAID controller 
  i.. (2) Intel Ethernet Controllers (1x1000BT Gigabit & 1x10/100) 
  j.. 2U Rackmount Chassis w/ 500-Watt Power Supply 

Thanks!

--
Start Your Own ISP!
http://www.YourOwnISP.com
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On Tue, Dec 28, 2004 at 02:17:47PM -0600, Me wrote:
> Hello, I am trying to build up a pretty meaty Asterisk box after doing our
initial testing and playing on a 1ghz system.
> 
> Right now I have decided on a prebuilt system which I normally don't do
but thought it seemed like a good deal.
> 
> I have included the initial specs below, I will be adding another 1 GB of
RAM for a total of 2 GB.
> 
> My first question is regarding the serial ATA drives... I will be using
Fedora and considering FC1 seems to be the smartest of the builds when it comes
to the digium hardware, will I have to scrap the SATA drives because FC1
doesn't support them or do I have bad information?
> 
> If I need to scrap the SATA drives and let's say I didn't care
about the Raid functionality, would you folks think that IDE drives would be
fine or would the speed of SCSI really make much of a difference when it comes
to Asterisk? If speed of drives does matter, can someone tell me why Asterisk
might need fast drives vs. say 7200 IDE drives?
> 
> Next and last question is, how many simultaneous calls do you folks figure
I can run on this in the following two scenarios:
> 
> 1- All clients would be using SIP devices like SPA-2000's and all calls
would originate/terminate using an IAX termination partner.
> 2- All clients would be using IAX like Asterisk or an IAXy and all calls
would originate/terminate using an IAX termination partner.
> 
> 
> Here are the specs:
> 
>   a.. Dual (2) Intel Xeon 2.66GHz CPUs w/ HT Technology
>   b.. 533MHz Front Side Bus 
>   c.. 1GB PC2100 DDR ECC Registered Memory
>   d.. Two (2) 120GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drives with 8MB Cache 
>   e.. 52X CD-RW Drive w/Burning Software 
>   f.. 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive 
>   g.. ATI Rage XL with 8MB Onboard
>   h.. Onboard RAID controller 
>   i.. (2) Intel Ethernet Controllers (1x1000BT Gigabit & 1x10/100) 
>   j.. 2U Rackmount Chassis w/ 500-Watt Power Supply 
> 
> Thanks!
>
You don't need to scrap the SATA drives, they are very nice.
You might want to give Debian a try.
Don't use the "RAID" mode on the motherboard as it's likely
"fake raid", instead use linux md driver for software raid,
it's smoking fast for SATA drives and on my 3.2ghz box
barely scratches the CPU resyncing.

-Dorn