🚀 go-pugleaf

Tod McQuillin <tm8t+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

>We're running a NeXT cube (68040/25Mhz) with 2.5 GB of disk serving 50
>NFS clients or so.  We're considering upgrading the server with a
>Turbo board (68040/33Mhz).

>My question is, with such a configuration, is upgrading to a Turbo
>likely to help?  It's quite possible that the machine is disk-bound,
>in which case increasing the CPU speed won't significantly help.

>Any comments?

Do a ps auxw on the machine when it is most loaded down!  The nfsd's
should be at the top.  On most of our servers, the 4 nfsd's use
around 9% of CPU each when about 90 machines are accessing that
server.  The bottleneck is probably network interface and disk i/o.
Too bad there is no cache like Prestoserve available for NeXTs. (at
least not that I know of)
Also do an 'uptime' when heavy usage.  If you see load averages
around 1.5-2.0 from just 'server-ish' duties, then you might want to
upgrade the machine.  I doubt you will get that kind of usage
though. (unless it's your netinfo server too)
To monitor network traffic, say 'netstat 1' or so... it will give
you a packet report each second.  Total numbers around 200 in and
out is close to peak.  This is not an exact count, I'm no expert on
this subject but I have been told that this isn't the way to check
your network.  
-- 
David Lemson                                                (217) 244-1205
University of Illinois NeXT Campus Consultant / CCSO NeXT Lab System Admin
Internet : lemson@uiuc.edu                UUCP :...!uiucuxc!uiucux1!lemson 
NeXTMail & MIME accepted                           BITNET : LEMSON@UIUCVMD