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New server for primary school advice please

ictgoodpractice

By ictgoodpractice
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ictgoodpractice

ictgoodpractice

Posted
Posted

We currently have an HP Gen 8, it is many years old.

 

What are primaries replacing with please? Our IT link are HP fans.

 

Sas hdd?

Ssd stuff?

 

We are a small rural primary. 40 laptops, 100 kids, 8 staff, all files on server, might change in future but no money for a leased line so internet quite slow.

 

New Ac wireless site wi fi

 

Thanks for any help offered :)

hallb15

hallb15

Posted
Posted

I've always been a fan of HP. We have an HP ML350p Gen 8. It's 5 years old so no plans to replace it for at least another two years yet.

What's wrong with yours that makes you want to replace it?

 

If you speak to a reputable supplier and tell them your requirements they should be able to suggest what spec you should consider to make sure you get the longest life out of it. Then post their suggestions on here for us to pick apart!

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BKGarry

BKGarry

Posted
Posted

One thing to look at is Microsoft Tiered Storage with Storage Spaces.

 

We have our hosts set up with 2 x 128gb SSDs (mirrored on RAID Card) for the OS, 2 x 512gb SSDs (Mirrored on RAID Again) then 4 x 2TB SATA HDDs (in RAID 5)

 

In windows we installed the OS on the 128gb SSD, we used a powershell command to declare the 512 as an SSD, then we put them with the other HDD drive into a tiered storage pool. It then uses that like a very very big SSHDD with your most used data (at block level) on the SSD part and lesser used "cold" data on the HDD. We have been running this for 4 years with no issue. Combined with Data Deduplication for the VHDs in the the hyperV side, it works very very nicely

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sparkeh

sparkeh

Posted
Posted

@ictgoodpractice May I ask what the issues are with the server that is making you want to replace?

 

If you do want to replace then, personally, I would work with a trusted company to design a suitable system for your requirements. In the past I had worked with both @Haptic and @VeryPC to design a suitable servers for primaries and there are plenty of other trusted companies on here that get recommended (eg @ICTDirect_Dave and Stone), and others that people can add to.

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ICTDirect_Dave

ICTDirect_Dave

Posted
Posted

I'd suggest that HP Gen 8 machines are still more than adequate for primaries and secondary schools.

I'm currently selling Gen 8 kit with 3 year warranties as the stuff is just so damned reliable that I hardly ever have to fix anything!

 

May I ask what model of Gen 8 you have?

 

It may be that the cheapest and most effective path here would be to upgrade your existing server with superior CPU, more RAM and some SSDs.

You're certainly 2-3 years from actually needing to swap one of these out.

 

However, if you did want something newer, then £1500 from us gets you HP Gen 9, 24 Cores/48 threads, 192GB DDR4 Memory, 12TB Storage and a shiny 3 year warranty :D

  • Thanks 4
XiJ

XiJ

Posted
Posted
As a lot of replies, Gen 8 machines are still more than capable. I’d also ways go for an SSD boot / VM device. Sata is fine for file storage imo.
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DrBeaker

DrBeaker

Posted
Posted (edited)

Whatever you go for....

 

- RAID 1 for OS

- RAID 5/10 for Data

- Are you using any virtualisation at all?

- Using AD?

 

- How many DCs do you have?

- How many IT support people?

- Dual/redundant PSUs

- Any UPS systems?

- If internet is slow I guess cloud systems are out of the question?

 

- What are you using for email?

Edited by DrBeaker
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ictgoodpractice

ictgoodpractice

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks for all the replies, really appreciate it, that is helpful. Yes upgrades to ssd, ram etc also an option. It is a single server School and it is doing everything.

 

Just throwing money at a project for couple of years, which could go towards a new up to date system is a bit of a concern. I see they are end of life 2021.

 

Getting quotes for both new and upgrading.

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DrBeaker

DrBeaker

Posted
Posted
Thanks for all the replies, really appreciate it, that is helpful. Yes upgrades to ssd, ram etc also an option. It is a single server School and it is doing everything.

