Windows SBS 2011 - Realistic hardware specs and config server user areas.

RimBlock · 19 Jun 2011 at 04:36

Hi,

Firstly:
I am trying out SBS 2011 standard and although it is within the min spec, the hard ware it is running on seems to be dog slow.

It is in a home environment and running on;
i3 2100
H67 Asus motherboard
4GB DDR3 ram
7.2k WD Black boot / system drive.

What is likely to make the server more usable and have the biggest impact if I upgrade it ?

Ram usage is reported around 2.9Gb idle. The processor does not seem to be more than 20% use either.

Secondly:
I am trying to set up user areas on the server so when I login regardless of PC, my desktop background and libraries will be the same. Settings for installed software is not so important as the machines will not have the same software installed. Outlook config would be nice though.

Thirdly:
Just a check... If I am sharing from the SBS server, will there be any issue with my media players connecting to the shares. They have a workgroup setting but not a domain.

TVM.

Am sourcing for a good book but any links to tutorials etc would be very welcome.

RB

Destination · 19 Jun 2011 at 08:43

Sbs2011 when we move to it later this month, we'll be on a g6 proliant, dual core xeon, 14 gb ram and running of various raid arrays.

Sbs2011 with exchange builtin and running will eat ram if you give it the overhead.
Are you getting disk queues?
Just wondering if the ram usage and cpu are not stretched, i'd still think it'll want more ram.

RimBlock · 19 Jun 2011 at 09:34

Sure, although I would imagine the G6 will not be for a home environment with a max of 2 PCs and 2 media players connecting.

I suspect you are right though. Just checking the server after a reboot and it was on 2.9GB ram used. 15 minutes later it was on 3.7GB with 305MB reserved and 15MB free

.

More ram then.

Anyone got any suggestions on items 2 & 3 ?

Thanks
RB

theheyes · 19 Jun 2011 at 09:43

What roles have you got enabled? Because I ran a G5 Proliant with Server 2008 R2 Standard for 6 months with 1GB of RAM and it was fine - even now it's only got 3GB. Surely SBS 2011 requirements must be similar.

There is something wrong if it's running dog slow on that spec.

nightmare99 · 19 Jun 2011 at 10:33

What roles have you got enabled? Because I ran a G5 Proliant with Server 2008 R2 Standard for 6 months with 1GB of RAM and it was fine - even now it's only got 3GB. Surely SBS 2011 requirements must be similar.

SBS has exchange wsus and god knows what else the requirements can be quite a lot more.

Destination · 19 Jun 2011 at 11:14

Exchange eats RAM, it'll munch up faster than pacman on a conjugal visit home from Ghost prison.

MarkA · 19 Jun 2011 at 14:00

Hikari Kisugi said:
Exchange eats RAM, it'll munch up faster than pacman on a conjugal visit home from Ghost prison.

It does indeed eat ram, but not to worry. Exchange takes as much ram as it can get, but this isn't a bad thing.

It will take the ram and if it's not being used at the point that other apps require it, it will give it back to them. This is by design in order to keep your Exchange running as smooth as possible. I wouldn't worry about the actual usage, when you start paging and getting disk queues is when you need more ram.

RimBlock · 20 Jun 2011 at 02:08

Thanks guys,

Yes SBS 2011 has Exchange 2010 SP1, Sharepoint 2010 Foundation, Server Update Services 3 (SP2) and Server Fax Service.

Last time I looked, I was getting around 50% across all cores on the i3 (2 cores with hyperthreading).

It feels like it is swapping as there are very long pauses between opening something and the contents of the window to appear. The window frame will appear within a couple of seconds.

I will go the memory route for now as more couldn't hurt and it is fairly cheap to bump up to 8GB. I will look at moving to an i5 later if needed after that but need to spread the cost over a couple of months.

To answer another of my questions, my media players have no issues logging on and playing media from the shared drives. I do need to find a way of hiding the reams of shared drives that seem to exist by default though. I would rather the 'Share' users could only see 'TV', "Moveis" and "Music" listed rather than everything when they connect to the server.

Thanks

RB

RimBlock · 20 Jun 2011 at 08:50

Ok, just ordered an extra 8GB ram which will take the server to 12GB.

Found some specs here for min requirements which say 8GB ram. I am sure I saw somewhere else on the Microsoft site it saying 2GB.

Oh well.

As no-one has touched on the shared docs question I will take it over to the enterprise form.

Thanks
RB