Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller

[techie08]

Hi

What hardware spec does anyone recomend for a 2008 R2 domain controller? Im current looking to upgrade my 2 old 2003 DCs onto new servers and im wondering what processor to go for, how much RAM,what hard disk size, amount and in what RAID config.

Many Thanks

[tmcd35]

Will they have any other roles? or are they just purely DC's? DC's themselves don't need a lot a grunt. Single core cpu, couple of gigs and a basic 80ish GIG RAID-1 will do it, and most of that is just to keep the OS ticking over, not for the actual DC job itself. If they are also file servers, DNS, DHCP, etc, etc then maybe you'd want a bit more power.

[techie08]

They will be Just DCs, Thanks for your help.

[Duke]

Single core cpu, couple of gigs and a basic 80ish GIG RAID-1 will do it

I doubt you'll manage to get a 'server' with a single core these days, but even so I think it's worth recommending a dual-core CPU anyway, just because there will always be some kind of background application (antivirus, etc) working away, and keeping one core free for the DC duties if your AV decides to lock up is always nice.

[Arthur]

Even quad core processors are cheap enough these days to consider them over dual cores. What's your budget for the new servers?

[PeteHopton]

I'd go for a server with a socket 1156 based quad core Xeon, they're low cost, very pokey and very energy efficient. I'd only bother with RAID if you buy a server with a hardware RAID controller, as the software RAID controllers (intel ICH9R ICH10R or NVRAID) tend to fail more than disks and get very messy. It's usually a £80 option to have an LSI controller onboard.
I'd also consider an IPMI 2.0 interface so you can remote into the server from out of the office and get full power on/off, hardware fault monitoring and KVM control.
RAM, I'd say 4GB of DDR3 ECC REG dimms.
I wouldn't bother with redundant power as these days PSU's are much more relaible then they used to be, redundant PSU's use 20%+ more power BTW.

We just won a tender to supply servers of this sort of spec to Gateshead LA schools, we won the proposal on the value/performance, so I'm pretty sure it's up to the job.

[mrbios]

You can't really go wrong with a HP DL320 HP ProLiant DL320 G6 Server series Small & Medium Business

DL320G6 with 2x80GB drives setup in RAID1 and your sorted

If you ever plan to virtualise everything then get the best you can, then you never know you may end up being able to use it as a host server

EDIT: even the DL360G6 one thats £1285 looks pretty damn good for the price! it's definately overkill for you needs but for the price it doesn't look too bad

[PeteHopton]

Agree's the HP DL320's are good pieces of kit, but the 1156 based Xeon's offer better bang per buck over the 1366 based models.

Xeon X3430 is 2.4GHz Quad Core
Xeon E5502 is 1.86GHz Dual core, similar price, more expensive motherboard

Unlike the previous generation both Xeons support fully ECC Reg RAM, the 5500 series are only really cost effective for dual quad core setups
BTW, AMD are doing well with a 6 core opteron in the Dual Processor arena that costs similar to the intel quad core offering, it's becoming really popular in cloud computing and virtualisation

HP probably do a machine based on the X3430 or the AMD.