Minimum specs for server 2008 R2? File share/Print/DHCP server.

[dany2010]

The hard drives are just cheapy samsung at the mo as we have been asked to look into solutions on a tight budget. When we get our final budge for this year we will probably get these changed if the money is there before we place the order.

I was looking into the software raid provided in server 2008 r2. Just doing a bit of research and from what i've read it sees the safer solution as it doesnt rely on hardware and people are saying that they have lost a bit of data because they cant recover the hardware raid. You can probably tell but i've only just come into IT out of Uni, real beginner.

What do you think of server software raid?

We have server 2008 r2 licences already that we will be using which is making things alot cheaper.

[glennda]

In this sort of instance I would say Hardware raid is a must - with 40 users using the device software raid won't be up to it i don't think - but i do use a linux one in my backup server (16 x 2tb drives in 2 8gb arrays). I have no experience of it under windows.

Hardware raid and software raid have similar risks - if one disk dies the other takes over and vice versa but the read/write performance of hardware raid is better as it has dedicated hardware to run the raid. Whereas when you are using software raid it will eat into the servers processing power and ram - if you want to use software raid i would say put in some more Ram.

[3s-gtech]

Tight budget is my thing with servers - I'll always try to push as far as I can with what's available. An example is one of my DCs - runs Sophos EC, AD, DNS. That's a Dell Poweredge with a couple of P3-S processors and 2GB of PC133 running S2K8, and it's absolutely fine in this role (low utilisation and runs well). Everything I have on 2K8 R2 has a minimum of 4GB of RAM, but for the number of connections and tasks you're doing you won't need mega specs. RAM is cheap, so get plenty - but look at the Opteron powered stuff in the budget end too, with a nice RAID card and some fast disks (7200rpm are fine, but SAS not SATA).

[Millgate]

"

I would say something along the lines of this HP ML150 G6 with an extra 6Gb ram (total 8 1 x 4gb 1 x 2gb) You can get away with Sata at that kind of load 2 x 2TB HDD's

Total from HP's site - £1761 which is probably £2/300 over what you should be paying - talk to @Millgate and i'm sure he can find it cheaper for you!

Thanks @glennda. I can do you a quote for these no worries. If you want to PM me your details, I'll fire you a quote across or if you have any other suggestions

Luke

[jamesfed]

One other thing to inject - are you a school or a business? If the latter then remember Windows Server OS licensing can be quite steep (at least compared to what we are getting).

I'd say look to spend about £900-£1100 on each server, budgets maybe tight however I wouldn't want to bet the successful running of my place of work on hard drives designed for desktop PCs.

A HP ML110 G7 with 8GB of RAM and 2x1TB drives (just use the fake HP hardware RAID in the server) and you should be around the £1000 mark (with no OS).

[Arthur]

I would say something along the lines of this HP ML150 G6 with an extra 6GB RAM (total 8GB: 1 x 4GB, 1 x 2GB)

HP recommends configuring this server with 2x4GB DIMMs for best performance. Any reason you went with 1x4GB + 2x2GB?



or 4x4GB for 16GB RAM.

[glennda]

HP recommends configuring this server with 2x4GB DIMMs for best performance. Any reason you went with 1x4GB + 2x2GB?



or 4x4GB for 16GB RAM.

Budget tightness and being cheapest option to get to 8.

[CyberNerd]

If you have such a tight budget you should really consider running DHCP, File and print sharing on linux.
The system requirements for DHCP/Samba are minimal - your budget is being spent on hosting the 2008R2 operating system.