[K12OSN] hard drive SCSI vs IDE-opinions

Mike Lichtenwalner mll at mtwp.net
Wed Dec 21 16:55:26 UTC 2005


cisna-barry at wc235.k12.il.us wrote:
> This school year I set up,,our own mail server (
> Postfix/Dovecot/Squirrelmail/amavisd/clamav),, [works like a charm].. and
> now that we have all staff members using it,we are running into the
> following scenario.
> The three secretaries mass email out dailey announcements( about 350
> users). So,, after they mass email it pulls down the email server for
> almost 10 mins.to were it is unaccessable.So hence as soon as this
> happens,,,phone rings>>"email is down yada,,yada".

I had a similar problem. Our environment is qmail, amavisd, ClamAV, 
Courier-IMAP, and IMP with nearly 700 users. The solution to the SMTP 
scanning slowdown was to leave qmail, amavisd and ClamAV on the existing 
server and install Courier-IMAP and IMP on a new server. Home 
directories are located on the new server for fast IMAP access and they 
are NFS mounted to the SMTP server so that it can make local deliveries.

The "illusion" that makes this work is that even if scanning is slow, 
people can still access their messages because they are using IMAP on a 
different server. The only slowness a user will see is message delivery 
won't be instantaneous during the mass mailings. (We've always used SCSI 
disks on mail servers, so I can't comment about speed increases by 
switching disks.)


> What will I be up against if ( over xmas vacation)if  i merelry recable
> the HD's to the SCSI interface/enable onboard SCSI, and reboot the box.

I'm not a hardware expert, but I'm pretty sure that SCSI disks and IDE 
disks have completely different interfaces. To attach a disk to a SCSI 
controller, you would need to purchase a SCSI disk - an IDE disk won't work.

Mike
_________________________________
Mike Lichtenwalner
Technology Specialist
Manheim Township School District
Lancaster, PA




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