I'd second Brian's remarks in that you need to concentrate on I/O.  Within
the I/O realm you need to analyze:
1) Network (a few GigE I assume, but will you trunk them?  Run them
independantly?)
2) Backplane / Slot performance limitations (Do you have enough slots for
the Gig E and SCSI controllers and does the backplane support the I/O they
will be passing?)
3) SCSI controllers / Drive layout (how many drives streaming will max out a
controller, and can the number of controllers required fit in your system)

I believe some GigE cards support more processing on-board vs. having the
system CPUs do the work which might be interesting for you...

-Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Chase" <vaxzilla AT jarai DOT org>
To: "Kramer, Dale" <Dale_Kramer AT steris DOT com>
Cc: "Veritas Users NetBackup (E-mail)" <veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT 
edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 11:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Media server requirements


> On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, Kramer, Dale wrote:
>
> > Are there guidelines for sizing a Unix media server?  We have a Sun
> > 3500 with 6 - 245mghz (or close) cpus and about 2 gig of memory.  We
> > plan on hooking up 6 drives to it.  I would think that a media server
> > is not CPU intensive but more memory intensive.
>
> More than anything, a media server will be I/O intensive.  Your CPU and
> memory requirements will, to some extent, be related to the flow of I/O
> through the system.  What type of drives are you connecting and what
> type of network connection will you be using to feed those drives?
>
> -brian.
>
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