Sawtooth vs. Presario for secondary file/light database server

[disconap]

Hey all--ok, we're setting up a secondary server at work. EVENTUALLY we will replace both servers with my production G5 when I upgrade; in the meantime we want to dedicate our current Sawtooth server to mail and various in-house project management software, and set up a secondary server. The idea is to spend no money whatsoever and just use parts we have around the office; we have the routers and gigabit cards and drives/port mulipliers/etc, so here's where the questions come in: what is the most efficient set-up? Here are the options:

PPC G4 Sawtooth, 450mHz, 1.5gb RAM
or
Compaq Presario, Celeron 2.6gHz, 512mb RAM

And for the OS:
OpenBsd 4.3 (either machine) or
Ubuntu 9.10 server (either machine) or
OSX 10.4.11 (obviously Mac only, with some added goodies)

Server uses:
In-house file archival/active use (non-media mostly)
Some light MySQL work (streamed)
Remote access

Thoughts?

 

[goMac]

Add some more RAM, and the Celeron would be the better option.

 

[disconap]

The idea is to spend zero dollars though, and we don't have compatible spare ram laying around, so basically just trying to figure out if the G4 architecture and increased RAM will be more advantageous for filesharing than the Celeron 2.6gHz with the far inferior RAM.

I'm going to set up the Sawtooth with the parts I have and go from there. It seems to me that the RAM and the advantages of Altivec may win over the limited RAM and cheap structure of the Celeron, plus the ability to just use filesharing and utilities in Tiger make it the better choice. If it runs kinda slow I'll look into other options, unless someone on here thinks going with another OS or the Celeron tower makes more sense.

 

[goMac]

The idea is to spend zero dollars though, and we don't have compatible spare ram laying around, so basically just trying to figure out if the G4 architecture and increased RAM will be more advantageous for filesharing than the Celeron 2.6gHz with the far inferior RAM.

I'm going to set up the Sawtooth with the parts I have and go from there. It seems to me that the RAM and the advantages of Altivec may win over the limited RAM and cheap structure of the Celeron, plus the ability to just use filesharing and utilities in Tiger make it the better choice. If it runs kinda slow I'll look into other options, unless someone on here thinks going with another OS or the Celeron tower makes more sense.

I really doubt it. Altivec would not be enough to close the app, and none of the stuff you're talking about doing can take advantage of Altivec. Altivec is not just a general speed enhancement.

Even without the RAM, the Celeron running Linux would likely blow the G4 out of the water.

 

[disconap]

I really doubt it. Altivec would not be enough to close the app, and none of the stuff you're talking about doing can take advantage of Altivec. Altivec is not just a general speed enhancement.

Even without the RAM, the Celeron running Linux would likely blow the G4 out of the water.

My understanding of altivec was that it dealt with 128-bit registries in varied combinations of 8, 16, 24, etc. floating point variables. Which I was led to believe meant, essentially, that the processor could handle more low level processes at the same time, which for a server seems to be better than being higher powered but narrower. But again, I'm more a software guy, so it's quite possible I'm wrong on all the above.

At any rate, I went with the Sawtooth also so that I can clone out the harddrive when I replace it with my G5 in the next 6-12 months.