What server spec should i be looking for?

[tosca925]

We are currently considering turning 30 computers (2 rooms of 15) into thinclients to start with. If this works then we may go for another 20 thinclients as well. Just out of interest what is the minimum spec server i should be looking at for the first 30 clients. The pc's in question are probably well over spec for thin clients.

[wesleyw]

tbh a thin client with 1ghz cpu and 256 ram would do but the speed is dependant more so on the server side to run 40 - 60 clients a twin dual core system with 3gb of ram would be sufficent with a 73gb hdd 2 x 1gb nics would be more than enough as you develop further and i you look to citrix then a datastore server would be needed but the spec of this could be nought for sub £950. The spec would also allow to expand greatly in the future.

 

Wes

[meastaugh1]

I'd also be interested in suggested server specs.

 

What's the sensible maximum server spec?

 

I'm currently thinking two dual/quad core xeons/8GB ram/15k rpm SCSI HDD RAID 01/gigabit network connection (maybe two aggregated). Where's the most likely bottleneck?

[wesleyw]

@meastaugh1: the nic won't be every thin client will use 20kbps so 1000 clients would still only use 20mb in nic bandwidth lol nice fast hdd 8gb and dual quads would do at least 80 clients without breaking a sweat.

 

Wes

[meastaugh1]

Thanks Wes,

 

I was also taking pulling users' data from the other servers into account.

 

Is RAID 1 sufficient, or would mirrored stripes (0+1) be better?

[Norphy]

We have a dual dual-core Opteron 270 server with 2x120GB hard drives, 4GB RAM and a gigabit NIC serving around 45 users at the moment. It really depends on what they're doing but it's generally enough for office, Dreamweaver and IE.

 

I have found that some Flash stuff makes it choke though and I'd avoid running Maths software on there too, that has a habit of being annoyingly CPU intensive.

[wesleyw]

Yeah publisher is another one but I think 2007 has some good options for thin client (don't quote me i need to do a little research first lol) Flash is a killer, depends on the type of flash its playing i think you can get round it though, I prefer striped + mirror as it is fast and you have a duplicate to use if its ko'd. 1gb would be fine 2 x 1gb would be better lol

[Ric_]

Hard disk.... just mirror it so that you have redundancy and use fast drives otherwise costs start getting silly.

 

Flash... Citrix has speedscreen to help make things better

[Norphy]

Yeah but Citrix costs £120 per client. For that sort of money you may as well just get standard fat clients

 

/ducks

[Ric_]

/ducks

 

Indeed you should!

[Kyle]

Am i correct in thinking htat the server does not need vast hard drives to mirror?, has the only thing the server needs to be beefy in is memory?

 

IE; would a Dual Xeon 1.6 Quad Core, 4gb m and two 15 speed 73 SAS drives be enough for 30-50 clients?

[Geoff]

Yeah but Citrix costs £120 per client. For that sort of money you may as well just get standard fat clients

 

/ducks

 

 

Er someone's ripping you off. Our licenses cost £9 per client.

[Lee_K_81]

Yeah but Citrix costs £120 per client. For that sort of money you may as well just get standard fat clients

 

/ducks

 

 

Er someone's ripping you off. Our licenses cost £9 per client.

 

You sure you're talking citrix licenses not terminal services licenses.

 

According to ric_ you are looking at around £125.

How much are licenses? This obviously depends upon the number of licenses being

bought and the licensing model used. Assuming Select licensing, you will need Windows

Server 2003 Standard for each terminal server (approx. £60), Terminal Server Device

CALs (approx. £11 each – one for EVERY thin client) and possibly Citrix licenses (approx.

£125 each for Enterprise Edition – concurrent licenses so you will likely need only 2/3 of

the number of thin client devices).

 

source:Ric_'s Thin Client Guide

[wesleyw]

Yeah there's no way citrix licenses are that cheap Geoff (I wish they were though lol)

 

Wes