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Linux / Windows Which is Best

Discussion in 'Tech Support' started by corvette, 17 Jun 2008.

  1. corvette

    corvette What's a Dremel?

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    Hey guys

    I no this has been asked many of times but i just need to ask a few specific questions and just get a general opinion while im here.

    I want to setup a file server i have about 10 hard drives not in raid just single drives, and at the moment its just in a standard windows Xp box, now i want to actually set it up as a server now as you can probably tell the hdds are formatted for NTFS and etc, now would running linux be better then windows, if i run linux will i have to wipe all my drives and set them up again, and how hard is it for a linux newb that has had experience with linux but not alot.

    also is IPv6 Faster then IPv4 ?

    thanks in advance guys
     
  2. Woodstock

    Woodstock So Say We All

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    which is better is highly subjective (less so for servers thou), i recommend you read these two articles (and the rest of gliders linux articles while your at it) this and this. Linux does have read and write support for NTFS, but i have heard cases of it going wrong. As for ipv6 vs ipv4, i have heard theres no real difference in speed its more to do with running out of available ipv4 addresss
     
  3. Firehed

    Firehed Why not? I own a domain to match.

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    Don't worry about IPv6. It's one of those things right now where if you need to ask, you don't need to deal with it. It wouldn't affect speed though.

    Strictly speaking, Linux will make a better server than XP. However, if the limitations of NTFS aren't a problem for you, then I'd say just leave things alone if they're working. I've spent all sorts of time trying to assemble a Linux server because it seemed like the "right" way to do things, only to still have an XP box stuck next to the router to this day. Granted I do have a couple of legitimate needs to switch off of Windows for it, but I'd need a Mac server not a Linux one and the whole cost/sanity thing doesn't currently compute.

    Anyways, if what you have works, I'd say leave it alone. Doing it out of principle seems like a great idea until you realize how much time you spent accomplishing absolutely nothing :p
     
  4. corvette

    corvette What's a Dremel?

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    The reason i ask this is because i goto lans alot and when people are "Veiwing my Files" it tends to get abit slow. its a P4 3.0Ghz with 1Gb of Ram, so it should be ok just for a Fserver shouldnt it, If so do you guys have any suggestions to make it faster on the sharing side
     
  5. Woodstock

    Woodstock So Say We All

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    upgrade the nic to gigabit if it isnt already maybe look into the possibility of bonding two gigabit nics
     
  6. corvette

    corvette What's a Dremel?

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    ok i have an onboard gigabit nic, can you explain how to bond another to it ?
     
  7. Woodstock

    Woodstock So Say We All

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    you need two nics, and i have no idea how to do it in windows, in linux here its about half way down
     
  8. corvette

    corvette What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks,



    Any body no how to do it in windows been searching cant find anything usefull
     
  9. Woodstock

    Woodstock So Say We All

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    try searching for trunking or teaming same thing different names
     
  10. Golygus

    Golygus Minimodder

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    Before you can have 2 Nics together, you need a managed switch.

    I then believe you need some software that can Load balance / team the nics (eg Intel's Proset).
     
    Last edited: 17 Jun 2008
  11. Glider

    Glider /dev/null

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    That depends on what 'mode' you using to bond the NICs...

    http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Net:Bonding

    I tought XP limited the number of connections/clients that access files quite dramatically (10 or so), so if you really have quite a few people accessing at the same time you'll need a server OS, like Server 2003 or about any Linux flavor. Of course I choose Linux ;) But really, it takes less resources and is dead easy to set up.

    NTFS write and read support is ok in Linux. Most of the times it's flawless, but sometimes it screws things up. If possible I'd put a journalled FS like Ext3 on the HD's, just to be sure.
     
  12. mm vr

    mm vr The cheesecake is a lie

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    IIRC, there's a tcpip.sys hack to allow more connections at a time. You might try googling.
     
  13. Glider

    Glider /dev/null

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    Not that I care much about Windows based servers (I only find them usefull in 1 situation), but hacking on a server is a :nono:. But that's just my security orientated mind at work.
     
