Disk capacity for media rich system

Disk capacity for media rich system

by John Williams -
Number of replies: 5

Hi All,

I am just about to order a server to support our new moodle server.  Planning on 2 x quad core 16 Gb Mem Raid 1 for system / swap and Raid 5 for database / docs. 

We are a Grammar School so it will be 150 staff and 1200 students with max concurrent users about 300.

Will be using Ubuntu OR Enterprise Red Hat Linux.

BUT - not sure about total disk space needed.  We want media rich content - plenty of move clips, animation , graphics and sound - including a virtual language lab.

May split database on to a new server at some point.

Thanks in advance

John

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In reply to John Williams

Re: Disk capacity for media rich system

by Matt Gibson -

All my worksheets for AS and A2 psychology come to about 1.2GB without any media. If you multiply that by the number of courses you have it'll be a realistic no-media figure. Further than that, it really depends on your teachers. Most of the movie clips I use are on youtube so I just link to them. If you are using your own, what resolution? It will make a huge difference.

My best reccomendation is to find the department that is most keen on audio/video, find out how much audio and video they have in terms of hours and then find out how they intend to digitse or compress it so you know how many MB/hour you will get. This will give you a realistic estimate for how much space they will need that you can then multiply by the number of departments you have. For good measure, I would then be tempted to double it to take future expansion into account.

As for the server, RAID 10 is a better bet than RAID 5 if you can afford the extra disks. Also, whatever you do, avoid servers using software RAID and get ones with proper hardware RAID cards. This will save an enormous amount of hassle in case of disk failures etc.

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In reply to Matt Gibson

Re: Disk capacity for media rich system

by John Williams -

Thanks Matt,

I was thinking of a Tb or so for everything ?  Do you know what the split between database and moodledocs tends to be in a mature system ?

I read that one of the components ( mysql ) is unstable on 64 bit so would it be best to have the database on a separate 32 bit server ?

Thanks

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In reply to John Williams

Re: Disk capacity for media rich system

by Matt Gibson -
Ideally a separate server as you will get a faster site out of it (faster as in won't slow down under load rather than faster as in lower response times for one person using it) by sharing the load, but this is more expensive and more hassle. However, I think if you manage to fill 1 TB, then Moodle will have become so indispensable to your organisation that you will be able to hold them to ransom with the threat of it collapsing and get cash for any number of servers and support staff you like smile

I would second Tim's comments below about postgres, but I'm not sure about the file/database split as my site is not so large. I have at the moment about 80 courses, many not very big and our db is about 80MB, which is small. I'd imagine a busy site might have a DB of 2-3GB, but others with more experience will have to confirm that.

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In reply to Matt Gibson

Re: Disk capacity for media rich system

by Matt Gibson -
I should have added, I've just got 500GB in RAID 10 (4x 250GB) for our server upgrade, but would probably go for 1TB if anticipating a lot of media.
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In reply to Matt Gibson

Re: Disk capacity for media rich system

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
I would say that no matter how much disc space you buy, one day it will fill up, and you will need to add more. So why not accept that one day you will have to add more, and make sure that is possible. Also, later, hard drives will have got bigger and cheaper, so you will get more for less money.

Ah, no, I have just spotted the flaw with this. One day your whole server will be obsolete and need upgrading, and until you get to that time, it is better if you don't have to mess with the hardware, so it is sensible to estimate how much storage you will need over the lifetime of the server.

Also, if you are planning a big installation, consider using Postgres, which runs just fine on 64 bit.
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