Web Server setup- CentOS 5.2 64-bit
 

I just recieved my new Dell 1950III
specs are
PowerEdge 1950 III Rack Server:
2x Quad Core Intel Xeon E5410, 2x6MB Cache, 2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB
4 GB FB-DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz Dual Ranked (4 DIMMs)
2x 146 GB SAS Hard Drive 3.5(15K RPM)
1 PERC6i SAS RAID Controller, 2x4 Connectors, Int, PCIe, 256MB Cache

My original plan was to use raid 0 with running offsite backups, but after a little research, i think this may not be the way to go. The primary use for this server is hosting open source dev websites, primarily phpbb and integramod. Both make heavy use of php/mysql.

My question is what is the best setup for this type of server and and what is the best performing hd partition scheme?
The server will run Centos64-bit. I currently have a CPanel license, but Im looking at possibly running DTC for this server.
(gplhost.com/software-dtc.html)
Any insight is appreciated

Are you doing generic shared hosting but aiming more at the forum side of things?

Anyways, you have got fast speed components but I don't think you need them, I think having gone for much larger HDDs at slower speeds may have been a better option since unless you have very very active forums... you aren't going to need it, and if you did have forums that active, it'd probably be at the point you'd want a separate database server for it... however that'd require a bit more management I suppose. As for Raid-0... I don't advise it on web servers... it increases the potential of hard drive failure and on top of that, if on disk fails, all the data on the other disk is also useless. Instead I'd advise raid-1, so if one drive fails,, you can remove it, place in a new drive and the server comes back up quickly while rebuilding the raid array at the same time. In the raid-0 case, you have to reinstall the entire OS on the server and then upload back all the back-ups. Don't get me wrong, you would likely still want to do back-ups offsite but raid-1 just gives you a much better dependability.

Saying this however, performance wise, raid 0 is better then 1. Raid 5 would be more ideal but as I have dealt with 1950s, I know you can only have two 3.5 inch HDDs so raid 5 isn't possible in that situtation. Also with Raid 1 and raid 5 you lose a HDD to reduncancy, raid 0 you don't as everything is in an unmirrored stripe. Given you only have 146GB HDDs, that'd be a bit of a limit for a webserver to be running raid 1 but it's doable.

As a note, if you are sending this off to a datacenter after buying it yourself, I'd be careful, a Dell 1950 can easily run over an ampage of power usage, a lot of datacenter's that'd be more then the standard power allotment for a 1U package, Just as a warning, you might get extra charges for the power usage.

thank you for the reply, I never thought of the power use. Most of the co-host offers I received stated 1 amp. I did decide to use raid 1 just for peace of mind. with 15k rpm drives im already faster than my current dedicated box's 7200's. I am also considering hosting it at my home since I just got a FIOS 20m/20m fiber connection to my house. Two of my current sites are software dev site which are incredibly busy and offer downloads ranging from 3 to 30 megs. Do you think this type of connection will support a busy server? There are a total of 9 cpanel accounts, but only 3 of them use substantial resources.
I opted for overkill in the hardware department because all my sites use alot of mysql and one of them in particular can cause my current P3 2.8 to redline and I wanted the additional headroom to host a few more accounts without having to place restrictions on anyone.

You got a fair amount of upload, generally as you may know, upload is what servers generally need, not many servers are download based, minus a network admin's warez boxes that is.

If you got that much activity on the hard drives from just mysql, it might be an idea to get a seperate database server running raid-5, speed of raid 0 with the redundancy of raid 1. Does need three hard drives tho... However, up to you how you want to do it. Generally it's best to stick to what you know, I see people make mistakes and annoy customers because they try things with their production or live equipment.