All,
I just curios about UltraATA (IDE) performance, as now the high speed of UltraATA 133 is already exist.
Does someone try to use UltraATA for big Bandwidth and high request? If yes,
how big and how high is it?
Our cache was provided by our ISP. Alongside simply caching it also handles blacklist based filtering which I'm guessing is done via SquidGuard.
We have potentially 130 simultaneous users on a 100Mbit switched network. Our internet connection is provided by a 2Mbit DSL line (2Mbit up and down). Cache spec is roughly:
P4 1.6 Ghz 512MB RAM 40GB IDE HD which I think will be ATA-100 and 7200rpm
The difference between ATA-100 and ATA-133 is negligible usually, since this is the external interface speed. I'd look more at seek times and internal transfer times, as seek time will possibly have a bigger effect on performance for a heavily used cache, this is why SCSI is best for very heavy usage since seek times are way quicker than IDE (usually!).
You'll see big benefits if you use multiple cache disks, since often the disk speed etc is the limiting factor with squid as opposed to CPU power. More RAM will also help out.
If you plan to use IDE, I'd go for a 7200rpm (or higher if they exist yet?) drive, with an 8MB (or higher) buffer. Usually bigger disks give a better performance due to data density on the platters but check some reviews out first.
Still, this all depends on the planned network on which you're cache will be running!
Regards,
nry
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