Server Spec Please

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1 Jan 2006
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7
Hi there, I need a server spec for running high demand apps etc. The server is for my business and has approx 15 pc's all connecting to it. This is an upgrade for my server which I am using at the moment:

Pentium IV 3.2 Ghz
1GB DDR (2 x Kingston 512MB PC3200)
2 x 200 SATA in RAID 1
DELL OP1158 A03 Mobo

Its still decent but it is having trouble dealing with everything being thrown at it. Could someone please advise me on Opteron systems that could improve on this. I've got a budget round £1000-1200 it's no biggy going over it. Don't worry bout the os thats already been sorted.

Cheers

Nick
 
do all the apps need to be on one server?

you could retire this server and run say 2 apps on it and then run the rest on the new server.

This will leave some room for grwoth.
 
I've done you two specs here, one with a Pentium D and one with an AMD X2.

Pentium D Server -

CP-114-IN Intel Pentium 4 950 Dual Core "LGA775 Presler" 3.4GHz (800FSB) - Retail (CP-114-IN)
£194.95 £194.95
MY-003-PA Patriot Low Latency 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (PDC22G5300LLK) (MY-003-PA)
£139.95 £279.90
GX-093-AS Asus GeForce EN7300GS-HTD 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-093-AS)
£37.95 £37.95
HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
CD-044-LG LG GSA-H10ABRL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - Retail (CD-036-LG)
£25.50 £25.50
HD-075-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-075-WD)
£142.95 £285.90
MB-108-AS Asus P5LD2 Deluxe Intel 945X (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-108-AS)
£84.95 £84.95
CA-003-SK FSP Sparkle FSP400-60GLN Green PS 400W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-003-SK)
£44.95 £44.95
CA-099-CM Coolermaster Mystique 631 Black (No PSU) (CA-099-CM)
£69.95 £69.95
Subtotal £1,040.00
VAT £182.00
Total £1,222.00

AMD Server -

CP-171-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ 2.40GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-171-AM)
£379.95 £379.95
MB-144-AS Asus M2N-SLi Deluxe (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-144-AS)
£94.95 £94.95
MY-001-PA Patriot Signature 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (PSD22G667K) (MY-001-PA)
£119.95 £239.90
GX-093-AS Asus GeForce EN7300GS-HTD 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-093-AS)
£37.95 £37.95
HD-075-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-075-WD)
£142.95 £285.90
CD-044-LG LG GSA-H10ABRL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - Retail (CD-036-LG)
£25.50 £25.50
CA-090-CM CoolerMaster Stacker 830 - Silver Trim (No PSU) (CA-090-CM)
£129.95 £129.95
CA-003-SK FSP Sparkle FSP400-60GLN Green PS 400W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-003-SK)
£44.95 £44.95
Subtotal £1,239.05
VAT £216.84
Total £1,455.89

Both have 2 500GB WD SATA drives. I was looking at an SCSI solution but I don't think OcUK offer that. Possibly look into placing some Raptors in there. I put things like a DVDRW in which may not be necessary, could be swapped out for some additional case fans or something.

Just some ideas for you.
 
sorry for thread trashing a little, but if your going to buy a business critical server your almost certainly better off buying a pre-built box with 24hr or even 4hr on site support with server specific features such as hot swap drives and PSU's and not building yourself and if this is the case asking on here is not really very sensible as we are not allowed to mention other PC makers etc so you probably won't get the right advice. Just my Two pence worth feel free to ignore me.
 
a1ex2001 said:
sorry for thread trashing a little, but if your going to buy a business critical server your almost certainly better off buying a pre-built box with 24hr or even 4hr on site support with server specific features such as hot swap drives and PSU's and not building yourself and if this is the case asking on here is not really very sensible as we are not allowed to mention other PC makers etc so you probably won't get the right advice. Just my Two pence worth feel free to ignore me.

I agree with you there... get a **** ;)

Stelly
 
Thanks a lot to those guys for the specs. Lookin good, cheers. For high demand apps I mean MS SQL Server with 2 DB's running on it and a messaging server and digital imaging software that has to move large image files almost instantly across to the workstations.

ATM I've had got a Dell server. Both hdds failed and I had to wait almost 4 days for them to decide that was covered by my servicing contract. That was after they sent out their "experts" who left after about 10 hours costing me £140 ph. Thats the reason I'm building my own as their support is worth **** and the money I save on those support contracts enable me to do it myself.

nick
 
Last edited:
nickjvr said:
Thanks a lot to those guys for the specs. Lookin good, cheers.

ATM I've had got a Dell server. Both hdds failed and I had to wait almost 4 days for them to decide that was covered by my servicing contract. That was after they sent out their "experts". Thats the reason I'm building my own as their support is worth **** and the money I save on those support contracts enable me to do it myself.

Anyhoo ty. Any suggestions...

nick

I have just had **** on the phone they took 4 hrs to get a HDD to me which I think aint too bad... but I do have gold tech support on my servers

Stelly
 
nickjvr said:
It is handy to have support but dell were honestly quite shocking. Mayeb I'll try another manufacturer.

Let me know if you find anyone else that can get a HDD to you in 4 hours... and keep phoning you up asking how things are going with the server, really I would like to try a different company for my servers

Stelly
 
We use Supermicro gear, the dual opteron 1U SATA model is very good, should cost you around £800 for the chassis including a motherboard.

Dual dual core processors, 4GB of RAM, hardware RAID 1+0 (we use the 3ware 9550) would be a nice spec. :)
 
daz said:
We use Supermicro gear, the dual opteron 1U SATA model is very good, should cost you around £800 for the chassis including a motherboard.

Dual dual core processors, 4GB of RAM, hardware RAID 1+0 (we use the 3ware 9550) would be a nice spec. :)

might have to check them out

Stelly
 
Let me know if you find anyone else that can get a HDD to you in 4 hours... and keep phoning you up asking how things are going with the server, really I would like to try a different company for my servers

IBM do the same deals for there servers anyway. Top notch support. For there workstations however ...........

On topic, are you really sure you need a CPU upgrade (which is kinda what you appear to be asking?), i would be surprised if 15 workstations are able to fill the CPU with mysql queries, are they all even concurrent connections? Moving image files around wont take up any CPU either.

Im just curious if you actually know exactly what is causing the slowdown and have tried to focus your funds on that part. Or you have just seen a slow performing application and decided you needed a new computer?
 
Get a supermicro MB, couple of CPUs, loads of memory, 15k SCSI disks for the database, large SATA disks for the image files, gigabit network. For the SATA disks look for data density rather than spindle speed.

I'd actually consider putting the image files elsewhere - how about a NAS device? Or your old server?

Oh, btw, if your database queries are taking too long it's probably because it's badly indexed or designed and the size of the data on there now is causing it to chug. If it's a 3rd party app though you don't have much choice but to upgrade your way out of it.
 
Can't say I've ever had a bad experience with the support people for any of the servers I have on support or desktops for that matter but then we do have the premium support stuff on most of our kit. My main reason for advocating that approach is that when it all goes wrong your not the last port of call he can transfer some of the heat onto the third party suport buying you some breathing space to sort the problems.

I like to keep server functions distinct where possible I've had to many problems with file servers that were running databases, or domain controllers running web apps. come upgrade time there is always one that requires a dfferent version of something leaving you with the nightmare job of migrating the services around.
 
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