DC Spec

Django x2 · 21 Apr 2009 at 16:46

Should 1Gb on Server 2008 Standard Edition be ok for a pure DC / GC server?

I'm thinking yes, as it can always be upgraded. Will probably make it x64 too just in case.

howler · 21 Apr 2009 at 17:09

I would say just about, is there any reason you can't shuffle up to 2Gb though?

J.B · 21 Apr 2009 at 20:11

I wouldnt want to do that myself but technically it will work. Considered using Server Core?

iaind · 21 Apr 2009 at 20:48

Why do so many people around these parts spec DCs way too high?

Min for 2008 is 512 and a DC will only be ticking over, so 1gb (by the time you get AV, backup software etc on there) will be plenty.

J.B · 22 Apr 2009 at 01:03

Its not about meeting the minimum spec, its about making it usable. Depends what kind of user base you'll be looking at I guess as well.

slylittlefox · 22 Apr 2009 at 04:35

DC for 15 users? Yus. DC for 1000 users? Probably not

Depends on what you're supporting!

RSR · 22 Apr 2009 at 08:44

slylittlefox said:
DC for 15 users? Yus. DC for 1000 users? Probably not

Depends on what you're supporting!

Agreed. Spec depending on requirements.

iaind · 22 Apr 2009 at 11:06

Its a reasonable assumption that the OP wasnt supporting a huge network, or he wouldnt be asking around here for the spec of a single DC...

I would expect 1gb would be fine approaching 1000 users TBH...

Django x2 · 22 Apr 2009 at 11:51

cool, thanks guys. Yup, its for limited users.

I'll probably 2Gb x64 it as i'm likely to make this a printer server too.

morfmedia · 23 Apr 2009 at 19:23

Its probably less grief to install 2GB+ nowadays. It probably costs more in labour scheduling downtime, overtime for the upgrade etc than building in some spare from the outset and giving some future proofing.....

ruffneck · 24 Apr 2009 at 09:17

I'm currently specing a new 64bit 2008 DC for 100 users, I will be using a Dell PE1950 with 2Gb of RAM

Generious · 25 Apr 2009 at 21:47

We recently upgraded our dc's from DL380G4\4Gb of ram to
Dl380G5 x 6 - 16Gb of ram each
All running windows 2003 Sp2 64bit

Userbase of around 64.000 users.

bigredshark · 25 Apr 2009 at 21:53

iaind said:
Why do so many people around these parts spec DCs way too high?

Min for 2008 is 512 and a DC will only be ticking over, so 1gb (by the time you get AV, backup software etc on there) will be plenty.

Well most people underspec DCs because they forget that they tend to do all their work in a very short space of time every day, but yes, if it was any sort of size of network I don't think he'd be asking on an internet forum.

iaind · 26 Apr 2009 at 10:16

Generious said:
We recently upgraded our dc's from DL380G4\4Gb of ram to
Dl380G5 x 6 - 16Gb of ram each
All running windows 2003 Sp2 64bit

Userbase of around 64.000 users.

Out of interest (I've never worked with AD that size) - what sort of resources does it use? Would be interesting to see a task manager screen print... Every DC I've worked on in the past (sub 500 users) has DCs that run at barely over the base OS - currently my company has about 100 users, 2 DCs both on vmware machines with 1 vCPU and 512mb ram...

BoomAM · 30 Apr 2009 at 08:57

We have two DCs here running a userbase of about 1000, each is a BL460c Blade with 2Gb of RAM. Memory never spikes above about 70% usage.
Which considering its workload as in the number of log ons and offs per hour is pretty good.