new server spec

[david12345]

Hi what do you think of the following for a new curriculum (no sims etc)domain server spec for a 130 user -generated 150Gb data in last 3 year-school with 40 PCs on XP?
most apps run from local programs on PCs.

PE 1900 Quad Core Xeon E5345 (2.33GHz, 2x4MB, 1333MHz FSB)
4GB (4x1GB Dual Rank DIMMs) 667MHz FBD 1 S
Second Processor Not Included 1 S
500GB Near-Line SAS 7.2k 3.5" HD Non Hot Plug 3 S (ie 3x500GB)
PERC 5/i integrated RAID Controller Card, 256MB cache, battery backup 1 S
CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive 1 S
(*can't seem to get a DVD writer on server)
PV LTO-3-060 400GB Internal 39320A SCSI Card Internal Cable 60MB/s 1 S
Broadcom TCP/IP Offload Engine (1P TOE) Ready 1 S
Windows Server® 2008
PE1900 Open Manage CD + Drivers 1 S
You have chosen not to take the Dell PowerEdge installation service 1 S
C7 ASS R5 PERC5/i Controller Min. 3 Max. 6 Drives 1 S
PowerEdge Order - United Kingdom 1 S
thanks
David

[FN-GM]

Looks good to me, i doubt you will need a DVD RW

[john]

Yeh looks fine to me Don't forget a UPS to go with it if you haven't already got one

[sammy]

Hi David,

Spec seems fine, processors definitely well upto spec for 130 users...in reality you wont get 130 users all throwing login requests at the same time....im guessing a couple of classrooms might login at the same time...so spec is more then fine.

You have chosen 3 x 500gb, which im guessing you will do a Raid5 on giving you an approximate usuable 1tb of raid5 space....this will be massive overkill for a domain controller, but if you need the space then fine. Personally for a domain controller i would not choose 7.5k SAS or SATA disks, i would go for minimum 10k or 15k drives.

I always recommend HP DL360g5 1u servers for domain controllers...they are simple, extremely robust, powerful, redundant and have given all my clients wonderful service over many years. You will also definitely be able to get a DVD Writer if you want it becuase alot of my clients request those when they buy DL360 servers.

Good luck

[Butuz]

The SATA 500GB hard drives are your weak link because despite being big, they are slow and unreliable. The rest of the server spec is great - but the hard drives will become a bottleneck at some point in the future. I would reccomend if you can afford the extra you go for 4 x 300GB 15,000RPM SAS drives including hot spare - so you will actually only have 600GB of usable space, but you will have much more speed and also if one drive does fail the hot spare will automatically take over.

[david12345]

Thanks. What about the amount of RAM? With 2GB standard in home PCs and 3 & 4 GB becoming more common in these, how long will 4GB be considered sufficient in a server like this? And considering Win server 2008?
David

[Sylv3r]

I would think 8GB minimum unless you have more money to play with then look at getting even more.

[ashok]

Originally Posted by Sylv3r

I would think 8GB minimum unless you have more money to play with then look at getting even more.

Of course to utilise the 8Gb ram you need an OS that is 64 bit so windows server 2003 64bit or 2008 64 bit would do here.

Ash.

[CyberNerd]

Originally Posted by Sylv3r

I would think 8GB minimum unless you have more money to play with then look at getting even more.

yes, I'm sure new versions of windows will require 8GB RAM to be fileserver/domain controllers given the current state of Vista.

Meanwhile we service 1800 user accounts on a machine a fraction of that specification with no problems whatsoever.

[sammy]

Originally Posted by ashok

Of course to utilise the 8Gb ram you need an OS that is 64 bit so windows server 2003 64bit or 2008 64 bit would do here.
Ash.

Agreed you will need an Enterprise OS to use more then 4gb which is what Standard OS versions are limited to. 8Gb is what you should aim for based on it being quite cheap now, and more if you have other uses for this server, such as if it is likely to be recommisioned in the future to take on Virtualisation role etc.

[FN-GM]

Originally Posted by sammy

Agreed you will need an Enterprise OS to use more then 4gb which is what Standard OS versions are limited to. 8Gb is what you should aim for based on it being quite cheap now, and more if you have other uses for this server, such as if it is likely to be recommisioned in the future to take on Virtualisation role etc.

You will need a 64 bit version. We have a few servers with 8GB ram running Server 2003 Standard x64 and it sees all the ram. The 64 bit standard version will be fine.