Server Recomendations

[Lucio]

Hi there, due to some amazing screw ups by our software providers, my company finds itself in need of a server and fast.

It has to be 2U or smaller, capable of taking at least a pair of SAS 2.5" 15,000rpm drives in a RAID configuration (we have these already in our exsisting server) and has to be reasonably powerful as it'll be running as an SQL server for a 8GB database.

Any suggestions?

[Spammy]

Depends what kind of money you want to pay really. There are relatively few rack-mountable servers at the moment that take the 2.5" SAS drives as standard.

However, I highly recommend HP servers (I use them for all my hosting, after having issues with Dell previously). The remote management and reporting features you get on them is truly excellent.

I believe the HP DL360 G5 and DL365 will both take 2.5" SAS drives. There may be some cheaper DL1xx series that do it as well, but I haven't seen any recently.

Hope this helps,

Sam

[Moby-Dick]

What sort of Db is it ? if you *really* want to fly , try and get 8Gb ram into it - the more you can cache in the buffer the better

I'd stay with HP , but got for a 380G5 with a pair of Dual Core CPU's in it - they'll take an obscene ammount of memory should your db grow , they'll also take 8 SAS drive so you can actually run seperate RAID volumes for OS , Data , Log and Backup if you really need to tune the DB up

[timread]

Dell have some pretty powerful 1U and 2U servers that can have 2.5" SAS drives (generally you can choose 2.5" or 3.5" drive backplanes). e.g.

Dell PowerEdge 1950 - 1U, up to 4x 2.5" SAS drives with RAID, up to Dual Quad-Core Xeons and 32GB RAM

Dell PowerEdge 2950 - 2U, up to 8x 2.5" SAS drives with RAID, up to Dual Quad-Core Xeons and 32GB RAM

Both can have 2 hot-plug PSUs for redundancy.

[kungpo]

I'm with 'moby-disk. The DL380G5 is a superb machine, has decent capacity for HDDs and RAM, and if you're running a SQL database of 8GB, stick in as much ram as you can afford, although 8GB is not massively expensive. And trhe Xeon Quad Core versions are not hugely more expensive than the Dual Core Xeons. And with Xeons, the GHz doesn't always mean faster.

[Lucio]

Yeah, the DL range does look pretty nifty, we're using a ML 370 as our primary server atm. Unfortunately we were told that you could run everything on one server and it's turned out there's no hope of that and the software doesn't even run on 2003 SBS!


My one question though is if you get a server with 8GB of memory, does the software need to be specifically comptable with a 64bit version? Does MSSQL automatically work on this environment or do you need to purchase a matching 64bit version?

[Moby-Dick]

you dont have to run 64bit to use 8Gb ram

how many users are you running SBS on ?

I have a hunch that your SBS box could probably do with tuning. it might be cheaper than a new SQL server

[Lucio]

20 user SBS setup, it's currently the only server in the office. It's an ML 370 Proliant configured with 2 x Dual Core Xeon running at 1.86GHz each, 4GB of RAM (the max on SBS I'm told), HDD are 2 x 73GB 15,000rpm, 2 x 73GB 15,000rpm and 3 x 146GB 10,000rpm drives.

Trying to move one pair of the 73GB to the SQL since they were purchased with the intent of storing the SQL log files only and being kept very empty for the best access speeds.


With regards to tuning the SBS box, I don't think that's the issue with the SQL application tbh. There appears to be some fundamental flaw in the SOP program working in regards to Server 2003 SBS. Whether it's because the SQL edition was Workgroup or because it just didn't have enough resources is uncertain. The program certainly was slow under a simulated load (thanks to Orthos) but the duplication issues were impossible to replicate outside a SBS server.

[aidanjt]

Isn't all this a bit of over-kill for an 8GB database? Dual-Quad Core Xeons, 8GB RAM, 15k SAS disks, dual hot swappable PSUs.. It's a bit like shooting a fish in a barrel with a 200 Megaton thermonuclear warhead.

[aidanjt]

20 user SBS setup, it's currently the only server in the office. It's an ML 370 Proliant configured with 2 x Dual Core Xeon running at 1.86GHz each, 4GB of RAM (the max on SBS I'm told), HDD are 2 x 73GB 15,000rpm, 2 x 73GB 15,000rpm and 3 x 146GB 10,000rpm drives.

Trying to move one pair of the 73GB to the SQL since they were purchased with the intent of storing the SQL log files only and being kept very empty for the best access speeds.


With regards to tuning the SBS box, I don't think that's the issue with the SQL application tbh. There appears to be some fundamental flaw in the SOP program working in regards to Server 2003 SBS. Whether it's because the SQL edition was Workgroup or because it just didn't have enough resources is uncertain. The program certainly was slow under a simulated load (thanks to Orthos) but the duplication issues were impossible to replicate outside a SBS server.

This sounds more like realyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy bad software (or an amalgamation of bad software compounding the problem), rather than hardware bottlenecking the system.

[Moby-Dick]

Isn't all this a bit of over-kill for an 8GB database? Dual-Quad Core Xeons, 8GB RAM, 15k SAS disks, dual hot swappable PSUs.. It's a bit like shooting a fish in a barrel with a 200 Megaton thermonuclear warhead.

not nessesarily - it depends on the application its running to be honest

sounds like the SBS box was reasonably specced for SBS . Separating off your app server may be the best bet for now.

[Lucio]

Isn't all this a bit of over-kill for an 8GB database? Dual-Quad Core Xeons, 8GB RAM, 15k SAS disks, dual hot swappable PSUs.. It's a bit like shooting a fish in a barrel with a 200 Megaton thermonuclear warhead.

Would love to think so, thus far though this application has been a complete waste of time & resources. Given that on trying it on the SBS server it consumed 2GB of RAM and a 2GB swap file, I'm hesitant to try anything less than 4GB on a stand-alone server and would likely get a 2x2GB kit to leave room for upgrading.


Still, thanks for the advice, I'm gonna ignore the software's company recomended spec (3.2Ghz single core Xeon with 3GB RAM and RAID 5 146GB SCSI discs) in favour of a beefier HP model.

[Jay]

I would also recommend HP the DL380 or DL320s are some of the best servers I have ever used. I have had a few of them in different places of work I even have a DL380G1 running in my home network., I love them and they will never let you down.