Home Micro Server To Run SQL Server/TFS

Wizardskills · 5 Feb 2013 at 23:32

I'm looking at building myself a home micro server and I'm in need of a bit of advice. The server will be used to run MS SQL Server 2012 with TFS 2012 on it. It will only be me using the machine so it wont need to be overly powerful but I want to try and keep it very low on power consumption as it will be on most of the day. Ideally I would also like to keep the cost down as well to around £350 for the hardware.

I was initial looking at the Intel NUC as this has a low powered i3 CPU in it which would undoubtedly be quicker than an Atom. Or would it, I'm not too sure?

What would the people of OcUK recommend to me?

MagicBoy · 5 Feb 2013 at 23:36

HP MicroServer. £100 cashback offer is back on.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18216324

Deleted member 77746 · 6 Feb 2013 at 08:57

How big you expecting tables to be? A big or small database? or just something to play with as the Micro Servers will be perfect.

Addicted · 6 Feb 2013 at 08:58

Depends on the table/DB size - a MicroServer may not be powerful enough.

Wizardskills · 6 Feb 2013 at 09:38

mrbell1984 said:
How big you expecting tables to be? A big or small database? or just something to play with as the Micro Servers will be perfect.

Addicted said:
Depends on the table/DB size - a MicroServer may not be powerful enough.

Humm good question. I just looked at a TFS instance we have set up at work for a project that has been going 2 years and the DB is only 117 MB. The larger tables have around 10k rows so they are not that large. Also as I will be the only user there shouldn't be a scalability issues.

Addicted · 6 Feb 2013 at 09:50

Go cheap and get a Microserver then

About £87 at the moment (after £100 cashback), and if it's not what you need then I imagine you can sell on for the same price!

Wizardskills · 6 Feb 2013 at 21:18

Addicted said:
Go cheap and get a Microserver then

About £87 at the moment (after £100 cashback), and if it's not what you need then I imagine you can sell on for the same price!

Cant complain at £87. At that price I would be able to get large hard drives in there. Will the unit take an SSD in one of the bays?

MagicBoy · 7 Feb 2013 at 00:49

The 4 main bays are designed for 3.5" HDDs (which clip into a supplied caddy). Don't know if an SSD on a bracket would mate up with the SATA connector at the back. You could install one into the top 5.25" optical bay, but as standard the SATA port is limited to SATA 1.5Gbps speeds.

Wizardskills · 7 Feb 2013 at 14:53

Ok, thanks for the for MagicBoy.

SkyTerran · 17 Feb 2013 at 05:49

There are patched BIOSes on the net enabling full speed SATA 2 for the fifth port. You can just disconnect the eSata port and connect a 5th HDD in the optical drive slot.