OS X client vs. server

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Level 1

9 points

OS X client vs. server

I run a medium sized BB (Threads: 49,975, Posts: 431,795, Members: 9,545) running vbulletin and I am currently using 10.4.1 on a G5 dual 2.5 with 2gb ram and a raptor 74gb HD using apache 1.3.33/mysql 4.0.25/php 4.3.11. My question is will 10.4 server boost performance? The client version of 10.4.1 runs pretty well but our BB is growing and I am curious if 10.4 server would be worth the extra $$. Vbulletin is the only thing on this server.

Posted on Sep 22, 2005 11:32 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 22, 2005 5:13 PM in response to jtslo

With that much hardware, I'd bet that it doesn't max out very often. Running top in Terminal and watching it periodically will show you exactly what the machine's doing. There's also a GUI app, I think it's Process Monitor, that will show pretty much the same info.

If you're connecting to the Internet with a T1, that's very possibly the bottleneck. A T1 runs about 1/300 the speed of a LAN. Whoever you're getting it from probably has usage statistics.

If things aren't running up to snuff, you need to isolate what is causing the bottleneck, or else you're just throwing money around indescriminately.

Roger

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Answer 2

jtslo Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 23, 2005 12:20 PM in response to Community User

Thanks Roger. I monitor top quite frequently and the server barely breaks a sweat. I don't know what the major differences are between OS X server and OS X client, so I was just curious if the OS X Server would run more efficiently than OS X "client". I figured OS X Server might have some performance advantages since it was specifically designed for this purppose. If performance would be about the same then I will just stick with OS X client.
Thanks, jon

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Answer 3

R.Cerny

Level 4

1,170 points

Sep 23, 2005 1:01 PM in response to jtslo

You need to find where is the origin of the problem. It could be bas mysql settings, slow disk or overloaded system. You can also consider a php accelerator

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Answer 4

jtslo Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 23, 2005 1:39 PM in response to R.Cerny

What PHP accelerator would you reccomend? I looked at eAccelerator, haven't tried it yet.

The server runs smooth for the most part, mysql could use some tuning but I was mainly interested in knowing what performance benefits, if any, would be gained by upgrading the operating system itself from OS X "client" to OS X Server. From what I have read elsewhere OS X Server has more server maintenance features, other than that they aren't much different for I am using it for.

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Answer 5

R.Cerny

Level 4

1,170 points

Sep 23, 2005 2:36 PM in response to jtslo

I use eAccelerator and its predecessor Turck MMCache. Both work well and bring up to 30% speed increase. I believe that installing server version over client's one doesn't bring anything in the speed area

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Answer 6

Sep 23, 2005 5:15 PM in response to jtslo

As long as the CPU's not working hard, it's probably not too critical, but with 400,000+ records on (presumably) one table, it may be time to really look at the indexes on that table.

Roger

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Answer 7

Camelot

Level 9

54,333 points

Sep 23, 2005 6:43 PM in response to jtslo

Mac OS X Server does have some 'under the hood' differences from Mac OS X client,

The differences are in such things as the limit on the number of processes per UID (in theory allowing apache to process more simultaneous connections since it spawns child processes) and some changes to task scheduling, but if you're running on client now with no significant problems then moving to Server probably isn't going to make much difference.

It's certainly not going to be a significant difference, more than likely it won't even be measurable. The advantages you get are going to be around the admin tools.

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