New Server

[Techie101]

Hi all

 

A school has asked me to look into buying a new server for them. Their current server spec is this –

 

2.8GHz Xeon

1GB RAM

500 GB HDD

Windows 2000 Server

 

The server will be used for the following –

 

DNS

ACTIVE DIRECTORY / GROUP POLICIES

DHCP

FILE & PRINT SHARING

APPLICATION SERVER

 

The school has a top end budget of £1500-2000

 

An onsite warranty is a must 3years next business day. Was thinking of going with Dell, but I am open to suggestions, many thanks.

[jamesreedersmith]

How many clients/machines?

Any School Management System?

Any Email?

Any Web Roles?

[Techie101]

How many clients/machines?

Any School Management System?

Any Email?

Any Web Roles?

 

Its a primary school so uses Integris G2, no SIMS.

The server won't be used for emails.

No web hosting

Around 100-200 clients.

 

Cheers

 

P.S have been looking at a site called serversdirect.co.uk, has anyone used them before?

[jamesreedersmith]

THen look at an Dell t610 with a xeon 2.8/3 4gb ram and 4 500gb disks in a raid 5, server 2008 or 2008 r2 100gb boot partition and the rest as a data partitiion.

 

Thanks

 

james

[Techie101]

THen look at an Dell t610 with a xeon 2.8/3 4gb ram and 4 500gb disks in a raid 5, server 2008 or 2008 r2 100gb boot partition and the rest as a data partitiion.

 

Thanks

 

james

 

how does raid 5 work? will it require a seperate backup?

[danrhodes]

how does raid 5 work? will it require a seperate backup?

 

Who is going to be setting the new server up, you or somebody else, if you don't know how Raid works you may be struggling.

 

RAID - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

D

[jamesreedersmith]

Raid 5 - read up on the forum plenty of posts on it .

 

Yes always always always have a backup - ideally offsite but at least somewhere else in the school in case of fire etc etc.

 

THanks

 

James

[mavhc]

Redundancy isn't backup isn't archiving.

RAID helps if a single drive fails

Backup helps if a user deletes their files/multiple drives fail

Archive is more for legal/long term storage "pupil records must be kept for 10 years" kind of stuff

 

There's overlap of course, a backup is most of a redundant copy (except today's files). And volume shadow copy makes local backup copies of deleted/overwritten files.

 

To answer the question: RAID 5 means any 1 drive can fail and it will still work, and yes, you'll still need a backup

[timzim]

Windows 2000 is over 10 years old - why would they want this? It's unsupported & there are better products. You'll need a better spec server though (for Windows Server 2003/2008) but if you were asked to go out & buy a new car would you even consider a 1973 Morris Marina?

[danrhodes]

but if you were asked to go out & buy a new car would you even consider a 1973 Morris Marina?

 

Yes because its a classic! On another note, just realised it said Server 2000, ha ha must not have read that right first time!

[omitech]

Dell warranty is second to none in my opinion. I think to keep costs down you can probably avoid RAID as it is for a primary school. But then again if you are going to keep the server for the next 10 years then get raid.

Dell Poweredge 1950 something in that region should do the trick.

[danrhodes]

Dell warranty is second to none in my opinion. I think to keep costs down you can probably avoid RAID as it is for a primary school. But then again if you are going to keep the server for the next 10 years then get raid.

Dell Poweredge 1950 something in that region should do the trick.

 

Welcome to EduGeek OmiTech.

 

No I think you should keep RAID, it's tried and tested!

 

D

[featured_spectre]

techie I sent you a PM!

[Techie101]

Windows 2000 is over 10 years old - why would they want this? It's unsupported & there are better products. You'll need a better spec server though (for Windows Server 2003/2008) but if you were asked to go out & buy a new car would you even consider a 1973 Morris Marina?

 

Windows 2000 server software is on the current server, this is going to be replaced with a new server with Windows 2008 server software

[timzim]

Windows 2000 server software is on the current server, this is going to be replaced with a new server with Windows 2008 server software

 

Oh, sorry, I misread your original spec as your desired spec for a new server. Thought I was travelling back in time for a moment....

[Techie101]

If Raid 5 improves performance then that sounds good, may look into sas drives, the schools current server has 1 ide drive and takes a year to do anything!

[danrhodes]

Who is going to be installing the new Server Techie101 you or someboy else?

[Techie101]

Who is going to be installing the new Server Techie101 you or someboy else?

 

It will be the school Tech, this is his account that he said I could use, he will be doing all the seting up.

[featured_spectre]

I wouldnt use RAID5 personally, if a drive fails you lose the data on that drive. RAID10 would be a bit better for redundancy.

[powdarrmonkey]

I wouldnt use RAID5 personally, if a drive fails you lose the data on that drive. RAID10 would be a bit better for redundancy.

 

Not true. Data can be reconstructed with one drive missing, that's the whole point of it.

[sparkeh]

How RAID 5 works:

 

RAID 5

Striped set with distributed parity or interleave parity requiring 3 or more disks. Distributed parity requires all drives but one to be present to operate; drive failure requires replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. The array will have data loss in the event of a second drive failure and is vulnerable until the data that was on the failed drive is rebuilt onto a replacement drive. A single drive failure in the set will result in reduced performance of the entire set until the failed drive has been replaced and rebuilt.

 

EDIT: Just for extra info, RAID is an acronym for either (take your pick depending on what mood you are in) Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks.

Edited May 21, 2010 by sparkeh

[danrhodes]

I wouldnt use RAID5 personally, if a drive fails you lose the data on that drive. RAID10 would be a bit better for redundancy.

 

That's not correct, if one drive fails the parity data from the others can rebuild data to the failed disk once it has been replaced, that's the whole point of RADID 5 is it not?

 

D

[sparkeh]

That's not correct, if one drive fails the parity data from the others can rebuild data to the failed disk once it has been replaced, that's the whole point of RADID 5 is it not?

 

D

 

Correct, as stated in posts above.

[3s-gtech]

Be sure not to just strip out the old server, unless absolutely necessary. That machine will run Server 2008, if not R2 due to needing a 64bit processor (might need some more RAM), and will give you some redundancy for AD, DNS, WSUS etc etc.

[Techie101]

Thanks all for the advice, some quotes have started to come in now, all around the £2000 mark. I will now be contacting the LEA for software prices, Windows 2008 Server Lic costs about £60 as apposed to a few hundred quid!