Need a low cost server... suggestions

[[GSV]Trig]

Looking for 12Gb RAM.
CPU's not hugely important.
Drive wise it needs two arrays, mirrored for OS and then another array for SQL, preferably on an actual card not chipset pretend RAID..

Will be running SBS2008 Standard x64 and SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition..

[dave87]

Dell Poweredge?

Does it need to be rack mounted or in tower form?

[[GSV]Trig]

Tower really at the budget end really, rack would be nice but would rather spend on spec rather than rackmountability, is that even a word....

[dave87]

Poweredge 410 seems to do what you want, though they are charging big bucks to upgrade to 12gb ram & sufficient hard drives for what you mention.

What's the budget?

[[GSV]Trig]

No set cost but dont want it to spiral out of control..

[kingpotnoodle]

Poweredge 410 seems to do what you want, though they are charging big bucks to upgrade to 12gb ram & sufficient hard drives for what you mention.

What's the budget?

Good units though, bought a couple of the rack versions for the office recently and they are well designed and expandable kit.

[[GSV]Trig]

Specced up a 410, just over 2k + vat

[mycarsavw]

...is that good or bad?

[[GSV]Trig]

Its a pretty good box, tweaking it a bit and got it to about £1800 now..

[mycarsavw]

If you have a Dell account (possibly if you don't too) ring up, tell them what you want and then tell them you really don't want to pay that much.

He whined about how his finance manager was two floors away etc, etc but I said I have no problems waiting while he went to check. I managed to get free delivery (-£20) and a round price (£500 all in rather than £536.xx).

Haggle

[[GSV]Trig]

Also looking at the HP ML350 G6, leaning more towards the HP at the mo as got an account with the supplier..

[moose82]

Back to the task at hand...

I see [GSV]Trig has been looking at HP servers. HP introduced a server model just below the ML350 G6 which seems to shave a bit of money off.

The ML330 G6 (LINK to HP quickspecs)

It seems to fit the requirement pretty well.

Having done a quick search around I've come up with the following:

1x 517607-035 (ML330 G6, Xeon E5504 Quad Core 2.00GHz, 1x2GB UDIMM, SmartArray P410 (Zero memory) 2x 250GB SATA Hotplug, DVDRW, twin Gbit NIC's, 3year warranty (1st yr onsite,2+3 Parts only) )

5x 500670-B21 HP 2GB DDR3 1333MHz ECC Memory Unbuffered CL9 (takes you up to 12GB)

2x 458928-B21 HP 500gb Pluggable 7.2k Rpm Lff Sata Midline Hard Drive

Should come to about £1400 exvat

Upgrades I'd look to take with that are, Redundant PSU's, some cache for the RAID controller (will improve the read/write performance as well as enable RAID 5) perhaps the warranty uplift to 3yr NBD if I didn't think I was capable of stripping it down to replace something myself.

Of course if money is no object crack on with the ML350 G6, 2x72GB 15K SAS (OS), ??x146GB 15K SAS (DATA) P410 with 512MB BBWC, rPSU, rFANS, etc but that is going to easily close on £3k+

What's it going to be used for? How many transactions per minute is it going to be handling? Failing that, the number of concurrent users accessing the database? How "BIG" is the database itself and how much is it likely to grow in the next 3/5 years? Sorry for the 20 questions but there is quite a bit to making sure the server is specified to the correct level for the job...

Also another question, why are you using SBS std and SQL std? Are these licenses already purchased? If not I'd buy SBS Premium which is SBS std with SQL std for SB.

Anyway there's my £0.02 Hope it helps!

Best Regards,

Moose82

[dave87]

Moose - that is exactly the type of post we need - keep it up

[moose82]

Twas a pleasure Dave. I put together solutions based on HP servers on a daily basis for my job.

I live and breathe this stuff so happy to help out where and when I can.

[alsenior]

right lets get this tread back on the rails

have you considered lenovo. the support is done by ibm global services and is atleast as good as dell/hp. you have to ring them for the price but they are competative

ThinkServer 3822-41G
(SOJ41UK)
Configuration #218201017552377099*
General
Form Factor: 5U Tower

Processor
Total Available: 2
Included: 1 x Intel® Xeon® E5520 processor (2.26 GHz, 8MB L3 Cache, 80W, DDR3-1066)

Memory
RAM Slots Total: 16
RAM Slots Used: 2 x 2 GB DDR3 1333MHz 1Rx4 RDIMM

RAID
RAID Options: 0,1,1E,5,6,10,50,60

Hard Drives
Type: 2.5'' Hot-Swap SAS
Total Bays: 8
Bays Used: 0

Other
Management: IMM Premium
Optical Drives: DVD RW
Ethernet: Dual Gigabit Ethernet (Integrated)
Diagnostics: Easy LED
Power Supply: 2 x 920W Redundant Capable
Warranty: 3/3 year

ThinkServer 3822-41G
(SOJ41UK)
Additional Selected Options:

Description Part Number Qty


Processor:
Intel® Xeon® E5520 processor (2.26 GHz, 8MB L3 Cache, 80W, DDR3-1066) 67Y0011 1

Memory:
2 GB DDR3 1333MHz 1Rx4 RDIMM 67Y0015 4

RAID:
IBM® ServeRAID-MR10i Battery (Li-ion Battery) 44E8826 1
RAID Type: 6

Hard Drives:
146 GB 10000 2.5'' HS SAS 67Y0116 6

Product Support Services:
Onsite Service, 9x5 4 hour response, 3yr, TD-3yr 40Y9091 1

Microsoft Windows Server Operating System:
Microsoft Windows Server® 2008 R2 Standard 84978KE 1


*3rd Party Option that is fully qualified for ThinkServer Systems and available in IBM distribution. IBM part number listed.

[[GSV]Trig]

Nice machines Al but the fact there 2.5" sas would kill the budget, looking at a touch shy of 3k for a server with 2008 standard and SQL on it atm..