Re: [gentoo-server] Corporate Mail server HARDWARE question

[Patrick Lauer]

On Mon, 2006-07-31 at 22:29 -0600, Kirktis wrote:
> 125 E-mail accounts is a rather negligible number.
Depends on the hardware and the users - if they are regularly pushing
multi-megabyte attachments you may need faster hardware than expected.
But for normal users a Pentium-2 200 would be fast enough (just don't
ask how I would know that)

> Processor type doesn't matter, but give it a decent amount of RAM
> (512; 1GB if you want to do decently-fast spam and AV filtering).
> Depending on if you plan to go POP or IMAP, I'd recommend doing
> something like a RAID1 array of 2 or 3 SATA hard drives;
with more than 2 drives I'd build a RAID5, but that's personal
preference. Linux software raid is fast enough ... If you add more
services put mail and rest on different disks if you can.

>  scale the size depending on how much mail you want to let people keep
> on the server. External USB drives work great for backups (read up on
> spare devices w/ RAID, if you can get a large enough external). I also
> like to have my servers send tarballs to each other, and have a
> central backup server, but that might be overkill for your situation.
External USB drives can fail in amazing ways :-) But I like your "backup
strategy"

> If you're looking at buying hardware, I'd recommend something like a
> Dell SC-series (1425 if you want rack-mounting, they're nice). I find
> they can do the hardware a lot more cost-effectively then anyone else
> (even building it) as long as you don't mind using strictly Intel
> processors.
Meh, if you build them yourself you can always be a lot cheaper and you
can customize for your needs - I'm building a fanless box for routing
purposes right now, nothing you could reasonably buy at these big
vendors. If you don't have the experience go find a small shop in your
area, they can offer better service. 

Building it myself saves ~30% compared to our "normal" shop, Dell would
be even more expensive.

> In my experience, I'd stay away from qmail for e-mail purposes, but
> hey, it's all about freedom.
Right. So most people will suggest postfix, then the usual weirdos jump
up and yell exim ... and then the boss reads the MS propaganda and
really needs an exchange server ;-)

-- 
Stand still, and let the rest of the universe move