Topic: Info for 7to8 Updaters & Feedback for SME8-B6 updates

[andy_wismer]

Hi Everyone!
As a user of SME Server I'd like to thank the Team for the great work done!
I do support for about 30 SME installations spread about in Switzerland.

One of my larger clients has moved to SME8-B6, and as there's about 25 PCs involved, two sites hooked up with VPN (Not done by SME, but by the Firewalls using IPsec), Clients from Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP Pro, Windows 7 Pro, Mac OS X and even one old Windows NT 4 workststion (Running as VM, still needed rarely), so there's plenty of "tripwire" around for suspence!

The Client was running SME7 for a few years now, and the SME provides almost all services like Mail, Windows-Domain, Internal DNS, even the clients Webpage runs there (Not ideal, I know!). The older server was only single core from 2004 and has been relegated to a backup server with new, large disks. (WD Green, we need space, but not speed for backups!).

My client got a new HP Proliant ML150 G6 server, suitable for VMWare ESXi. The existing SME server was backuped with the built-in "Backup to Workstation". A new, fresh SME7 was installed on the ESXi, and a restore done. Contribs (quite a few) manually added.

A weeks test with everyone working - no probs!

Again a complete save (Disaster recovery), manual removal of all contribs, and reboot the SME (VM) with a SME8-B6 ISO image on ESXi. The update took about an hour. (OK, the SME server stores about 200 GB of data / mails / user-profiles and has 250 GB disk allocated...).

Most contribs have already been added and run as expected - eGroupware is still at the 1.4 version from SME7. That will be updated to a more current version - as one of the main reasons for doing this update!
The only prob so far is AWstats, but my mistake, I loaded the wrong AWstats version. Will be corrected this evening...

But: 25 users still logging on to SME as Windows PDC (not using LDAPauth yet...), the SID is still correct, and roving profiles still working great, mail and web running as expected...

Great Job guys!!!

I'd like to give more feedback & specific, but where???

Thanks!

Andy Wismer

[brianr]

Interesting stuff Andy.  One question - the WD Green hard drives - the last time I tried them they worked horribly slowly because they are based on a 4mb block (cluster? - not sure here) size and Linux etc still expects 512kb.

Did you have to format them specially, or are the problems gone.  I ask 'cos I've got 4 x 1.5tb drives sitting on my shelf unused.

[andy_wismer]

Hi Brian
I'm using WD 1TB Drives in this case, 2 drives, connected to promise or adaptec SATA controllers.
SME is doing the mirroring.

I only use WD Green disks for backups, either as 3rd (4th) disks in an existing Server, or As system Disks in a dedicated Backup Server, usually also Running SME.

If I copy a Large file (>1TB), the CPU goes to well over 200, 300...
The copy goes through with an Average of 10 MB/sec... Slow...

Using These Disks As system Disk in a produktive system is not practicable, it's Simple too slow and occasionally Even Appears to block.

But for pure Backup? Large Volume, but speed non critical?

It Works fine.

Formatted normally under Linux, sometimes As LVM, but mostly As MD...

A friend built a Openfiler NAS with >6 TB for Video storage.
It isnt fast, but As only One user accesses it, so what?

My 2 Cents

Andy

[brianr]

thanks, Andy, confirms the ongoing problem with those discs -  I think they are going to stay on my shelf for now!!

[andy_wismer]

Hi Brian

Sorry for my excessive use of caps in my earlier post - was "On the road" and my iPad (Set to German) likes to correct my english!

I've got a couple of 1TB WD greens still boxed on my shelf awaiting spare time they can be built in my personal server as backup-disks. This "server" (Compaq W6000 with 4-Port Promise SATA controller, 1 GB RAM) has two 500 GB Disks (24*7 server disks) as primary storage in my Lab, and an additional 500 GB WD Green as backup / image / iso space.

I want to enlarge that to 1 TB (RAID1) instead of a single disk.

For Acronis Images, ISO Images and a backup copy of my personal MP3 collection, they provide enough space, don't eat up too much power (even though always running) and are fairly quiet. So WD Green fits the bill here!

Mixing up different disks (WD Green and something else) gives slightly better performance, but still not really usable for a file server.

Andy