I'm moving on up on my server campacity! Need help choosing...

[rabid_nerd]

Poll question: I'm moving on up on my server campacity! Need help choosing...

But I need to know which way to invest my resources...

Server cluster or beefy servers?

I have hosting customers... Most are low key, although the sales option to select customers of "load balancing" is intriguing...

Plus I do have one site where the load balancing might come in handy...

Load Balanced Cluster:
2 x Celeron 1.3MHz, 512MB

Single:
3.0GHz P4, 1GB

RH Enterprise is the hosting platform.

The prices for the above are within $1 of each other

That said, BEFORE YOU PICK "Single" READ THIS:

If the Cluster Servers had 1GB of RAM instead of 512MB and the price was the same, would you change your mind?

If so, select the option "only if w/1GB RAM each".

[Xithras]

1. Single, and here's why

A clustered server setup does nothing to increase performance, it simply allows the servers to maintain their peak performance for a longer period of time. A pair of clustered 1.3Ghz Celerons will not run any faster than a single 1.3Ghz Celeron server, the cluster will simply take longer to slow down under heavy loads.

Your single server configuration will have far better performance right off the top, and its on-die cache, superior speed, and increased memory will probably give you a load degredation curve superior to those found on the clustered Celerons. It's unlikely that you'd find ANY configuration where a pair of 1.3's could outperform a single 3.0.

[Burma Jones]

2. What he said..................n/t

[rabid_nerd]

3. Thanks...

I know that all things being equal the typical advice is many webservers running content.

But in this case, I couldn't tell whether the obvious gap between the specs (Celeron 1.3 to P4 3.0 - And I'm not far from price to my first dual xeon machine if I'm feeling adventurous) outweighed the benefits.

I'll still mull it over, as I'm running my ISP-centric updates at the moment.

This is centered around my hosting and domain sales investments..