Hello,

I am putting together a new server, but recently realized that for the price of the dual 1ghz, 2GB ram, u/160 drives, etc... I could put together 2 smaller systems. (Say single 1Ghz, 1GB ram, scsi2 drives...).

What do you guys think about this? Should I go with the one "larger" server, or is it better to go with the 2 smaller servers, and just put 1/2 as many clients on them?

thanks!

How are you going to use these servers?

What OS/applications?

Are you going to use databases?

Do you have other computers which may connect to these machines?



Two smaller servers can often out-perform one larger one if configured properly. Security can also be increased by running specific services, e.g. email, databases, on one and not on another. By having two servers you can tweak each for a specific set of tasks by adjusting disk i/o, cache buffers etc. Also, you can speed up certain web applications by offloading database calls to a secondary server. Post us the details of your implementation and may be somebody here can help.

Well, I'm going to be running Cpanel3 (vdi version) and Web Host Manager. These servers will be running fairly light sites, some MySql, but not much. Currently, my customers average about 100mb transfer / month.

You may save up the cost for the second license for whm/cpanel....if you are going for the larger server.

However, if you have 2 servers, if one fails.........the second server may be able to serve as a backup for a while until you get the first fixed up. If you have only the larger server, what happens if the server fails ? It will affect all clients you have on the machine. Any fallback in case of hardware failure?