Sorry, another Server Question

[Midget]

I've been looking at getting a new server in order to speed up the network by splitting tasks and I've got this quote on a server and was wondering what you lot thought of it.

 

Windows 2003 Standard R2

2x Intel® Xeon 5140 2.33GHz/ 1333MHz / 4MB Cache

Intel S5000PSLSATA Motherboard

4GB (2 x 2Gb) Fully Buffered Memory 533MHs Memory

5 x73GB SAS 15k HDD

LSI 8308ELP SAS Raid Card

0.5 Metre 4 Port SAS Breakout Cable

Intel SC5400BRP Server Chassis

FPP4550WPSU

16x Dual Layer DVD Rewriter (Black)

3 Year Hardware Warranty

 

£2,999.00

 

Is this a good price? Is it a bit OTT for a DC ? I've gone with RAID5'd SCSI because of fear of HDD failure

[plexer]

Last year I bought the following:

 

Dell PowerEdge 2800 Floor Standing unit.

Dual Xeon 3.0GHz 2MB/800FSB Processor.

4Gig RAM (4 x 1Gig).

6 x 146Gig Ultra 320 Hot-Swap SCSI 10k Drive.

CD-ROM.

Floppy Drive.

Perc4 d/i 128MB RAID Controller.

Redundant PSU.

Dual 1Gig Ethernet controller.

Keyboard/Mouse.

Raid/server manager

3-year 24 x 7 x 4 same day on-site support.

Shipping to site

 

For: £2,939.00

[Geoff]

Intel 51XX's are yucky netburst based CPUs. Try and get hold of a Core 2 (30XX) based system or go the AMD route.

[uk101man]

I give Nick a SES Computers 01305774402; they build high quality Servers at very reasonable prices.

[Midget]

Intel 51XX's are yucky netburst based CPUs. Try and get hold of a Core 2 (30XX) based system or go the AMD route.

 

the 3000 series is just a rebadged Core2Duo though.

[PeterW]

Intel 51XX's are yucky netburst based CPUs.

 

Umm think you are confused with the 5000 series dempsey chips which are yucky netburst things,

 

3000 Xeon - For Uniprocessor use and for all intents and purposes are rebadged LGA 775 Core 2 Duo & Core 2 Quad ( X3200 line) (Conroe/Kentsfield core) 65 Watt TDP

 

5000 Xeon - Netburst type dual core upto 2x processors, if possible get onto 5100 series (Dempsey core) 95 Watt TDP

 

5100 Xeon - Core based dual core upto 2x processors, (Woodcrest core) 50 - 80 Watt TDP

 

5300 Xeon - Core based quad core upto 2x processors, (Clovertown core) 80 - 120 Watt TDP

 

5100 Series are a good choice

[Geoff]

ah yes my bad. I'd still buy a 3000 Xeon over a 5100 Xeon though.

[PeterW]

For a single processor server sure Xeon 3000 would be better than a signle 5100 as you wont need power hungry and hot FB DIMMs, but scaling upwards to dual processor you would need 5000/5100/5300 series.

 

As always its horses for courses!

[Geoff]

The 3000's are Dual or Quad core.

[Midget]

ok then, well ignroing the CPU, is the rest ok?

Enough RAM? of the right type?

Am I right to insist on RAID5 to stop loss of data in a HDD crash?

What about price?

[Geoff]

1. Just remember you can't go over 4Gb with 32bit Windows.

2. SAS is fine. I assume your going to use raid 5? Are they hotswap? Not a big fan of LSI personally, is there any alternative raid card offered? Have you considered using a SAN instead of server based storage?

3. can the chassis take redundant hotswap psu's?

[Midget]

1. Can't you? DOH! Oh well nevermind guess we're stuck with 4

2. Yup was thinking RAID5. How much are SANs and do you have any info on them? Dealt with NAS before but not had any experiance with a SAN.

3. I requested one so i hope so.

 

The idea was to have this server be the DC, DHCP, DNS, AD tree and the current server for Storage and Apps in order to speed up the network. However it might be better to just get a SAN and keep the current server.

[Geoff]

Can't you? DOH! Oh well never mind guess we're stuck with 4

 

On a 32bit machine, there's no way to address more than 4Gb of memory. You must migrate to a 64bit OS to access more.

 

Additionally, on Windows the memory is split 2G/2G between kernel and user space. This can be changed to 3Gb/1Gb with the /3GB boot.ini option.

 

How much are SANs and do you have any info on them? Dealt with NAS before but not had any experiance with a SAN.

 

I suggest you search the forums for 'SAN'.

[DMcCoy]

Just FYI, I do hope anyone using a SAN with Windows is aligning their LUNS!

 

I missed this when installing ESX 2.5, when I migrated to 3 I specifically did so in a way that I could empty each LUN and reformat (Virtual Center 2 will format the LUN with the correct alignment). I still have to realign all my virtual machines drives though

[Midget]

Do SANs just sit on the network, or do they connect to the server? (i've seen both methods mentioned). I have a fibre backbone and fibre switches so can I just plug one into my main switch? Who sells them? The only small ones i've found are the Dell AX100, but there are no costs and I'm seeing prices of £6k+ mentioned.

 

My main reason for new HW is to try to take load off of the DC and speed up logins and file access by splitting user space away from everything else.

 

Would having something like this make a big difference to my network:

 

a dual 3GHz Xeon 2003 server for AD, DHCP, DNS, profiles RIS and successmaker (w/ 2 bonded 1Gig NICs)

a 2000 server for printing and MSI doling out (1 Gib NIC)

a SAN for storage of the user's workspace (Currently totaling ~150GB)

 

or would the SAN be considerably more expensive than just getting the server as detailed above and splitting the tasks over the 2 main 2003 servers?