Need help with server replacement options

[mukz]

Dell do a Full Storage spaces solutions with 2 x R740xd and Network Architecture to go with.

They do full Flash array or a 2ssd caching solution.

 

This is easily achievable in your budget.

They told me the basic spec which is equivalent to your option 1 is roughly 24k

[browolf]

It almost worth asking the companies to all come back with designs based on storage spaces direct.

I would also be tempted to go down to two DC two file servers for the whole network and put print on a separate machine.

 

 

I'm doing that. I was thinking of 3x s2d servers with about 3.5TB on each one and the best drives we can get from the SAN savings.

Maybe 128GB of memory each.

Don't know about processors though.

[browolf]

a lot cheaper and easier for smaller setups)

 

#2 I'd wipe off as the 7.2k drives are pretty poor in all regards for a main server.

 

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On closer inspection I've discovered they are Western Digital Gold Datacenter drives Sata3 6Gbs 128MB Cache

 

and option 2 is actually a s2d solution.

[MartinT]

I'll second buying Dell servers on the used market. Bought two R730 like that at half the new educational price. Put some fast SAS drives in it, bring all firmware up to date and you have servers that will be reliable and last a long time.

[mavhc]

As soon as you get to the point where you need >1 server the calculation changes a lot between "I want new, with a warranty, so they'll fix it in 24 hours" to "I want cheap, if one fails we can just run on n-1 for a while", it's like you're a tiny tiny google

[nicholab]

As soon as you get to the point where you need >1 server the calculation changes a lot between "I want new, with a warranty, so they'll fix it in 24 hours" to "I want cheap, if one fails we can just run on n-1 for a while", it's like you're a tiny tiny google

 

This is the wonder of Storage Spaces Direct you can run you own software defined server room. Software defined server room = edugeeker version of the Software defined data centre.

[mavhc]

Right, don't need SAN etc to do what should have been a software thing in the first place, SAN is just another single computer that might fail, and also forces you to buy expensive drives