BJG Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 We need to get a server to run a new MIS from Serco - they gave us this spec... Processors: Intel Xeon Quad Core or equivalent AMD CPU Memory: 4GB Storage: 4 x SCSI/SAS Disks (Minimum) (See Drives) Network Card: Gigabit Copper or Fibre Operating System: Windows Server 2003 R2 (32bit) Database: Windows SQL 2005 Standard Edition RAID5 Our usual supplier gave us a quote for one of these: Dell PowerEdge 2900 High School Server 1x Quad-Core Xeon E5310 1.6GHz/2x4MB 1066FSB LTO 3 2GB FB 667MHz Memory (2x1GB dual rank DIMMs) 5x 300GB SAS (10,000rpm) 3.5 inch Hard Drives C4 - RAID 5 PERC5i Cntlr 3-8 HDD Integrated Intel Pro 10/100/1000 Network Card When my technician saw this he said we should be getting a RAID 10 machine. First time I'd heard of it. Do we need it...?
Haptic Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 We need to get a server to run a new MIS from Serco - they gave us this spec... Processors: Intel Xeon Quad Core or equivalent AMD CPU Memory: 4GB Storage: 4 x SCSI/SAS Disks (Minimum) (See Drives) Network Card: Gigabit Copper or Fibre Operating System: Windows Server 2003 R2 (32bit) Database: Windows SQL 2005 Standard Edition RAID5 Our usual supplier gave us a quote for one of these: Dell PowerEdge 2900 High School Server 1x Quad-Core Xeon E5310 1.6GHz/2x4MB 1066FSB LTO 3 2GB FB 667MHz Memory (2x1GB dual rank DIMMs) 5x 300GB SAS (10,000rpm) 3.5 inch Hard Drives C4 - RAID 5 PERC5i Cntlr 3-8 HDD Integrated Intel Pro 10/100/1000 Network Card When my technician saw this he said we should be getting a RAID 10 machine. First time I'd heard of it. Do we need it...? If you send me over your Dell quotation I'll do my best to beat the price for you and save the school some quids fella!
unixman Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 You need a minimum of 4 drives for RAID 10 and there are only 3 in the quote. It appears you have been quoted for a RAID 5 machine, which is fine on a server. See [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nested_RAID_levels]Nested RAID levels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] to learn a little about RAID01 and RAID10.
pete Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 Also, unless you're supplying extra ram, you're 2GB short on that quote. Even if you _are_supplying extra ram, wasting 2 slots on 1Gb sticks in 2009 is a bit daft.
matt40k Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 RAID-5 has a good read performance but a poor write. RAID-10 has just good read\write full stop. However have a high per GB cost then RAID-5. Generally MIS packages read more then write, so RAID-5 should be fine.
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