Old Server - help speed up network?

[titch]

This is kinda related to a thread from a couple of weeks ago

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-server-2000-2003/67641-server-service-boost.html

 

Basically our one and only server is starting to feel the strain of our network but currently we have no money for new server. I have very kindly been donated a server from a friends business 4gb ram 2x73gb scsi 2x170gb sata and a 3ghz dualcore.

 

Now I know this isnt super fast but assume that somehwere it can help with taking a bit of load from my DC? Maybe use as fileserver? Just somewhere to keep profiles? Im not really looking to expand capabilities i.e nagios cacti server etc, im looking to share out/speed up my dc server responsibilities.

 

Anyone got any ideas? Any linux distros that can do a few things for me?

 

Thanks in advance

[irsprint84]

I was always advised 1 dc per 100 pcs but that server seems quite nice. Good to spread out shares if you have in one place so maybe put y7,8,9 on? also if you have space I d buy some extra 170gb drives and make that raid 5 data drive

[Duke]

I was always advised 1 dc per 100 pcs

 

Really? O_o

 

Determining the Minimum Number of Domain Controllers Required: Active Directory

 

The server titch just got is approximately similar to Configuration C, and that document states:

 

Example 2

 

For an environment that must support 7,000 users, you might decide to deploy one domain controller with Configuration D or to deploy two domain controllers with Configuration C, with both domain controllers operating at 50% CPU usage.

 

Even taking into account that the server is in fact slightly less powerful, I'm assuming titch has significantly less than 7000 users, and that two similarly specced servers would be plenty.

 

Now I know this isnt super fast but assume that somehwere it can help with taking a bit of load from my DC? Maybe use as fileserver? Just somewhere to keep profiles?

 

Can you be any more specific as to where your bottlenecks are at the moment? If you're getting slow logons, are you sure this is a DC issue or could it be related to roaming profiles? What's your server setup at the moment?

 

Cheers,

Chris

[gshaw]

Take a look at some of the roaming profile folder sizes... you might be in for a shock, especially if AppData is still in there!

[titch]

Current server setup is very similar to the one I posted quad core xeon 3ghz, 4gb ram, 2003 r2, 2x140gb mirrored sata drives. I have recently moved over to mandatory profiles for students and have noticed a massive boost. We used to get a huge slow down when a class would login but that has almost gone. To be honest our current situation is now acceptable it was just I thought I may be able to put this server to good use as our DC has to play every role.

 

My Original thought was to put ubuntu on it (as I have a little bit of experience with it) create some shares, then point to the ubuntu server from the DC inside the dfs settings? Or have I gone around this completely the wrong way? Will I be able to make ubuntu work properly with AD regarding permissions on shares etc? Maybe I should just go with the approach..if it aint broke dont fix it?

[Duke]

We've got about 1800 users and about 5 years ago went from one server for profiles to three and that made a huge improvement. Splitting it up over even more servers would probably help, although if you're using it for files in a Windows environment then I'd recommend putting Windows Server 200x on it and adding it to the domain - it'll be less hassle to get working with your Windows clients. Any use for a virtual host? Put ESXi on it and run a few webservers or something?

[dhicks]

My Original thought was to put ubuntu on it (as I have a little bit of experience with it) create some shares, then point to the ubuntu server from the DC inside the dfs settings?

 

That makes sense - I tend to use Debian, but Ubuntu should work pretty much the same. Setting up Samba, complete with AD integration, is easy when you know how:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/nix/48032-configuring-samba.html

 

If you want this server for user's profile space then I'd probably create a Samba share that uses the username as part of the share name, so any user visiting "\\server\home" or whatever would see just their own files.

 

--

David Hicks

[Cools]

i have 3 DCs with DFS and set a round robin DNS up to speed up logins and access to files.

all my student profiles are down to 1.24mb and set to .man that helps speed things up.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Cools