advice needed on weather a new server is needed

[projector1]

we have a windows server 2003 that runs msde. This is our only server. MSDE is used for the av sophos enterprise manager, WSUS and our sims database. We have about 30 client pc's and 60 networked laptops. The msde has come to the stage where we are going to have to upgrade
it to microsoft sql server 2000. However i thought this would be a good time for us to add a member server that could run the av and wsus.

The server was ok when we were just running the database software. however since then i have installed wsus and sophos EC.
The sims database software that is installed on the client pc's has at times been giving users time out errors since the av went on. In the event viewer on the server sqlserver has logged that the number of concurrent connections has exceeded 8 thus expect reduced powerformance...... to time to go to the full blown sql!

what sort of machine would i need to cope with the av and wsus. we have a spare new
3ghz p4
machine with
1x160 sata drive
1x1000 nic would this do the trick or would you reccommend a "server based" pc
or would you recommend we buy a budget server



the current server spec is
intel xeon-A 2.4ghz
1gig ECC ram
2x 36 scsi hard drives
i am looking forward to setting up mu first production server!

[StewartKnight]

for doing the AV and WSUS, the 3Ghz is plenty. I'm running DHCP and Sophos on a 1Ghz machine, with a 100 nic, and not had any problems

[Norphy]

I would seriously suggest putting the SIMS database on another server. Its reasonable to assume that the SIMS database is the one that is most heavily hit while the AV and WSUS ones probably aren't so much.

At the moment we are running our AV solution (McAfee EPO), WSUS and Ghost on one server, an Athlon XP 2500+ with 1GB RAM. It runs fine. SIMS is on an entirely seperate server.

[CyberNerd]

If your having trouble with applications breaking each other, you could 'virtualise' on of the servers, provided the hardware spec is ok.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/