Jump to content

Minimum specs for server 2008 R2? File share/Print/DHCP server.

dany2010

By dany2010
in Windows Server 2008 R2

 Share

Recommended Posts

dany2010

dany2010

Posted
Posted

Hi,

 

We are looking into introducing a few windows server 2008 r2 systems into our network to store files, share printers, and act as DHCP server.

 

We currently have a network built using a windows server so the only server function that will be needed is the DHCP and the ability to have more than 10 connections.

 

We have been look at the basic Dell servers and wondering if they would do the job.

 

When we were looking into FreeNAS we found that having over 8GB of ram improved speed greatly as it enabled pre fetching. Is there anything like this that we need to look for when purchasing a server for these functions?

 

Many thanks,

 

Dan.

glennda

glennda

Posted
Posted
Tower or Rack Mounted? If you are going with windows the Raid Controller is going to be the key part for serving files - but if you are only serving 10 machines most Raid Controllers should be able to cope.
glennda

glennda

Posted
Posted
I would suggest raid 10

 

16gb RAM

Quad core xeon

2tb hdd

Dual 1GB NICs

 

Should serve you well for print, dhcp and file server

I would say a touch overkill if its for 10 or so connections

glennda

glennda

Posted
Posted
you would be surprised, some print jobs may suck up a lot of ram. I had a server for 4 people with 8GB ram and identical for the rest, the ram was eaten mostly on print jobs!

 

I run 35 Printers off a Server 2008 R2 VM with 4Gb ram and they don't have any problems - depends on the drivers to be far as some are awful!

Michael

Michael

Posted
Posted

As a rough guide:

 

2008 R2 Standard

Core 2 Duo CPU or better

4GB of memory or more

500GB or more disk space (RAIDed ideally)

1Gbps Ethernet, although may get away with 100Mbps. Depends on your needs.

 

This should be suitable for 10 more or users comfortably without breaking the bank.

  • Thanks 1
jamesfed

jamesfed

Posted
Posted

How much storage you need is going to be the key part of this and also what kind of speed of storage you need - if its heavy graphics/3D work then time for some SAS goodness but if not stick with SATA drives.

 

Personaly it sounds like you are after simple like a HP ML110 G7, nice simple Intel Quad Core and 8GB RAM (8 is the new 4 in my world). Above all else I would say invest in something good for backup - by that I mean even a simple QNAP iSCSI box hooked into Windows Server backup.

  • Thanks 1
dany2010

dany2010

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks for all my replies,

 

At one site there could be up to 30-40 consecutive user accessing their documents and occasionally printing. Would the above figures still be ok with this load.

 

With Raid i have been looking at software raid that can be done with server 2008, would this cope with max 40 users?

 

We currently have a netgear NAS and a seperate print server so im hoping there will be no difference in speed. I understand that if someone is going to print a huge doc then it will slow down but would like to minimise this slow down.

 

The current NAS's will be used for media streaming so these machines will only be used for docs and pictures occasionally.

The server will be a tower.

 

DHCP isnt used much so traffic from that should be low.

 

Our current print server at one site has 1GB ram so i think i will monitor it tomorrow and see how it copes.

dany2010

dany2010

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

What would something with the specs below cope with?

 

Is the E3-1220 That much faster than the i3-540 processor. PassMark says around 3x in their cpu mark

 

Memory 4GB Memory, DDR3, 1333MHz (2x2GB Single Ranked LV UDIMMs)

Processor Intel Xeon E3-1220, 4C/4T, 3.10GHz, 8M Cache, 80W TDP, Turbo

 

Its a dell and looks similar to the HP. It comes to £349 which brings the total to around £525 per mahine with 2x 2tb HDD

 

Sorry, also forgot to say we are on a tight budget.

 

How would this compare to a terastation Nas box with file transfer speeds?

Edited by dany2010
glennda

glennda

Posted
Posted

What hard disks are you buying at 2tb x 2 - i wouldn't use desktop Hard disks in a server (they may not support raid) and also reliability wise you may suffer.

 

Yes that looks a good price for that - if you are going dell have you looked at the Outlet site? they tend to have some really good ones on there which people have sent back. Nothing there at the moment though!

 

What raid card has the machine got? if you are looking at the Dell PowerEdge T110 II it doesn't have one.

 

Plus what are you going to do about OS?

dany2010

dany2010

Posted
  • Author
Posted

The hard drives are just cheapy samsung at the mo as we have been asked to look into solutions on a tight budget. When we get our final budge for this year we will probably get these changed if the money is there before we place the order.

 

I was looking into the software raid provided in server 2008 r2. Just doing a bit of research and from what i've read it sees the safer solution as it doesnt rely on hardware and people are saying that they have lost a bit of data because they cant recover the hardware raid. You can probably tell but i've only just come into IT out of Uni, real beginner.

 

What do you think of server software raid?

 

We have server 2008 r2 licences already that we will be using which is making things alot cheaper.

glennda

glennda

Posted
Posted

In this sort of instance I would say Hardware raid is a must - with 40 users using the device software raid won't be up to it i don't think - but i do use a linux one in my backup server (16 x 2tb drives in 2 8gb arrays). I have no experience of it under windows.

 

Hardware raid and software raid have similar risks - if one disk dies the other takes over and vice versa but the read/write performance of hardware raid is better as it has dedicated hardware to run the raid. Whereas when you are using software raid it will eat into the servers processing power and ram - if you want to use software raid i would say put in some more Ram.

3s-gtech

3s-gtech

Posted
Posted
Tight budget is my thing with servers - I'll always try to push as far as I can with what's available. An example is one of my DCs - runs Sophos EC, AD, DNS. That's a Dell Poweredge with a couple of P3-S processors and 2GB of PC133 running S2K8, and it's absolutely fine in this role (low utilisation and runs well). Everything I have on 2K8 R2 has a minimum of 4GB of RAM, but for the number of connections and tasks you're doing you won't need mega specs. RAM is cheap, so get plenty - but look at the Opteron powered stuff in the budget end too, with a nice RAID card and some fast disks (7200rpm are fine, but SAS not SATA).
Millgate

Millgate

Posted
Posted

"

I would say something along the lines of this HP ML150 G6 with an extra 6Gb ram (total 8 1 x 4gb 1 x 2gb) You can get away with Sata at that kind of load 2 x 2TB HDD's

 

Total from HP's site - £1761 which is probably £2/300 over what you should be paying - talk to @Millgate and i'm sure he can find it cheaper for you!

 

Thanks @glennda. I can do you a quote for these no worries. If you want to PM me your details, I'll fire you a quote across or if you have any other suggestions :)

 

Luke

jamesfed

jamesfed

Posted
Posted

One other thing to inject - are you a school or a business? If the latter then remember Windows Server OS licensing can be quite steep (at least compared to what we are getting).

 

I'd say look to spend about £900-£1100 on each server, budgets maybe tight however I wouldn't want to bet the successful running of my place of work on hard drives designed for desktop PCs.

 

A HP ML110 G7 with 8GB of RAM and 2x1TB drives (just use the fake HP hardware RAID in the server) and you should be around the £1000 mark (with no OS).

CyberNerd

CyberNerd

Posted
Posted

If you have such a tight budget you should really consider running DHCP, File and print sharing on linux.

The system requirements for DHCP/Samba are minimal - your budget is being spent on hosting the 2008R2 operating system.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing


×
×
  • Create New...