New Server Help

fuzed

fuzed

fuzed

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Joined
16 Jul 2004
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145
Guys, I need a server/tower for the office.

We currently have an old i7 tower unit which is hosting an application which allows users third party access to their data. The data is held on external 3.5" hard drives in caddies - not the best solution, but it works - we currently have 3 caddies - with 9 hard drives plugged into them, this can increase dependant on client requirements.

I know nothing about server setups - I was looing into a rackmount setup - but we don't have a rack to be able to put it into so I want another tower.

I'm looking at possibly a ryzen/threadripper setup.

Processing of the data can take some time and can take a lot of resources, which need to be done on this box so it needs a good amount of RAM and fast hard drives (possibly due processing on SSD's then move the data).

Thoughts on what I should price up?

I know its a very open ended question but I have NO idea about server setups.
If I built the server and then got a number of large hard drives internally I guess I could copy the data over - however this is a live system so downtime means upset customers.

I would prefer to build the new machine, install all the software and then swap.
 
Thank you for your reply.

It'll be a tower as I don't have any space in the rack.
Its a web based eDiscovery App server that hosts data for the users. The users connect in using a web browser to access their data. I also use this box to process data so it needs some grunt, the users can run queries on their data, like searches etc, everything is Java based.

I'm thinking of going with a Ryzen or Threadripper, but was wondering if the Ryzen processors would support 128GB of RAM?

I only ask as I've had times where lots of processing has been very CPU and RAM intensive, due to massive data sets of around 150GB.
 
If it's going to be headless you want a motherboard that supports IPMI or ILO. You say you have 9 hard drives: take the opportunity to rationalise down to fewer high capacity drives. Then mirror them. NVME drives are great for IO-intensive applications and Sabrent do 8 TB drives. You can also get PCIE x16 cards that support four or more NVME drives. And don't forget backups!

If this box is not going in a server room then noise is going to be an issue; if it is going in a server room look at a rack-mount chassis even if it isn't going in a rack. (And how about buying a rack?)

I think you need to do some monitoring to determine what you actually need. Ryzen CPUs do indeed support 128 GB. Threadripper supports 256 GB and Threadripper Pro and Epyc support terabytes. Task Manager will tell you CPU and RAM usage; use Resource Manager for longer-term logging..

Something to consider is separating processing and main storage, with the two connected by a high-speed (10Gb+) ethernet link and local caching and processing storage. Take a look at Branchcache if you're a Windows shop.

As for upset customers, I suggest being up front about it. Tell them what you're going to do, when you expect it to happen, and how it's going to benefit them. You could get them onside by asking them to test the new server before you switch over. "Dear valued customer, FuzedCo is pleased to announce that we will be upgrading FuzedService. We will have the new FuzedService available for evaluation and validation only from XX/YY/ZZ with an expected go live date of AA/BB/CC. Further detail will follow. Please contact us if you have any questions." IME the best times to switch over are weekends and holidays. You have the May bank holiday and Summer bank holidays coming up.

Something else: if your customers are going to be upset at a limited downtime, how upset are they going to be if the service fails? You might want to take the opportunity to introduce some fail-over or distributed capacity, and you should talk to specialists here about that.

Lastly, could you do all this on a cloud service?
 
Thanks for your input - sadly can't go on the cloud due to the type of data we host.

I'm looking at going with a RAID setup, and possibly having a few days down time whilst data is copied over to the new setup - I'll be going with a 5950x setup with 128GB of ram. We don't need Thread ripper pro or EPYC setups due to the the server not being utilised to that extend - it'll only be used by 10-15 people at a time using the web end and that's on a busy day. Most days we see 2-3 people utilising it.

And yes thank you for the advise I think the best action is to advise the customers of the impending upgrades and advise of downtime whilst this takes place.

I do need to look at fail over/distributed capacity - anyone have any thoughts on this - how this might be achieved, if you have any links that I can spend some time reading it would be greatly appreciated.
 
fuzed said:
I'm looking at going with a RAID setup, and possibly having a few days down time whilst data is copied over to the new setup
Click to expand...

See if you can minimise downtime by putting the base data into a read-only state during the migration period so that your customers can still use it but cannot add to it. This also allows you and them to run validation checks.

Do check out server-style equipment. Remember that computers are just tools for a job. Head over to www.servethehome.com for advice on server-grade gear. Things like chassis with redundant PSUs, removeable drives, and the like.

fuzed said:
I do need to look at fail over/distributed capacity
Click to expand...

Be warned that this is where it gets expensive. How expensive depends upon the level of resilience required. At the very least you have a cold spare - another server which justs sits in a box until you have a hardware failure whereupon you just move the SSDs and HDDs over. Then you can have a warm spare, where the spare is live and the data is copied over periodically. At the other extreme you can go the whole hog and have clustered servers: one cluster of two for the data and another cluster of two for the application hosts. Four servers in all. The enterprise guys here will clue you in; I've been out of the game too long.
 
Thanks Quartz, very helpful. I may just discuss the option of having a cold spare - sat in the box and just create an image of the main system drive on a weekly basis - System drive only holds some data - the customer data is on the other drives.

Yes that is the issue were a small company so costs are limited - i.e. I can spend so much, but not 20/30K as that wouldn't be possible with the budgets we have. I can probably get away with spending £5-6K for two systems.
 
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