jamin100 Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 (edited) I'm looking into setting up WSUS for the first time. I only have 2 servers as we are only a primary school The one server is the PDC and also holds all the home directories and profiles. The second is the admin server which handles CMIS and sophos etc.. Now, I don't really want to add wsus onto those servers as i think they are overloaded already and i know that ideally i shouldn't have user files on the same server as AD. So i want to know what spec server I need to handle WSUS. I have read the MS documentation that says a server with a 750mhz processor and 1 GIG RAM would do but those specs seem a bit low. Could anyone point me in the right direction. Also if you could recommend a cheap ish server to do the job then that would be great. Thanks More Info: Server1 - Curriculum Dual Xeon 3GHZ 2GB RAM Windows Server 2003 RAID 5 Running Active Directory DHCP DNS Ghost User Profiles User Directories Backup Exec - Tape Drive All Printers Print Manager Plus Server 2 - Admin Dual Xeon 3GHZ 2GB RAM Windows Server 2003 RAID 1 Running Sophos EM CMIS & EPortal Edited March 20, 2008 by jamin100
Pete10141748 Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 Ether of those 2 servers are more than capable of running the WSUS. We have a similar server to your server #1, it runs DNS/DHCP/File storage and WSUS, all works perfectly. You'll need around 50-100GB of your HDD memory free to do it though )
jamin100 Posted March 20, 2008 Author Posted March 20, 2008 Admin server 160GB Free Curriculum Server 152GB Free I might look into it over the holiday
ricki Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 Hi I had a similar problem and I purchased a stone tower pc with a sata raid card and 4 drives. I install wsus and sohos and it works a treat. Give them a ring on 01785285648 and talk to them they will make one to your spec if you want, or have a look at something like a Dell PowerEdge™ SC440. If all you want it for a a wsus box you dont have to have it sing and dance. Remeber if you want it to do other things paying a bit more now could save you money in the long run.
KarlGoddard Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 we have wsus running on a Virtual machine! if I remember right the reason was.... ages ago we used to have sus on a 'normal' server and sus started to encounter quite a few probs. The previous IT manager spent ages looking at fixes to sort the problem, ended up speaking to MS who told him - ohhh you'll have to reinstall 2003!!!! Not something you really want to do on a live server at the best of times, so it went on a virtual machine and works pretty well for us! Not to certain off the top of my head of the set up, but I can check and let you know if that's of any help
cookie_monster Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 (edited) Untill recently we had a 1Ghz box with 1Gb RAM running 2003 server, this was an intranet server, hosted 18 laser printers and was the WSUS server for 450 clients. It coped with that load no problem in fact i never noticed it running slow, it deployed updates for 2K, XP, 2003, Office 2003 and SQL Server and it used about 14 Gig disk space for all of that. I should add that we didn't deploy OS SP's from it as our base build images were on the latest SP but we did have Office SP's. Any server that you buy now will easily handle the load in fact you could put it on an old workstation, if it goes wrong you can just reinstall and it downloads updates again WSUS doesn't really hold any critical data. Edited March 20, 2008 by cookie_monster
jamin100 Posted March 20, 2008 Author Posted March 20, 2008 Ok, Thanks for that info guys. So how easy is it to set up? Never had to install Windows server before. That'll go on easy enough.. do i then just join it to the domain like any other XP machine?
timzim Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 Never had to install Windows server before ...and once BSF comes along you'll never get the chance again...
jamin100 Posted March 20, 2008 Author Posted March 20, 2008 lol... yeh so i need some practice now . . . . . Not heard anything about BSF for Primary's in Birmingham yet.. Well not at my school anyway.
cookie_monster Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 Windows server is pretty straight forward, WSUS is a bit more complicated i'd get a copy of the deployment guide and have a read. You feeling the heat of BSF timzim?
timzim Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 London ICT Technicians Conference left me feeling a little cynical. I went to a bookshop straight after and bought a copy of Brave New World...
