possible sever recommendation

[lookin4grip]

Hello everyone -

Thanks again to all who helped me with my component selections the last go around, complete success!

I am in the situation of finding a solution for our company server, I am looking for possible budget server options. I have never ever looked at server components before, but figured it can't be all to difficult at the low budget end. Of course knowing what you have in the end is what its all about. Our budget would be the 2500 mark, including software and hardware. I know this is currently over my head, but hopefully with the knowledge and encouragement for you wiz kids, this probably is much easier than I think.

What suggestions do you guys have as far as hardware configuration. We currently use raid 5 with tape bu. Is this still the way to go?

What processor speed/ mobo are needed to run server 08? I am just starting to think about and thought I would ask. Thanks for your time, it is always appreciated.

[The Wise Monkey]

How many users are there in your company? What role will the server have - domain controller, file server, print server, mail server?

A general rule would be to have a Xeon processor - the E5420/30 are good choices, both are good quad-core options, and offer good value.

If you can afford it, it might also be a good idea to go for a small SSD for the OS - Intel's new X25-E has received very good reviews, but costs ~$350 for 32GB. Alternatively, you could save some money and go for a RAID 5 array of 15k rpm drives - Seagate Cheetahs have a good reputation.

Tape backups are still an option, but since HDs are so cheap nowadays you could buy three 1TB drives (grandfather, father, son) and a removable caddy to keep the backups off-site somewhere.

You should be looking at at least 8GB of RAM, but this all depends on the role - mail servers need more (Exchange 2007 recommends 7MB for every mailbox!) while file servers don't need as much.

Windows Server 2008 will set you back around $750 for the standard edition and up to about $4000 for the enterprise edition, so it definitely isn't cheap. Even Server 2003 is about $650.

To be honest, you don't really need incredibly fast hardware, but it definitely improves the end user experience, especially for a domain controller.

[lookin4grip]

Nice to here from you WM.

I believe the server does not need to be super for our use, more so just to update for more storage and program updates. The current storage is limited (18 gb hdd) and the newer programs are far too hungry. The use would pretty much be a file/print server as well as hold the sage accounting softwate, email and web hosting are and would probably continue to be offsite. Only 5 users with a domain, I know win server 08 is alot of dough but what other options does a guy have. How does the SSD benefit? would it only help the performance of the OS?

Expand on the "Tape backups are still an option, but since HDs are so cheap nowadays you could buy three 1TB drives (grandfather, father, son) and a removable caddy to keep the backups off-site somewhere." This sounds good, how is this accomplished?

We need to go with the safest most cost effective BU route. Can a guy just simply ghost the raid to an optical drive(that probably doesnt give single file access)?

[The Wise Monkey]

OK, so you don't need anything over the top, that's cool.

How about this:

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182158
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117149
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227290
HDD: 4x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136320
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

This comes to $1038 - now you just need to add a case, cheap video card, optical drive(s) and Server 2008.

The backup system I described works as such:

1. Buy 3 internal HD enclosures such as this. Only one of the enclosures needs to be installed in the case, but have one caddy per HD (the caddy is the removable bit):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994054
2. Buy three large HDs for backups
3. Every week, perform a full system backup onto one of the HDs, remove it from the enclosure and have it stored safely in a different place to the server
4. After three weeks, you can overwrite the data on the oldest hard drive with the newest backup

This means that you have backups lasting for 3 weeks/months, depending on how often you want to perform the backups and how much space they take up. The oldest backup is the grandfather, the middle backup is the father, and the newest is the son.

I only mention about the enclosures because it makes it a lot easier to add and remove drives rather than having to open the case each time. But you could do that if you want, as long as you don't mind some downtime on your server while you add/remove the drive.