 

Just throwing money at a project for couple of years, which could go towards a new up to date system is a bit of a concern. I see they are end of life 2021.

 

Getting quotes for both new and upgrading.

 

If possible virtualise everything - these days with how easy it is to do this, with the exception of special use-cases like specialist hardware it's just easier. Although saying that the risk with EVERYTHING being on one host is a fault that takes down that host, takes down everything unles you've got failover or can move the guests over to another VM like with vMotion.

 

Having 2x lower-specced servers is actually better than having 1x beefed-up server IMHO anyway, YMMV.

 

It might be worth looking for help from an MSP for this if resources are limited.

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ICTDirect_Dave

ICTDirect_Dave

Posted
Posted
If possible virtualise everything - these days with how easy it is to do this, with the exception of special use-cases like specialist hardware it's just easier. Although saying that the risk with EVERYTHING being on one host is a fault that takes down that host, takes down everything unles you've got failover or can move the guests over to another VM like with vMotion.

 

Having 2x lower-specced servers is actually better than having 1x beefed-up server IMHO anyway, YMMV.

 

It might be worth looking for help from an MSP for this if resources are limited.

 

Good suggestion here.

 

Maybe get a second Gen8 of similar spec and have it setup to fail over to that one should something happen to your main machine?

Will be pretty cheap and will give you some redundancy should things go wrong.

  • Thanks 1
mavhc

mavhc

Posted
Posted
Main problem with the HP servers seems to be installing drives (can't get any info on what drives I can buy that aren't overpriced HP ones, and do I need overpriced HP caddies too?), and booting from PCIE cards
ICTDirect_Dave

ICTDirect_Dave

Posted
Posted
Main problem with the HP servers seems to be installing drives (can't get any info on what drives I can buy that aren't overpriced HP ones, and do I need overpriced HP caddies too?), and booting from PCIE cards

Drives are simple, you can use pretty much anything, but you will need the HP OEM caddies. They spit their dummy out if you use a copy.

 

That said, we've got thousands of those in stock :)

mavhc

mavhc

Posted
Posted
Will SATA drives work in the standard slots? Can the raid card be set to not do raid, just passthrough, or do you have to make every drive a raid 0?
ICTDirect_Dave

ICTDirect_Dave

Posted
Posted

Yes, all slots on the backplane are SAS/SATA, so long as you have the HP caddy it'll play ball.

As for raid. You'll need to do something with the controller. whether that is set each drive up as an individual or raid a bunch together is up to you.

dhicks

dhicks

Posted
Posted
However For not much extra I've got some new 800GB Enterprise SSDs that would be pretty nice :)

 

@ICTDirect_Dave: - ooh, how not much extra? Are these 2.5" drives? We currently have a storage array on one server consisting of second-hand 2.5" laptop drives that could do with an upgrade, 800GB SSDs might be just the thing!

dhicks

dhicks

Posted
Posted
Can the raid card be set to not do raid, just passthrough, or do you have to make every drive a raid 0?

 

Ah - is this in relation to using individual drives via Windows' Storage Spaces rather than using hardware RAID? We tried it (made each driver its own RAID 0 array) on our HP DL360 Gen8 with integrated RAID controller, then created a Storage Spaces drive out of them - performance was terrible. I think you need a proper HBA card that presents individual drives to Windows, not a RAID card.

ICTDirect_Dave

ICTDirect_Dave

Posted
Posted
@ICTDirect_Dave: - ooh, how not much extra? Are these 2.5" drives? We currently have a storage array on one server consisting of second-hand 2.5" laptop drives that could do with an upgrade, 800GB SSDs might be just the thing!

 

I should check my stock before opening my big mouth! Bargain hardware have sold through 300 of these in two weeks and they're all gone!

 

Should we get more, you're looking at around £80 uplift per drive over the spinning discs we already have in our Gen 9 :)

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