SATA2 vs. SAS vs. SSD for 1-server, 2 xfs scripts & ap

FZee · Joined: 03 Mar 2010 Posts: 79

First of all I have 2 xeon servers:
Server1 - XFS, Site.com, Apache2, 200MBPS network (general file host), dl.cgi only (no direct links)
Server2 - XFS, Site2.com, Apache2, 100MBPS network (Audio-hosting), dl.cgi only (no direct links)

The problem is, Both servers "NEVER" exceed 20% of total CPU usage, and they never even exceed 4GB of ram each. In fact, according to SSH stats, ONLY the network is always the most used resource of each server.
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So I'm planning to 'merge' both XFS scripts in to ONE server only with 2 DISKS. But i have questions about Hard Disk drives

1. What do you recommend ? SSD/SAS/SATA2 ?
2. Experiences with disk failures ?
3. Recommended 2-Disk mode-->? 1main+1back-up or RAID (Mirror) ?

ankurs · Joined: 10 Mar 2009 Posts: 605

1. whatever your wallet allows
2. everything fails
3. 1main+1back-up

FZee · Joined: 03 Mar 2010 Posts: 79

#1. I always thought the disk does have an impact on I/O and network transfer times. Slow disk means slow downloads right ?

ankurs · Joined: 10 Mar 2009 Posts: 605

has impact on i/o , but doesn't mean slower network times; it depends how many different files are accessed

if you can afford 1$/gb storage pricing, go with ssd