  14. Krog_Mod

    Krog_Mod Minimodder

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    There is a windows way to do it.. though I've only tried the trial version of this program. (30days) It works pretty well and doesn't need a managed switch. My only suggestion is that if you're at a fairly big LAN, a connection to a couple different switches. If your LANs are using hubs.. then its no wonder it gets so slow.

    Wow.. that was incredibly hard to find a link to download this from. Apparently the original company, IPMetrics was bought out by FalconStor which acknoledges that they own the product but doesn't seem to actually sell it anymore. So I resort to finding it elsewhere. It is a demo but works wonderfully for that 30 days.

    NicExpress


    On the other hand, I do believe that Windows Server 2000 and 2003 have some kind of ethernet load balancing. So that may be worth looking into as well.

    That's not any illegal kind of hacking though. It's more of a very useful modification to the tcpip.sys file if you need more connections.
     
  15. Glider

    Glider /dev/null

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    Still, the very definiton of hacking is something you don't want on a server. Servers need stability, something that can't be guaranteed by hacking the OS, illegally or not.
     
  16. Buzzons

    Buzzons Minimodder

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    dude it's just editing a couple of settings in the reg. (Same with speed tweaking etc)

    If it's going to go to LANs etc, I'd recomend windows 2k3 for a server (or 2k8) it's fast, stable, and easy. No messing about in conf files for changing the network etc. Also it provides all the servers you could need (CIFS(folder sharing)/FTP etc) as well as being expandable easily if you decide you want to run DNS/Web etc.

    Bonding two network cards :: get two identical cards from intel (makes it easier)and go to the properties window and select trunking or teaming -- which ever it is called.. and then you're done.. you do however need a managed switch at the other end for doing bonding as well (otherwise you get 50% packet loss) -- so don't bother unless you've got decent networking kit.

    IPv6 should be no slower than IPv4, both windows (xpSP2/windows 2k3 onwards) and linux distro's (if built into the kernel) have support for IPv6, however you'd need IPv6 IP ranges from your ISP etc, and there's really no point in using it if you're just at home etc.
     
  17. Glider

    Glider /dev/null

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    You don't seem to get my point tough... Running anything on a server out of default spec is a :nono: I know, at home you can get away with it, but it's a matter of principle

    NO, only in 802.ad mode (or mode 4) you need a special switch.
     
  18. AJB2K3

    AJB2K3 What's a Dremel?

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    Linux is more secure but samba is a pain in the rear for first timers.
    IPV6 is very troublesome ATM and both my win and lin box are having issues with it.
    As to networking I find its a fight, some times the nix is better other time the win is better, it often depends on the modem.
     
  19. Hamish

    Hamish What's a Dremel?

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    thats ridiculous, theres plenty of things that you can and should tweak if you want the maximum performance out of your server hardware, every server is different and there are some things you should change to reflect that
    on the other hand there are plenty of things you should not tweak on a production server for stability reasons
     
  20. Glider

    Glider /dev/null

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    It's not ridiculous... It's just an other point of view. You are looking at it from an enthusiast view, I'm looking at it from a system admin (*Nix/Debian-stable) view.

    Let me explain.

    From my point of view, it's more important that a service is available then that it's performant. So availability > performance. It doesn't matter that much that an end user has to wait 2 seconds before his/her data appears, as long as it appears (in due time of course).

    From an enthusiast point of view it's much more important to have a high performance. Look at all the treads about people complaining about that 1 µs shaved of of the superpi calculation time, or those tighter ram timings that are only noticed by synthetic benchmarks.

    Now, why do I think my point of view is the only one suitable for severs, and thus it's a big :nono: to run services out of specifications?

    <puts on devils advocate hat>

    Well, in this case we are talking about the number of connections a system allows. It's limited to 10 by default. I won't go into the whys of this restriction. It's quite easy to up that number by a simple hack. However...

    Say that (for statistical purposes for instance), the number of active connections is stored somewhere in the memory, just the number. The developer of the software/OS expects this number to be <10, so he assigns a 4bit int to that value. For reference, maximum value is 15 ;) Now, you up the maximum allowed connections to 20, and get 20 connections... You need a 5 bit int to store that number... Typical buffer overflow happening right under your nose.

    <takes off the hat that suits him>

    But, each to his likings I guess
     
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