Optimal HP-UX version for old servers

[Mihails Nikitins]

Hello,

Could you point to system requirements/ recommendations for HP-UX 11.00?

I am not sure if v. 11.00 is the best choice for old D230 systems with 128 MB RAM.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

[melvyn burnard · Accepted solution]

go read the release notes for 11.x and Installing and Updating HP-UX 11.x
available at:
http://docs/hp/com

There is a specific section listing requirements and supported systems in there.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi:

Since your only option for your D-box is the 32-bit version of 11x, I would go ahead and install 11.11. The memory requirements are not that much greater than with 10.20. The very first thing I would do is reduce max_dbc_percent or possibly set bufpages to a non-zero value for a fixed buffer cache. One other option is to purchase more memory for your D-box; you can get memory on the used market dirt cheap now or simply buy new 3rd-party memory at a fraction of the HP price.

[Alan Riggs]

I guess I will be the dissenting voice. In my experience, older boxes suffer a (fairly slight) performance degredation when moving from 10.20 to 11.0. I have not tried one with 11.11, but I see no reason to suspect that the trend has reversed. Now, if you really are not concerned about the performance of teh apps on that box (quite possible--most of our old D boxes are running legacy data or batch apps) then by all means go to 32--bit 11.11. If you have a box that is under load, though, and you don't want to push it closer to the edge, go with 10.20. At least until it goes out of support.

[John Bolene]

I would agree with 10.20 since the disk space needed for the OS is less also.

[Bill Hassell]

The D230 will perform about the same as it did in 10.20 with 11.0 (32 bit only)...and with only 129 megs, that would be defined as poorly. I have an E35 with 128 megs of RAM to use as a reference for small RAM systems. 128 megs of RAM is so small, that even though I run no Xwindows at all and start the character mode version of SAM, about a dozen pages of RAM must be swapped out in order to get SAM running.

Keep in mind that 10.20 users can use up to 3,750 megs of RAM and 11.0 64bit users start with 4,000 and with big databases, install 6,000 to 24,000 megs of RAM.

So 128 megs is not a problem as long as performance is not an issue. If the machine is running slow, it's because it has been crippled by the lack of adequate RAM.

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

The only problem I've had with 11.00 or 11i installation os disk space.

Performance has been less of a problem, even on E35 or 712s.

Later,
Bill

[harry d brown jr]

Doesn't a d230 make a good door stop? Just kidding ;-)

With 128mb of ram, I'd have to ask what you would use it for? 10.20 should be fine for most things, but 11 will work also.

live free or die
harry

[Bernie Vande Griend]

We have a D230 running fine on 11.11. There really isn't much performance difference that we can tell. However, if things are slow running 10.20 with 128MB of memory and you're seeing page outs occur, going to 11.11 won't help and will probably worsen the condition. But if its fine in 10.20 it should be fine with 11.11 also or 11.0 for that matter. I would base your decision on what applications you are running, what OS they are supported in, and how long you intend to use the D230. If they run fine and are supported in 10.20 and you won't need them forever, use 10.20. Eventually 10.20 won't be supported anymore, but I'd imagine your D230 won't be much use either.

[Mihails Nikitins]

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience! Since my applications did not eat resources under HP-UX 10.20 on the same hardware, I'll try to use v. 11.0.