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What CPU for a Server?

denby said:
no idea? okkkk

of course its a server but it is the entry level little baby "server"

i also provided a part code and description for a processor which is what the OP is asking for...Hes not enquiring about a whole server..so do one
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So last post its not a server and this post it is? I selected an entry level server as the roles that the op has specified will be easily met with something of the same or similar spec. Anyway without wasting my time on you and in reply to the op...

For me, big business or small there is no place for home brew servers, I currently work in a sme with 50 employees and about a 10million turnover so understand the constraints that your dealing with. Its just my 2 cents but when things go wrong, baby server or not, having the support to call on for new hardware is worth the extra few hundred quid you pay for the server. Not to mention the fact that parts are readily available.

Sure go for a new CPU and see how you get on but know that if the platform of the machine you are building on (motherboard) goes EOL and you have an issue... you may resort to buying a second hand motherboard from the likes of ebay to get back up and running if you can find the motherboard at all.

Obviously these risks can be negated with the proper use of backup and/or using VM machines etc so that you are not reliant on the hardware. but seriously ask yourself, your boss, whoever... is it really worth pinching a few pennies for the sake of a few hundred quid when potentially you could end up waiting several days to source a new and identicle motherboard. During which time you loose more than the value of the server in lost productivity?

As duke said above servers don't need to be expensive and you don't need support but what they do offer is a guarantee that you will be able to quickly and effectively get spare parts if the worst does happen. :)
 
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Slime101 said:
Budget.....ZERO! (We're only small!) We dont have an IT budget or an IT department.

In our 18 year history not once have we needed to use support on our "servers", hence why we dont bother buying from dell/HP etc as to get a better spec than the one we have costs a fortune. Sure they have a place in big business but for small businesses they are simply too expensive without offering anything of use for the money.

Its all very well saying its only 3 printers....these arent desktop lasers they are commercial production printers and we are looking at adding a new one next year which will be feb by this and a dedicated RIP.

I shall take a look at Dell and HP (and others) again and see what they have to offer, we are after a tower as we dont have rack facilities or a dedicated server room so we like it to be quiet, our current server is silent!
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I used to do similar stuff and we used to use racks of 1U print servers to drive dozens of printers.

I'd advise you can often get more value from low end Dell or HP boxen than you will building your own, BUT, if you have ZERO budget.. which I assume is a joke, you might want to look at some sort of warranty or support if your business is growing and relies on the server.

So you have a 775 box right now with a dual core 8400 then you have a 775 motherboard, I'd look at getting a quad core Intel e.g. Q6600 or Q9650, double the amount of RAM you have to 8GB and look at getting some sort of RAID5 subsystem or RAID10 if disk performance is important.

You haven't said what sort of load the current server gets, is it CPU bound, memory bound or IO bound, have you looked at performance monitor when the server is under heavy load to check whats causing any problems? e.g. CPU usage, memory load, disk io, network io, memory io.. etc.

It may be more worthwhile to keep the 8400 as a file/member server and split off the print serving to a separate machine.

Also if your starting to push that much print work you may need to look at your network as being the bottleneck.
 
Thanks for the (serious) replies guys.

The Zero budget is no joke, money for this kind of thing is really tight and whist we are flat out and business is booming the money is haemorrhageing from our accounts at a serious rate - 40,000 catalogues (mail order business) 20,000 of them posted, corportation tax bill, VAT quarter, and many many other expenses.....business as usual really!

We use RAID5 currently although our new system due next year (another massive expense) is much more disk intensive so i am considering RAID10.

I currently work in a sme with 50 employees and about a 10million turnover so understand the constraints that your dealing with
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We are 10 times smaller than that in both respects......
 
I understand you have very little budget, but tbh 1K would get you a decent enterprise class server on SBS that could handle everything you need. With business support, RAID, etc.

Eventually, somewhere, your IT will die - question you have to ask yourself is how long can you be without it before your business suffers?

If you cant find it in your budget to support the required IT that, essentially, is the backbone of your business, then sounds like you might be heading for a disaster :rolleyes::(
 
Arthalen said:
I understand you have very little budget, but tbh 1K would get you a decent enterprise class server on SBS that could handle everything you need. With business support, RAID, etc.

Eventually, somewhere, your IT will die - question you have to ask yourself is how long can you be without it before your business suffers?

If you cant find it in your budget to support the required IT that, essentially, is the backbone of your business, then sounds like you might be heading for a disaster :rolleyes::(
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This may well been true, we have probably been very lucky over the last 18 years and not had any problems other than 1 hard drive failure - that was a problem as the backup didnt work, we learnt an expensive lesson that day but in fairness a warranty wouldnt have solved it, only a decent backup would. (This was 10 years ago).

I shall reconsider the budget and see where we go from there, i appreciate all the advice.
 
Slime101 said:
This may well been true, we have probably been very lucky over the last 18 years and not had any problems other than 1 hard drive failure - that was a problem as the backup didnt work, we learnt an expensive lesson that day but in fairness a warranty wouldnt have solved it, only a decent backup would. (This was 10 years ago).

I shall reconsider the budget and see where we go from there, i appreciate all the advice.
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Just to reiterate some of the sound advice you have been given...

You never need support... until you need support.

However since none of us are clairvoyants - your prior experience of having no major faults to-date will only be an excuse that you can say the day things go pop, if you ever have such a day.

So, I would like to give a +1 to those folks that suggest you go with a entry-level Dell/HP (with support!).
 
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