[squid-users] Recommended Configuration?

From: Bill Arlofski <waa@dont-contact.us>
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 13:33:18 -0500

A co-worker and I are in the early stages of planning and implementing a Squid cache server. In the past, with some clients, I generally took what hardware (and drive space) was available and made use of it without much regard to performance tuning etc. (ie: customer said "here's what I have... make it a Squid cache server" <grin>) I'd rather not do that in this case,and so here I am asking for some thoughts based on our system needs.

Our network is connected to the Internet with a single T1. We support about 550 students and 250 faculty/staff. The students have network/Internet connectivity from their dorms, and many of the faculty do as well.

My preference is to set up Squid on a Linux/Intel based server since I am very familiar with this type of a configuration. My question is, with the above network user base to support, what would be a good starting point for an Intel/Linux based Squid proxy caching server?

Processor Speed?
Memory Size?
Should we bother considering mulit-link trunking (bonding) two 100Mbps ethernet connections to the switch, or is that just plain silly?

Also, regarding the cache volume:
What is a reasonable size?
RAID 1, or RAID 5? Seems like RAID 1 is the way to go for speed. Or maybe a RAID 1+0 for speed and redundancy.
Can I get away with software-based RAID, or should we not play games and go for a hardware raid solution?

Did I miss anything?

Thanks in advance.

---
Bill Arlofski
Unix/Novell Systems Administrator
The Hotchkiss School
waa@hotchkiss.org
860-435-3140
Received on Mon Nov 05 2001 - 11:34:36 MST

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