Purchase new server or upgrade old one ?????????

[brickwall53]

Hello all

 

Our school is small...500 pupils

 

Our CMIS Server is a HP Proliant ML350 G4 with quad core,2 Gig memory and 5 years old.

 

We have some cash. What do you think we should do..

 

a. Upgrade present server with 8 gig of memory and let it run for a few more years....

 

or

 

b. Purchase new server for 5 grand and find another use for the old server.

 

I believe the present server could last another 3 years but my bosses may be convinced by others to purchase a nice new shiny Dell server.

 

a or b ?????

 

Ta John

[EduTech]

Does your current server handle the software package without any problems? or/ are you finding it is struggling with the day to day running of the application?

 

James.

[elsiegee40]

Personally, I would go for plan B.

 

My small school (much smaller than yours) only had 1 server which was approaching its 5th birthday. I had one heck of a job to convince the powers that be that we needed a second one; if only to provide resiliance. What we did get with our shiney new server was extra storage, masses of it! It was worth the getting the extra server for that alone!

 

EDIT

 

We did stick some extra RAM in the old server too )

Edited November 8, 2010 by elsiegee40

[FN-GM]

Personally with servers i never let them run out of Warranty (especially with essential ones). If your old one is 5 years old it wont be possible to get any more i dont think. If i was you i would get a new Server with 3 - 5 years warranty on it.

[EduTech]

Good Point to be honest, did not see the 5 year old age. In which case i would go for plan b to be honest

 

likewise, as zak said essential servers really should be kept under warrenty or an extended care pack in case anything should happen to them.

 

James.

[dhicks]

a. Upgrade present server with 8 gig of memory and let it run for a few more years....

b. Purchase new server for 5 grand and find another use for the old server.

 

Cheat - buy a dual-processor, quad-core, 24GB RAM, hardware RAID card, hardware-support-for-virtualisation Dell server for £2,000 and spend the other £3,000 on some 2 (or 3?) TB disks and some RAM for the HP. Turn the old server into a backup file server and use the new server for everything else, including a live file server, with all functions split into separate virtual machines.

 

--

David Hicks

[Soulfish]

Hello all

 

Our school is small...500 pupils

 

Our CMIS Server is a HP Proliant ML350 G4 with quad core,2 Gig memory and 5 years old.

 

We have some cash. What do you think we should do..

 

a. Upgrade present server with 8 gig of memory and let it run for a few more years....

 

or

 

b. Purchase new server for 5 grand and find another use for the old server.

 

I believe the present server could last another 3 years but my bosses may be convinced by others to purchase a nice new shiny Dell server.

 

a or b ?????

 

Ta John

 

I'd go for option C: purchase a new server for around 1.5k! Our new Dell R715's with 24 cores, 64gb RAM and 10gb network cards didn't cost 5k . Unless that 5k includes more than just the server (and it'd have to be a lot more!) it's just not value for money.

 

For something as important as a MIS I'd be much happier if it was running on hardware that was in warranty. You can always keep the old server to do secondary tasks (print server? backup server?).

[brickwall53]

Thanks for that info, looks like we should get a new server.

 

We do have 2 other servers on the network of the same age if that makes any difference?

 

Ta John

[elsiegee40]

I'd go for option C: purchase a new server for around 1.5k! Our new Dell R715's with 24 cores, 64gb RAM and 10gb network cards didn't cost 5k . Unless that 5k includes more than just the server (and it'd have to be a lot more!) it's just not value for money.

 

For something as important as a MIS I'd be much happier if it was running on hardware that was in warranty. You can always keep the old server to do secondary tasks (print server? backup server?).

 

You're right.

 

I got a new HP server over the summer and the toal cost, including UPS, licenses, software, a 2TB NAS and 'a man' to come in and help me was much less than £5k!

[asblack]

As a geek, I know it is always fun to try to "Do the best with what I have", but in this instance I would get a new server. (Whether or not you feel you absolutely need it)

 

For one, budgets change, if they can afford it today, they may or may not be able to afford it tomorrow when you absolutely need it. Your application will surely run better on a new box, and I'm sure there is a project out there you've always wanted to do, but never had an extra server for.... now's your chance.

 

Also, like previously stated, you do not want your day to day operations running on a server that is end of life. With a new server this won't be the case.

[brickwall53]

Thanks all....I'm convinced now.....get a new server

 

Ta again John

[EduTech]

Thanks all....I'm convinced now.....get a new server

 

Ta again John

 

Awesome!

 

So out of curiosity, what are you getting for the 5k? maybe some of the edugeek sponsors will be able to help you out in the area of purchasing, and get you a much better deal for the money you have. we all know budgets are tight at the moment, so be pretty disappointing to see a fellow edugeek member pay that amount of money when it could be dramtically reduced and save the school some money. ;-)

 

James.

[oxide54]

hmm 5k ???? for a server just to your MIS?

[brickwall53]

Well the story is that my Heads of Staff decided to get our school network checked out.... over a period of 2 days by a Dell Rep.. (Not my idea) I bet you cannot guess how much that cost....

 

...anyway....he is going to write a report on the state of the network and probably make some suggestions.

 

Meanwhile I am trying to keep things moving until the report comes through.

 

It would be useful to have some info on where our school could get the best deal for upgraded equipment.

 

Money is available for the upgrades

 

Obviously the local LEA will suggest using Dell....

 

Ta John

[oxide54]

i bought a server recently I budgeted 5k for it. didn't come to anywhere near it, and this is what I bought.

 

DL380G6 - Quad

Additional CPU

Additional 24GB RAM

FC HBA

GBIC for SAN switch

Quad Port NIC

--- > Added this for other servers

32gb of RAM

3 x Quad Port Nics

 

came in just over 4k

 

ended replacing all the patch cabling for the servers to the switch ( colour coded + colour coded boots )

replaced all the fibre cabling for the SAN

 

still had loads of change, and bought some other stuff, I can't remember.

[dhicks]

my Heads of Staff decided to get our school network checked out.... over a period of 2 days by a Dell Rep.. (Not my idea) I bet you cannot guess how much that cost....

 

I bet you most of that £5,000 will be for the harddrives. Don't worry, a while back Dell were only supporting their own harddrives in their servers (they modified the firmware in the RAID controllers they sold to only work with their drives), but now they are back to letting you plug any old thing in. Their base servers are good value for money, and its probably worth specifying a full 24GB or whatever of RAM while you're buying, but you can get harddrives from wherever you like.

 

--

David Hicks

[Hightower]

We purchased a Dell and a HP server recently, and they came to around £2.5k a piece (inc HDD's). Rather than upgrade your old server, why not write it off all together and get two servers for £2.5k

[oxide54]

I bet you most of that £5,000 will be for the harddrives. Don't worry, a while back Dell were only supporting their own harddrives in their servers (they modified the firmware in the RAID controllers they sold to only work with their drives), but now they are back to letting you plug any old thing in. Their base servers are good value for money, and its probably worth specifying a full 24GB or whatever of RAM while you're buying, but you can get harddrives from wherever you like.

--

David Hicks

 

Yes that exactly what I thought when I read it last night, I suddendly realised as I was typing my post. My server had no HD's and I was connecting to my existing SAN.

[oxide54]

has anyone noticed though, when the network gets checked over free of charge. you all need to buy something from them

[3s-gtech]

Just a note, with upgrading the old one - try Ebay. Old server parts (expecially RAM) often cost peanuts. I bought a second 3.0GHz Xeon dual core for our DC, including HSF, for about £10. Original list was £300 or so

[brickwall53]

Go on then.. what would be the best server to run Eportal/ Facility for at the most 40 office users.

 

Ta John