New Server Spec, quick check please.

Degas · 5 Sep 2007 at 10:19

Building a new server for our office that needs a mirrored Raid array to allow for disk failure and have come up with the following spec:-

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 CPU - £159.99
Abit AB9 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £79.99
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £47.99
Asus GeForce EN7300GT-HTD Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - £34.99
Antec Titan 650 Tower Case - 650w TruePower PSU - £99.99
Western Digital Caviar RE 160GB 1600YS SATA-II 16MB - £34.99 -Windows Drive
2xWestern Digital Caviar SE16 400GB 4000AAKS SATA-II 16MB - £44.99 - Data Raid Array
HP DVD 1035i 20x DVD±RW x12 Ram Dual Layer DVD-Writer - £13.99

It needs to be rock solid stability wise and as fast as I can get for about the money spent.

Any thoughts, obvious bad choices?

Senture · 5 Sep 2007 at 10:24

Personally, I'd spend the extra little money and get a pair of 500GB hard drives

Degas · 5 Sep 2007 at 10:27

Yeah, that is no problem.

semi-pro waster · 5 Sep 2007 at 10:32

I'd probably change the motherboard to a P35 based motherboard rather than a 965P based one because the P35 is a newer chipset. Other than that I can't see any obvious improvements.

Degas · 5 Sep 2007 at 10:34

See that's the sort of stuff I wasn't sure on, any recommendations of solid, non-flakey boards?

semi-pro waster · 5 Sep 2007 at 11:05

Asus have always been rock solid for me but I think if I was buying at the moment I'd probably pick a Gigabyte DS3R, Abit have also garnered quite a good reputation for their latest boards.

sidethink · 5 Sep 2007 at 13:14

The only thing I might suggest if the budget suited would be to swap to two RE edition drives from Western Digital instead of SE drives.

The RE drives are designed to be run 24/7/365 in a RAID environment and theoretically have much longer lifespans and lower failure rates.

spike's · 5 Sep 2007 at 13:34

the only thing i would say is why are you having a non-raided boot drive? why not just do as someone above said, go for the 500GB drives, and then have a 50GB partition in the raid for the OS?

sidethink · 5 Sep 2007 at 15:20

spike's said:
the only thing i would say is why are you having a non-raided boot drive? why not just do as someone above said, go for the 500GB drives, and then have a 50GB partition in the raid for the OS?

Missed this too, and he makes a fair comment. There isn't much point in not booting off a RAID arrray and having RAID elsewhere - you'll still have a good amount of downtime if that single Windows volume fails.