jamin100 Posted March 20, 2008 Author Posted March 20, 2008 Windows server is pretty straight forward, WSUS is a bit more complicated i'd get a copy of the deployment guide and have a read. Reading it now
Dos_Box Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 I have mine running off Microsoft's Virtual Server from my SAN (the update store is on a separate virtual HD hosted in a different folder on the SAN). Works a treat and can be killed and brought in from backup at a moments notice if it ever goes belly up.
powdarrmonkey Posted March 21, 2008 Posted March 21, 2008 You can get away with quite a modest machine, but don't compromise on the hard drive space. Whenever I set one up I add a seperate 160Gb drive to store the updates on. Then if (when) it fills up, it doesn't bring the rest of the machine down as well. When you've installed Windows join it to the domain as a member server just as you would a workstation. WSUS setup is dead easy, just follow the prompts. Configure the clients to see it through Group Policy. Unless they're critical, and they'll usually announce so, MS release updates on a Tuesday, so you don't need to have it check every day. If you're going to force users to install the updates ('Download and install at this time of day' I think in GP) I'd do so at lunchtime, because it often means a reboot. You'll hack off less people that way. If you set them to do it out of hours you'll probably find a lot are switched off. Bon chance.
mattx Posted March 21, 2008 Posted March 21, 2008 Quite a low spec my WSUS server - [ which is also running as a Domain Ctrl & Wildfire box ] Old IBM netfinity server bought of E-bay for about £100 !! Single P3 500, 2x32 Gig drives mirrored on a IBM Raidcard, 2 gig Ram Bargin !!
ICT_GUY Posted March 21, 2008 Posted March 21, 2008 Our second domain controller does proxy intranet wsus ghost nod32 backup nas storage. cache websites (not proxy, full download) Spec is 1.4 athlon, 768 megs ram, 74 gig raptor had with proper adaptec sata fontroller plus a gigabit nic oh and a cheap 250gig hd. Works fine with 55 clients, even ghost performance is ok.
Michael Posted March 21, 2008 Posted March 21, 2008 Looking at your server specs jamin100, I would install WSUS 3.0 onto your second server. It's running less services, but it also has slightly more disk space. WSUS is memory and hard disk hungry and not so much CPU intensive. The only tip I can offer to cut down on disk space is don't install Service Packs using WSUS. Also, WSUS 3.0 has a Cleanup tool which I'd recommend you run every few months. Something WSUS 2.0 greatly lacked!
James2k Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 HP DL380 Dual Quad Core Zeon 2Ghz 4Gb Ram 4x146Gb HDDs Run's ... Sophos Em 3 Ghost Spiceworks Netsupport Run's Quite well.. I know the server is a little over kill but it is servicing 300+ machines.
steveg Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Ebuyer are doing an Hp proliant ML110 dual core xeon 2.3ghz, 1gb ram, 250gb disk and 3 year nbd warranty for £175 at the moment, assuming your not updating thousands of clients i'm sure that should do what you want. Obvoiusly will need a copy of 2k3 installing. Steve
jamin100 Posted March 26, 2008 Author Posted March 26, 2008 Ebuyer are doing an Hp proliant ML110 dual core xeon 2.3ghz, 1gb ram, 250gb disk and 3 year nbd warranty for £175 at the moment, assuming your not updating thousands of clients i'm sure that should do what you want. Obvoiusly will need a copy of 2k3 installing. Steve Would be updating no more than 120 clients. That looks like a good spec machine, I need one that will run Policy Central on it too. So £175 looks good. + the £400 for server 2k3
cookie_monster Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 + the £400 for server 2k3 Are you an educational org? If so then server 2003 should be around £50
jamin100 Posted March 28, 2008 Author Posted March 28, 2008 + the £400 for server 2k3 Are you an educational org? If so then server 2003 should be around £50 Yeh were a primary school. Could you point me in the right direction of the server 2003 i should be buying then? On dabs all the academic ones i find are confusing the hell outta me! Thanks
john Posted March 30, 2008 Posted March 30, 2008 I got one of them from Serversdirect.co.uk with free double HDD and Double Ram for £149, bargin
chrbb Posted March 30, 2008 Posted March 30, 2008 If you set up a wsus on a seperate server that runs only wsus do you need to buy new cals?
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