Replace or Upgrade?

[marsdenprimary]

Hello! Replace or Upgrade:


DELL Poweredge 2900

2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5110 @ 1.60GHz;Model 15 Stepping 6;1400 mV

4Gb RAM

5 hot swap SAS Drives @ 146Gb per drive

RAID 5

Ultrium Tape Drive (SCSI)

Windows server 2003

Many thanks,
Jay
xxx

[FN-GM]

It will be soon out of warranty so i would replace.

[marsdenprimary]

It will be soon out of warranty so i would replace.

[EDIT] Warranty runs out in 2013...

[FN-GM]

my applogies, i thought the 2900's where all nearly out.

What is the server doing? I would upgrade the OS, thats for certain.

[marsdenprimary]

my applogies, i thought the 2900's where all nearly out.

What is the server doing? I would upgrade the OS, thats for certain.

Sorry my bad- it's 2013. It's about to get hit with just short of 200 devices and seems to be running slower than i'd like... plus we have a whole network of Windows 7 machines now all trying to run with server 2003.

[FN-GM]

Sorry my bad- it's 2013. It's about to get hit with just short of 200 devices and seems to be running slower than i'd like... plus we have a whole network of Windows 7 machines now all trying to run with server 2003.

Ah 2013 (kind of glad i was right ha ha) with that point alone i would replace.

What does the server do? What services do you have?

[marsdenprimary]

Ah 2013 (kind of glad i was right ha ha) with that point alone i would replace.

What does the server do? What services do you have?

Haha! Knowledge points are always satisfying Good man!

The server acts as admin and curriculum basically serving the admin side of things with SIMS etc..., acting as a file server for staff and pupils. Domain controller, DHCP server.

[elsiegee40]

I'd demote it to file server and get yourself a new one with 2008 on it to do the donkey work

[marsdenprimary]

I'd demote it to file server and get yourself a new one with 2008 on it to do the donkey work

Sounds like a plan! I'm not the best at implementing stuff like that though... the spec i've been getting for a new server is 2 x quadcore, 16gb RAM, 2 SAS drives for OS and 4 x 1Tb drives using RAID 5. Think the Tb drives would be needed? Sorry to sound like a noob...but i am a bit! When you say 'deomted to file server' what would the new server be doing vs the old one? Would i need to change much on the old server?

[elsiegee40]

I'm using demoted in the loosest sense, what I really meant is take away the stuff that stresses it.

We were a 1 server shop - 2003 R2. A couple of years back, with help, we got a nice new 2008 server and promoted that to DC as well. Almost everything was moved onto the new server apart from the Admin File Share and the Apps Share. WSUS stayed on the old server, Symantec (had to get a new version for 2008 anyway) went on the new and so on...
@chrbb has done it more recently and should be able to give you the spec of her new server. PM her if she's not about.

[FN-GM]

If you do decide to put drives in make sure you use SAS not SATA. on a file server it will cause a bottleneck.