Spec Me The Ultimate Server - Budget £5,000

Saberu · 18 Mar 2010 at 16:41

Hey people!

OK so I know 5,000 pounds isn't going to allow you to go crazy but my partner is too sensible I would have preffered to have an unlimited budget but I don't think I can push him past 5k.

Anyway here's the gyst of it, we will be running a server on Windows 2008 r2, running multiple virtualisations (maybe 5-10 if we can) so i'm interested to know what the max number we could run would be while staying stable.

Our aim is ...24:7 uptime though we can restart as needed every 2-4 weeks.

Kind of workload involved will be web server KIND of stuff...so think- web pages, cache, obviously multiple Windows instances..a lot of repetitive tasks. So I'm thinking the performance focus here should be hard disk read/write and RAM.

My amateur opinion for the build is suggesting a couple of SSD's in RAID 0 then an i7, filling all 6 ram slots with 2gb each (but if that's overkill we could try just 1gb each with Registered DIMM's instead). edit: I've discovered proper server solutions like Dell's have much more ram space, and as another user said raid 0 will probably be too unstable. Dell is looking like a good option so far.

Sorry about my poor level of knowledge it's been a good 6 years since I had the oppurtunity to keep up with the latest components.

Do your worst

Saberu · 18 Mar 2010 at 16:58

mast3r said:
an Ulitimate server - i7...???

Dell PowerEdge T610?

No, not an Ultimate as in the name is ultimate... ultimate as in a very very good custom spec server

Definitely not a prebuild like a Dell

Saberu · 18 Mar 2010 at 17:22

axer said:
I really think you need to heavily consult the drawing board before you ***** away £5k. Furthermore, why you think a home build server will be better than, say a Dell (especially considering their deals at the moment), is beyond me!

Well I've come here to seek your superior knowledge as opposed to my 6 year old knowledge which was desktop based I've never specced a proper server.

Thanks for pointing out my mistakes, I'm hoping you can also suggest a possible custom spec? Though I will look into Dell too if they have deals as you say.

re-edit: Noticed I was looking at the wrong section, Dell's 'rack' servers have great spec and features, like immense amounts of ram and proper server boards with multiple cpu slots etc- I will definitely consider one thanks for the tip

Saberu · 18 Mar 2010 at 17:55

I'm thinking of getting this-

Dell PowerEdge R905 - It's $3,400 at basic spec.... may add a little RAM and the remote access card thing so maybe $4k all in. Certainly saves on my budget. Opinions?

linky-
http://www.dell.com/us/en/business/servers/pedge_r905/pd.aspx?refid=pedge_r905&s=bsd&cs=04

Saberu · 18 Mar 2010 at 18:05

frozennova said:
If your looking to custom build still you want to move away from the intel route and go for a pair of the six core amd opteron chips in a tyan or supermicro motherboard this would definatly give the power to run 5-10 visualisations.

I guess you intend on running VPS from this otherwise i can't see a need for visualisation

Thanks for the great reply. In terms of virtualisation, I'd like each VPS to have it's own WAN connection (so I have multiple connections coming into the server)..I think that's possible as it is on Linux. then each VPS I want to be able to be logged in on 10-15 users simeltaniously all sharing the WAN connection of that VPS- Windows definitely doesn't allow me to do this on the desktop but I'm guessing on server versions it allows the WAN connection to be shared between the simeltanious logged in users?

Also what's max number of uses that can be logged in simeltaniously on each VPS? And is there a licensed maximum I have to abide by overall on the server?

Saberu · 18 Mar 2010 at 18:48

Ev0 said:
As said do not use RAID 0 in a server, madness!

The machines that our vm stuff is hosted on have stupid amounts of ram and 4 6 core Xeons in, slightly overspecced lol. The first lot we bought were about 20k a blade, then when we got another later on the price was down to about 12k I think.

I'm thinking later down the line I can eventually add 3 more Xeons to our server (assuming we get the Dell PowerEdge R905) and a bunch more RAM once my partner sees the profit coming in from the business as we expand in future. Would this be more expensive than buying a server with 4 processors already in...as in would that give a big discount?

Also I noticed you mention a blade server, but these are built to be efficient use of space- space isn't a big problem for us so we can go with a rack instead- am i right?

Is there a point at which adding more RAM isn't really neccesary? It said the R905 can fit 256gb in total, but surely once I hit 64gb that's more than enough for the kind of tasks I'm doing? Or is it a case of more the better?

Saberu · 18 Mar 2010 at 19:17

We don't really need storage to be completely honest, we aren't doing a datacentre kind of service it's a really niche one.

But to give you an idea of what are requirements are, I'm thinking something along the lines of 10 WAN connections coming in on the network, then 100 total concurrent users (maybe 10 on each). Due to the light load on each user (no heavy apps) just things a basic user would do like browsing, then I believe 100 users is possible once we maxed the box with 4 processors and 256gb ram.

But in the beginning we will just have 1 processor, and 16gb ram with 10 users.

Saberu · 18 Mar 2010 at 19:18

ethos said:
Don't forget the cost of licensing (incase it's been overlooked).

I'm sure we will think of something