Reasonable spec for a file server..

Space requirments will ballon in the near future, we're converting a lot of old paperwork for digital storage (stuff we will never need but have to have under ISO), quote came to £5,482 + VAT for the server plus CALs, some networking gear (£250ish) plus labour.

I'll dig out the full quote tomorrow morning if anybody is interested ;)

I'm not a fan of the company (had to clean up some of thier jobs before by ex clients), but that's not my choice, much to my protest.
 
Likewise. I have users with 10GB worth of emails let alone files etc.

Sounds like your users need to learn some file management and organisation.

Run something like Space ObServer and I'd put money on only 10~100mb per user actually being used.

Unless the company deals with inherently large file types - media etc, then I cant see an average office user being able to generate more than a few gig or so of word/excel etc files.

Besides, the OP said it was 50gb of data, so I would hardly call 450gb insufficient in this case. Besides, it would be more like 300gb with any sort of redundancy, even then its 6 times more than they need at the moment.

If they're small, second hand might be a good bet. I just sold some DL380 G4 servers for about £300 a piece. Couple of 3.something ghz xeons, 4gb RAM and some HDDs. 2 x 36gb in a mirror for system and 4 x 73gb RAID5 would give room for a lot of expansion and you can easily pick up that sort of kit for a few reddies. If you're worried about support, you can get third party contracts pretty cheaply too
 
I suggest, heavily, not to use RAID5 for storage :(

Get a RAID10 going. Overall it works out way better! RAID5 is brilliant for expanding, but RAID10 is more reliable. Look at it this way, at work we can build a RAID10 of SATA disks, that will perfom similarly to a RAID1 of SAS disks. For the price the SATA is brilliant! SAS is totally pointless for a storage server. The HDDs are stupid money!

Processors and RAM don't matter overall, disk space is king! We use Dual Core Xeon's for this job, as they aren't always processor intensive (depends though).

RAID10 is your friend :)

You can even get away with not using SAS for OS disks. What would it be writing/reading to these anyway? Minimal data! Its a storage server, the storage array needs to be speedy. Not the OS drives. Get a SATA RAID1 (OS) and a SATA (maybe SAS depending on usage) RAID 10 for the storage. a lot cheaper that way.

Couple of 3.something ghz xeons, 4gb RAM and some HDDs. 2 x 36gb in a mirror for system and 4 x 73gb RAID5 would give room for a lot of expansion and you can easily pick up that sort of kit for a few reddies. If you're worried about support, you can get third party contracts pretty cheaply too

Why would you need 2x 3Ghz Quad Xeons for storage? 4x73GB SAS RAID5 for storage? That is pointless!
 
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Why would you need 2x 3Ghz Quad Xeons for storage? 4x73GB SAS RAID5 for storage? That is pointless!

Think you missed the point - read the sentences directly before the one you quoted.

Thats the spec of the servers I just sold for pocket money. Single core Xeons and U320 SCSI for a start, not quad core and SAS.

I'd disagree with RAID10 in this instance - yes, generally it does perform better but this is for 20 people with 50 gig of storage, even a RAID5 of SATA disks isnt going to struggle. RAID5 gives a happy medium between redundancy and cost
 
Just checked the quote:
ML350: £1100
!GB RAM: £70
2GB RAM: £90 (I suspect it's an optional)
3x 146GB SAS SFF: £640
2x 72GB SAS SFF: £360
Networking upgrades: £215
SBS CALs: £680
Consultancy: £1800
Fitting: £300

The shortfall was the consultancy, I must have blanked it out ;)
 
ROFLETC.... 450gb is probably barely enough for most of my 50 user clients let alone 500.

What a silly statement.

I have 50 user sites with less than 200GB.
I have 4 user sites with in excess of 400gb.

First is a Trust company, latter is a Web Dev company.

No surprises there really eh?
 
What a silly statement.

I have 50 user sites with less than 200GB.
I have 4 user sites with in excess of 400gb.

First is a Trust company, latter is a Web Dev company.

No surprises there really eh?

We have 13.8Tb of data for 200 users, but i do work for a architects :D :D

However, due to the nature of the company stated a do agree with Sin, it should be enough space.
 
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Well my company requires 18PetaBytes per second.. although my company is CERN :s ... [/joke]

I agree, it depends on what your doing and how much local storage is on the client devices - i try and stay away from storing anything locally as its not very flexible, and doesnt play nice in thin client environment environments etc with thin and fat clients mixed.
 
450GB for 400 users? So your users are OK with 10GB each? What about items such as roaming profiles, large PST's being stored on the file server, large applications, call centre solutions which store recorded calls and archive for 3 years, etc. I think a ROFL was a tad harsh ;)

tee-hee, my 600 users have roaming profiles and get 100MB storage each, and that is after I upgraded them from the previous network managers generous provision of 30MB each, lol!!

OK, so they are aged between 11 and 14 years old, I'm sure if we gave them a massive amount of space they would fill it..with junk! The same applies for adult users too, however.
 
Meh, 100mb is actually plenty of data for a profile.

Anything business critical should be on a network share, not in a roaming profile. Including the demons that are PSTs!
 
You actually allow PSTs? Easy enough to prevent them from being used and I cant see a good reason to have them, for my business anyway
 
For 20 user business scenario like this I could build something suitable easily for under a grand. That doesn't meanthe quotes you get will be for a grand, as companies like to rip you off, make money from you and charge extra for support costs. With this in mind however, I still think the quotes you are getting are too high and over spec'd anyway.
 
Well I've knocked £1k off the hardware quote to make it more reasonable, I'm not happy with the £2.1k consultancy fees, but ultimatly it's not my job to argue that, if my MD is willing to pay it and won't shop around it's his own fault!
 
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